Thinking Big

March 08, 2011

Growing up, my parents loved to watch old Sci Fi movies about the "future" from the 50s and 60s. We would talk about how funny it is that people always make predictions about the future that look oddly like the times that they're living in with some minor wardrobe tweaks. For me, my favorite Future movie has always been Back to The Future, and I can't help but laugh as we rapidly approach the date (2015 for those that haven't watched it 100 times) that Marty visits in the future and marvel at how off the creators were in their predictions, largely because they weren't taking the internet into account, and because they clearly assumed that everyone in the future would be so enamored with the 80s that fashion would stop there (something they might not have been totally wrong about). Another one of these gentle reminders is looking back at things that were recommended by doctors over the years that we mostly find appalling now. Cigarettes for pregnant women with frayed nerves? Of course! A little Cocaine in the coca-cola bottle? No problem!

I think that it's so important to look at these little blips in history to remind ourselves to think bigger than right now, to not be afraid of the inevitable change, and mostly to know that we don't necessarily want to live in a world that is same as it ever was. Surely the generation that feels something slipping away will always wax poetic for what once was, but the simple truth is that the subsequent generation will already be charging forward with its own innovations.

I bring this up, because I stumbled on a list of great quotes (below) about things that would never "make it" and yet...we are using that new fangled electricity and driving those "novel" cars, and all of this made me think of Bob Monroe. Bob has always been hailed as a pioneer, an explorer, and a visionary. In the second half of the 20th century, he was thinking big, bigger than most, and the world is a better place for those thoughts. That being said, we here at TMI want to continue to honor Bob's mark as an explorer and continue to push the limits on what this life is all about. We want to be ahead of the consciousness curve, to be imagining a future that does look different from the one we're in now, and to be mostly acknowledging that old adage that the only constant is change. What do you think about this? How do you incorporate this philosophy into your own life?

Here's a collection of well-known and respected people and publications and the things they were wrong about. The entire list is worth taking a look at, for a good chuckle if nothing else!

When the Paris Exhibition closes electric light will close with it and no more be heard of.
- Erasmus Wilson (1878) Professor at Oxford University

Radio has no future.
- Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), British mathematician and physicist, ca. 1897.

The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty -- a fad.
- Advice from a president of the Michigan Savings Bank to Henry Ford's lawyer Horace Rackham. Rackham ignored the advice and invested $5000 in Ford stock, selling it later for $12.5 million.

That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical nature have been introduced.
- Scientific American, Jan. 2, 1909.

There is not the slightest indication that [nuclear energy] will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.
- Albert Einstein, 1932.

Sounds During Sleep May Help You Remember

March 04, 2011

When you take a nap or have a full night's sleep after learning something, you're actually better at it the morning after.

Sleep learning was what got Robert "Bob" Monroe started in his development of audio technologies that now guide hundreds of thousands of people into targeted states of consciousness and back. As sleep learning investigations continue, some very interesting results are being revealed. Here's one example reported in an interview with Jon Hamilton on National Public Radio—

You may not be able to learn a foreign language in your sleep, but you can strengthen certain memories, according to a study in the journal Science.

The study, led by researchers at Northwestern University, found that hearing certain sounds during a nap helped people remember information associated with those sounds once they woke up.

"They were a little bit better, a little more accurate," says John Rudoy, a graduate student at Northwestern and the study's lead author.

The study builds on decades of research suggesting that sleep is a time when the brain processes things it has learned, Rudoy says.

"When you take a nap or have a full night's sleep after learning something, you're actually better at it the morning after," he says.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120573613" target="_blank">See full source article here.

Skin Gun Heals Severe Burns in Just Days

March 03, 2011

Cmdr. Beverly Crusher, M.D.

As a Star Trek aficionado (not a Trekkie — there's a difference) I'd watch Beverly Crusher, or whichever doctor of the future, heal damaged flesh in seconds and think, "How wonderful is that going to be!" And here it is — check this out.

Currently when treating a burn victim, it can take weeks to generate an autologous skin graft when one is necessary to treat the affected areas. However, a team of researchers at the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine have developed a new treatment which can reduce this time to just a few days. The researchers harvest healthy skin from the patient and use a "skin gun" to spray the patient's own skin stem cells onto the wound. Following application of the autologous cells, the researchers used an artificial vascular system to further speed up the healing process by nourishing the stem cells.

~ MedGadget:Internet journal of emerging medical technologies

Warning: a couple of the images are intense.

What’s In a Line?

March 01, 2011

Someone draws a straight line. The next person's task is to trace that line as precisely as possible. Repeat 500 times. The lines get really messy surprisingly fast. I love this video because it indicates, to me, that we are not really designed to be able to imitate one another perfectly and that this wiggle room really is the seat of the human experience. Even when we're trying to be exactly like the person that came before us, we inherently affect the situation with our own unique abilities. Take a look and see if you agree with me: