This Man Claims Death Is Not the End: Brains May Remain Viable for Days, Research Suggests

But what is actually observed is quite the opposite. Instead of fading, people’s consciousness seems to become expanded, powerful, and vast after death.

Dr. Parnia argues that this observation suggests human consciousness is a mystery that cannot be fully explained by brain activity alone. The idea that consciousness is purely a product of the brain and ends when the brain dies is questionable and, in his view, incorrect. This has opened up a new and vast field for scientific research.

This Man strongly believes death is not the end of the human mind/consciousness. In his 30 years of research, he discovered that brains remain “salvageable for not only hours, but possibly days of time.”

Sam Parnia, an associate professor of medicine at NYU Langone, suggests that if we consider death as a process where the brain deteriorates, and if consciousness is simply created by the brain (a notion that remains debated), then logic would suggest that consciousness should also fade or diminish.

But what is actually observed is quite the opposite. Instead of fading, people’s consciousness seems to become expanded, powerful, and vast after death.

Dr. Parnia argues that this observation suggests human consciousness is a mystery that cannot be fully explained by brain activity alone. The idea that consciousness is purely a product of the brain and ends when the brain dies is questionable and, in his view, incorrect. This has opened up a new and vast field for scientific research.Dr. Parnia argues that what people commonly believe about death is fundamentally wrong. Contrary to the usual idea that death is final, he sees death as a reversible state rather than an absolute end.

Recent research has shown that the idea of dying as a sudden event is mostly a social convention that does not match scientific realities. Parnia calls this a new frontier of science that challenges one of life’s fundamental certainties. He expresses frustration that outdated and inaccurate theories about death continue to prevail despite the tools and research now available.From a scientific perspective, death is not a moment that happens all at once but a gradual process that can take many hours.

For example, brain cells and other cells in the body do not immediately die or decompose right after death, which challenges the common assumption that consciousness and life end instantly when the heart stops or the brain ceases to function.

Remarkably, he says brains can remain salvageable for not just hours but possibly days. For instance, he cites a case where brain cells retained full function 48 hours after being removed from a body, even though preservation was delayed.

He details his findings in his book “Lucid Dying,” where he presents evidence suggesting that reviving the dead is not as difficult as commonly thought and explores what happens to consciousness as it fades. (Source)

Dr. Parnia directs the Human Consciousness Project, which has conducted the largest study on people who recalled experiences near death, using AI tools to analyze their accounts and reveal new insights. He stresses that science has begun to investigate what used to be philosophical territory, what happens after death.

He discussed research, such as a study on pig brains by neuroscientist Dr. Nenad Sestan, in which brains were taken from pigs hours after death and connected to a special system with drugs to preserve them. (Source)

This restored some brain functions, showing that brain cells do not die immediately and suggesting it might be possible to restore life and brain activity after death in humans as well.

He says that this research could revolutionize resuscitation and save many lives, because currently, people are often declared dead too soon, especially in cases like heart attacks or accidents.

He clarifies that “functioning” and “consciousness” are different. In the pig study, the animals were given drugs that suppressed brain electrical signals linked to consciousness (similar to anesthesia). Without those drugs, it’s likely the pigs could have regained some form of conscious awareness, raising ethical concerns.

Regarding consciousness, Dr. Parnia explains that it is a deeply puzzling phenomenon. Although brain activity is linked to consciousness, there is no clear scientific explanation of how brain cells produce the subjective experience of thinking and awareness.

He discusses two main views: one sees consciousness as simply a product of brain activity, but there is no strong evidence for this.

The other, supported by some scientists including Nobel laureates, suggests consciousness is a distinct entity that interacts with the brain but is not generated by it, similar to how a computer accesses the internet but does not create it.

A 2022 study showed, for the first time, detailed brain waves from a dying person. It involved an 87-year-old man who had fallen, was admitted to the emergency room, and quickly went into cardiac arrest while hooked up to an EEG machine that tracked his brain activity as he died. Before this, most studies on brain activity near death had only recorded limited signals from certain brain areas, but this case provided a much more comprehensive recording. (Source)

Dr. Parnia explained that many people experience periods of surprising mental clarity and heightened consciousness near death. Although such cases were once thought anecdotal, studies suggest nearly 10 percent of people might experience these lucid moments, possibly involving about 800 million people worldwide.

The researchers focused their analysis on the 30 seconds before and after the man’s heart stopped. They observed changes in brain waves typically involved in higher cognitive processes, such as information processing, memory recall, concentration, conscious awareness, and different stages of dreaming.

This suggests that, even as the brain begins to shut down, it may actively engage in recalling memories or consciousness moments before death. These findings provide possible biological evidence for the common expression that people’s “life flashes before their eyes” in near-death experiences.

However, the researchers caution that the patient’s health was already compromised by brain trauma, seizures, and medications, which complicate interpreting the data and limit comparisons to healthy brain activity. Still, the observed “cross-coupling” patterns between alpha and gamma brain waves, linked to memory and alertness, support the idea that the brain might be replaying memories or conscious experiences at life’s end.

A 2023 separate study from the University of Michigan observed similar increases in gamma wave activity—associated with conscious thought—in two comatose patients after cardiac arrest when they were removed from ventilators.

This activity was localized in a part of the brain related to dreaming and altered states, implying that the dying brain can remain active in significant ways. The researchers described this as evidence for a “covert consciousness” that might allow life review experiences, as reported by survivors of near-death events. (Source)

Dr. Parnia explained that as the brain shuts down, typical inhibitory brain functions that regulate daily consciousness become reduced. This disinhibition may unlock access to deeper layers of awareness or reality not normally accessible during everyday life.

Dr. Parnia’s own large-scale AWARE-TO study across multiple hospitals interviewed people who survived cardiac arrest and had near-death memories.

About 15% reported vivid, unique experiences of consciousness during death, describing feelings of vastness and heightened awareness. These experiences often included perception of their surroundings from outside their bodies, recognizing detailed actions of medical staff, and a panoramic, all-encompassing sensing of information.

Crucially, people recalled reliving their entire life, but not as a simple flash of images. Instead, they re-experienced every interaction they had with others, feeling both their own emotions and those of others involved, especially in terms of ethical and moral dimensions. This life review prompts deep reflection on how they lived and their impact on others, offering a sense of higher purpose and moral significance that transcends cultural or religious backgrounds.

Dr. Parnia stresses that these near-death experiences are remarkably universal. It does not reflect religious practices, social status, or materialistic achievements, but rather how individuals behaved morally.

Advanced AI analysis has confirmed with high certainty that these recollections are distinct from dreams or hallucinations and uniquely tied to the dying process.

When asked if these experiences are supernatural, Dr. Parnia rejects it.

He argues that calling them supernatural just shows a lack of understanding. Instead, he says these experiences reflect natural processes in the brain during death, specifically, the brain shutting down in a way that removes normal inhibitory controls, allowing access to the full breadth of consciousness and memory that is usually inaccessible.

This sudden access to total consciousness and memory is responsible for the profound experiences people report.

He concludes that consciousness likely exists as a separate scientific entity interacting with but not produced wholly by the brain. Brain disorders may obscure consciousness, but consciousness itself is not destroyed with brain death. Instead, it can become more vivid and expansive at death, suggesting new territory for scientific exploration beyond the current understanding.

In 2011, a scientist named Sean Carroll wrote a blog for Scientific American. He said that the laws of physics show that life after death is not possible. He explained that our brains store information, like memories and thoughts, but when we die, our bodies break down into tiny pieces (atoms). According to science, there is no way for that information to survive after death. (Source)

A study published on Dr. Parnia’s studies in 2022 says, “So far, the researchers say, evidence suggests that neither physiological nor cognitive processes end with death and that although systematic studies have not been able to absolutely prove the reality or meaning of patients’ experiences and claims of awareness in relation to death, it has been impossible to disclaim them either.” (Source)

Dr. Parnia explains that as a physician and scientist, he is deeply interested in what happens when people die, both to be able to bring them back successfully and to restore their full consciousness and identity.

However, he finds the term “soul” problematic because it is vague and means different things to different people. He prefers to define the soul in terms of the Greek concept of the “psyche,” which includes all the elements that make a person who they are, their thoughts, emotions, consciousness, and sense of self.

Read also:

• This Man Says NASA Asked for Help After Astronauts Encountered Orbs Containing 125-Foot Winged Angelic Beings That Smiled at Them
• The Mexican Scientist Who Vanished Said We Live in Holographic Matrix & Shamans Can Manipulate It
• This Man’s Mind-Blowing but Controversial Theory Says Ancient Humans Heard Gods’ Voices and Treated Dead as Alive Because of a ‘Bicameral’ Mind

According to him, the soul or psyche can be understood scientifically as the conscious, thinking self.

His research and data from studies of cardiac arrest patients, those who have temporarily died and then been revived, suggest that consciousness or the soul does not immediately vanish or become annihilated after death, at least in the early stages.

He differentiates his scientific findings, which show the soul or psyche continuing beyond clinical death, from many religious or philosophical definitions of an immortal soul. His data does not, he clarifies, confirm those religious or metaphysical beliefs directly.

Dr. Parnia focuses on the objective results of his research, which align with the viewpoints of esteemed scientists like Nobel laureate Sir John Eccles and Professor Bahram Elahi.

These scientists propose that consciousness or the psyche is a separate, undiscovered entity distinct from the brain, likely a very subtle form of matter, neither immaterial nor magical, but something physically real, though different from anything currently understood.

He points out that if consciousness has some form of subtle material existence, this challenges traditional religious dualistic views where the soul is purely immaterial and wholly separate from the body. Such a perspective places consciousness fundamentally within the material world, though in a subtle form we have yet to fully comprehend.

His research increasingly supports the idea that consciousness, psyche, or soul may continue to exist independently of brain function after clinical death.

{ https://howandwhys.com/ }

15-09-2025 om 21:50 geschreven door peter  

Aliens, Tijd en De Esoterische Kennis van Andere Dimensies

Inleiding

Het onderwerp van buitenaards leven, de aard van tijd en het bestaan van andere dimensies heeft sinds mensenheugenis de menselijke verbeelding en het wetenschappelijke discours gefascineerd. Van de oude beschavingen die mythologische wezens associeerden met sterren tot de moderne zoektocht naar buitenaardse intelligentie, blijven deze thema’s centraal staan in zowel wetenschap als esoterische tradities. Deze dissertatie onderzoekt de interactie tussen het concept van buitenaardse wezens, de aard van tijd en de vermeende esoterische kennis over andere dimensies. Door een interdisciplinair perspectief te combineren, worden wetenschappelijke theorieën en esoterische overtuigingen naast elkaar geplaatst om een holistisch beeld te schetsen van deze complexe onderwerpen.

Vensters naar een parallelle universum?

1. Wetenschappelijke benadering van buitenaards leven

De wetenschappelijke benadering van buitenaards leven is een complex en multidisciplinair veld dat zich richt op het begrijpen van de mogelijkheid dat andere beschavingen in het universum bestaan. Een van de bekendste methoden binnen dit domein is de Drake Equation, ontwikkeld door de astronoom Frank Drake in 1961. Deze vergelijking biedt een probabilistische schatting van het aantal technologische beschavingen in onze Melkweg door verschillende parameters te modelleren, zoals de frequentie van stervorming, de kans dat een ster een planeet krijgt, en de waarschijnlijkheid dat leven zich ontwikkelt op zo’n planeet. Hoewel veel van deze parameters onzeker zijn en op schattingen gebaseerd, geeft de Drake Equation wel een inzicht in de mogelijke omvang van buitenaards intelligent leven en suggereert dat het niet ondenkbaar is dat dergelijke beschavingen bestaan.

Naast de astronomische benaderingen speelt de astrobiologie een centrale rol in het begrijpen van de voorwaarden waaronder leven kan ontstaan en voortbestaan. Deze discipline bestudeert de biologische en chemische aspecten van het leven in het universum. Recent onderzoek naar extremofielen op aarde – organismen die in uiterst extreme omstandigheden overleven, zoals in hete bronnen, diepe oceanen of in giftige omgevingen – heeft aangetoond dat leven niet per se gebonden is aan de traditionele aardse condities. Dit vergroot de plausibiliteit dat leven onder andere omstandigheden en op andere planeten of manen mogelijk is. Exoplaneten die zich bevinden in de zogenaamde 'bewoonbare zones' van sterrenstelsels, waar de temperatuur geschikt is voor vloeibaar water, worden als belangrijke kandidaten beschouwd voor het zoeken naar buitenaards leven.

Toch blijft het bewijs voor buitenaards intelligent leven tot nu toe uit. Er zijn enkele opmerkelijke anomalieën die de interesse van wetenschappers wekken, zoals de beroemde 'Wow!'-signalen die in de jaren 1970 werden opgevangen en die mogelijk een buitenaardse oorsprong zouden kunnen hebben. Daarnaast worden er regelmatig onverklaarbare waarnemingen gedaan van onidentificeerbare vliegende objecten (UFO's). Hoewel sommige onderzoekers deze waarnemingen beschouwen als mogelijke aanwijzingen voor buitenaardse activiteit, ontbreekt het nog aan solide, wetenschappelijk bewijs dat bewijst dat buitenaardse wezens contact met de aarde proberen te maken of hebben gemaakt. Het zoeken naar buitenaards leven blijft dus een boeiend veld dat zich zowel op astronomisch, biologisch als technologische niveaus ontwikkelt, met veel vragen nog onbeantwoord.

Welkom in de nieuwe realiteit.

sun ok/Shutterstock

2. Tijd als dimensie en de relativiteitstheorie

In de natuurkunde wordt tijd vaak beschouwd als een fundamentele dimensie, net zoals de drie ruimtelijke dimensies (lengte, breedte en hoogte). Tot voor kort werd tijd meestal als absoluut en universeel gezien: een universele klok die overal hetzelfde tikte, ongeacht waar je je bevond of hoe snel je bewoog. Echter, met de ontwikkeling van Albert Einsteins relativiteitstheer, vooral de algemene relativiteitstheorie, werd dit beeld radicaal veranderd. Einstein liet zien dat tijd en ruimte niet los van elkaar staan, maar dat ze samen één geheel vormen: de ruimtetijd. In deze theorie worden tijd en ruimte verweven in een vierdimensionaal continuüm, waarbij de aanwezigheid van massa en energie de structuur van de ruimte-tijd beïnvloedt.

Volgens de relativiteitstheorie wordt de manier waarop tijd verloopt, afhankelijk van de positie en beweging van de waarnemer. Een belangrijk concept hierbij is de tijdsdilatatie: het verschijnsel dat tijd voor een waarnemer die zich snel beweegt of zich in een sterk vervormde ruimte bevindt, langzamer verloopt ten opzichte van een stilstaande waarnemer. Dit is experimenteel aangetoond door bijvoorbeeld atoomklokken die op grote hoogten of tijdens snelheden in ruimteschepen verschillen in de gemeten tijdsverloop laten zien. Hoe sneller een object beweegt of hoe sterker de zwaartekracht, hoe meer de tijd wordt uitgerekt of vertraagd. Dit betekent dat tijd niet absoluut is, zoals vroeger werd gedacht, maar relatief en afhankelijk van de situatie van de waarnemer.

Deze inzichten openen de deur naar fascinerende theoretische mogelijkheden, zoals tijdreizen. Hoewel tijdreizen in de praktijk nog buiten bereik ligt en veel wetenschappelijke en technische obstakels kent, blijven de theoretische fundamenten interessant. Sommige wetenschappers speculeren dat het misschien ooit mogelijk zou kunnen zijn om door de tijd te reizen door gebruik te maken van exotische toestanden van de ruimte-tijd, zoals wormgaten of tegenspoedige zwarte gaten. Echter, deze concepten blijven voorlopig binnen de theoretische kaders en worden niet als haalbaar beschouwd binnen de huidige technologie.

Naast de relativiteitstheorie verkent de moderne kwantumfysica en theorieën zoals de snaartheorie en M-theorie de diepere structuur van het universum. Deze theorieën suggereren dat ons universum mogelijk meer dan vier dimensies bevat: naast de drie ruimtelijke en één tijdsdimensie, zouden er nog meerdere, verborgen dimensies kunnen bestaan. Sommige modellen stellen dat deze extra dimensies klein en opgesloten zijn, waardoor ze niet direct waarneembaar zijn. Andere theorieën beschrijven een veel complexere structuur waarin verschillende tijdlagen en dimensies kunnen bestaan, die mogelijk invloed op ons universum uitoefenen. Dit roept vragen op over de aard van de realiteit en de mogelijkheid om interactie te hebben met deze andere werelden of dimensies. Het onderzoek hiernaar is nog in volle gang en vormt een van de meest intrigerende en complexe gebieden binnen de moderne natuurkunde.

3. Esoterische kennis en andere dimensies

Naast de wetenschappelijke benaderingen die onze wereld en het universum proberen te verklaren, bestaan er oude en moderne esoterische tradities en kennisystemen die de realiteit op een heel andere manier benaderen. Deze systemen gaan uit van het bestaan van meerdere dimensies en werelden, die niet direct waarneembaar zijn met onze zintuigen, maar wel via innerlijke ervaringen, meditatie, trance of channeling toegankelijk kunnen worden. In veel spirituele en mystieke stromingen wordt aangenomen dat onze bekende fysieke wereld slechts één aspect is van een veel complexere multiversum, waarin hogere of andere dimensies bestaan die ons vaak onbekend blijven.

Al eeuwenlang spreken oude beschavingen zoals de Egyptenaren, Hindoes en Kelten over 'andere werelden', 'hemelen' of 'verschillende rijken' waar geascendeerde meesters, goden, geesten en voorouders resideerden. Deze werelden worden vaak beschreven als spirituele gebieden die via meditatie, rituelen of trance bereikt kunnen worden. In de Egyptische mythologie bijvoorbeeld, werden de onderwereld en de hemel beschouwd als verschillende gebieden met hun eigen wezens en wetten. De Hindoeïstische traditie spreekt over de vele lokas of werelden, die verbonden zijn met karma en reïncarnatie. De Kelten hadden hun verhalen over de 'Otherworld' – een magische wereld die parallel liep aan onze realiteit, en die toegankelijk was voor sjamanen en helden.

In de moderne esoterische en channeling-kringen wordt vaak gesproken over 'multi-dimensionale realiteiten'. Deze ideeën worden ondersteund door technieken zoals meditatie, trance en lucid dreaming, waarmee men toegang zou kunnen krijgen tot informatie uit hogere of niet-fysieke dimensies. Mensen die zichzelf of anderen channelen, beweren boodschappen en kennis te ontvangen van entiteiten uit deze hogere werelden, zoals gidsen, beschermengel of buitenaardse wezens. Deze kennis wordt vaak gebruikt voor spirituele groei, genezing of het verkrijgen van inzichten die niet via de reguliere zintuigen kunnen worden verkregen.

In het kader van buitenaards leven en ufologie wordt ook wel gesproken over 'interdimensionale wezens'. Dit zijn wezens die niet vastzitten aan onze fysieke dimensie en zich mogelijk kunnen verplaatsen via niet-fysieke routes of portals tussen verschillende realiteiten. Sommige theorieën suggereren dat deze wezens al eeuwenlang onze wereld bezoeken en dat ontmoetingen met hen vaak plaatsvinden op het grensvlak van fysieke en niet-fysieke werelden. Ze zouden zich kunnen manifesteren in trance, dromen of als schimmerelementen, waardoor ze moeilijk te detecteren zijn met reguliere technologie.

Deze ideeën over meerdere dimensies en interdimensionale wezens vormen een fascinerende aanvulling op de wetenschappelijke kennis, maar blijven voor velen een mysterie. Ze bieden een raamwerk waarin de grenzen van onze fysieke realiteit kunnen worden uitgedaagd en uitgebreid, en waarin de mogelijkheid bestaat dat onze wereld verbonden is met een veel groter, complexer geheel dat nog grotendeels onontdekt en onbegrepen is.

Starseeds beweren dat ze een buitenaardse bewustzijn zijn dat op aarde woont.

Ross Collier/Alamy Stock Foto

4. De interactie tussen wetenschap en esoterie

De interactie tussen wetenschap en esoterie is de laatste jaren steeds zichtbaarder geworden, ondanks dat deze twee disciplines traditioneel als tegenpolen worden beschouwd. Wetenschap richt zich op het objectief onderzoeken van de werkelijkheid door middel van waarneming, experimenten en bewijs, terwijl esoterie zich vooral bezighoudt met innerlijke ervaring, spirituele inzichten en het verkennen van niet-fysieke werelden. Toch ontstaan er steeds meer kruispunten waar deze werelden elkaar ontmoeten en beïnvloeden.

Een van de meest interessante gebieden waar deze interactie zichtbaar wordt, is de recente ontwikkeling van theorieën over het universum. Zo resoneren de ideeën over holografische universa en multiversa sterk met esoterische opvattingen over meerdere werelden en dimensies die parallel aan onze eigen bestaan. Wetenschappers zoals Leonard Susskind en Gerard 't Hooft hebben hypotheses ontwikkeld waarin ons waarneembare universum wordt beschouwd als een soort hologram, een projectie van informatie die in een hogere dimensie wordt opgeslagen. Dit sluit aan bij esoterische tradities die spreken over meerdere niveaus van werkelijkheid en hogere dimensies die niet direct waarneembaar zijn, maar wel invloed uitoefenen op ons bestaan.

Daarnaast bieden theorieën over hogere dimensies, zoals die uit de snaartheorie, een wetenschappelijk kader dat mogelijk de oude esoterische overtuigingen over niet-fysieke werelden kan onderbouwen. In deze theorieën worden het heelal en de werkelijkheid beschreven als bestaande in meer dan de gebruikelijke drie ruimtelijke dimensies, wat ruimte laat voor het bestaan van andere, onzichtbare werelden die via hogere dimensies toegankelijk zouden kunnen zijn.

Ook in de kwantumfysica zien we raakvlakken met esoterie. Verschijnselen zoals entanglement, waarbij deeltjes op afstand met elkaar verbonden blijven, worden door sommige wetenschappers geïnterpreteerd als aanwijzingen voor een onderliggende verbondenheid die niet afhankelijk is van ruimte en tijd. Dit concept lijkt sterk op de esoterische ideeën over universele eenheid en de verbondenheid van alles in het universum. Sommige filosofen en onderzoekers zien hierin een mogelijkheid om via bewustzijn en hogere kennis toegang te krijgen tot deze verborgen aspecten van de werkelijkheid.

Tegelijkertijd roept deze kruisbestuiving ook vragen op. Bijvoorbeeld over de grenzen van de wetenschappelijke methode, die primair gebaseerd is op empirisch bewijs en reproduceerbaarheid. Esoterische tradities benadrukken juist dat niet alle kennis via objectieve waarneming kan worden verkregen; innerlijke ervaring, meditatie en spirituele ontwikkeling worden als waardevolle manieren gezien om hogere werelden en kennis te bereiken. Dit leidt tot een discussie over de rol van subjectieve ervaring en intuïtie in het begrijpen van de werkelijkheid. De samenwerking tussen wetenschap en esoterie opent dus nieuwe perspectieven, maar roept ook vragen op over de aard van kennis en de methoden die we gebruiken om de diepere lagen van het universum te doorgronden.

UAP: Interdimensionale Hypothese

5. Conclusie: Een geïntegreerde visie op buitenaardsheid, tijd en dimensies

De verkenning van buitenaards leven, de aard van tijd en de esoterische kennis over andere dimensies toont aan dat deze onderwerpen diep met elkaar verbonden zijn, zowel in wetenschappelijke theorieën als in spirituele tradities. Wetenschap biedt ons een rationeel kader om de fysieke wereld te begrijpen en te zoeken naar bewijzen voor buitenaards bestaan en hogere dimensies. Esoterie, daarentegen, nodigt uit tot een innerlijke reis en het ontwikkelen van bewustzijns- en waarnemingsvermogen om toegang te krijgen tot niet-fysieke realiteiten.

Deze twee benaderingen hoeven niet per se conflictueus te zijn; ze kunnen elkaar juist verrijken. Wetenschappelijke ontdekkingen over de structuur van het universum en de eigenschappen van tijd kunnen worden geïnterpreteerd binnen een groter metafysisch raamwerk dat de mogelijkheid van andere dimensies en buitenaardse wezens ondersteunt. Tegelijkertijd kunnen esoterische inzichten en ervaringen wetenschappelijke nieuwsgierigheid stimuleren door nieuwe vragen te genereren over de aard van werkelijkheid en bewustzijn.

Het integreren van deze perspectieven vraagt om een open houding en een interdisciplinair discours waarin wetenschap en spiritualiteit elkaar kunnen ontmoeten. Zo ontstaat een completer beeld van de werkelijkheid, waarin niet alleen de materiële wereld wordt erkend, maar ook de verborgen dimensies en de hogere kennis die mogelijk liggen in het domein van het onzichtbare en het onbewuste.

Tot slot benadrukt deze verkenning dat de zoektocht naar buitenaards leven en hogere dimensies niet alleen een wetenschappelijke of esoterische onderneming is, maar ook een innerlijke reis naar de grenzen van ons begrip en bewustzijn. Het is een uitnodiging om de mysterieuze aard van het universum te blijven onderzoeken, zowel met de ratio als met het hart, en open te staan voor de vele verborgen werelden die mogelijk naast onze eigen bestaan.

Door deze integratie kunnen we niet alleen onze kennis uitbreiden, maar ook onze spirituele en existentiële vragen verdiepen, en wellicht dichterbij komen bij het begrijpen van onze plaats in een veelvoudig en wonderlijk universum.

{ PETER2011 }

11-09-2025 om 22:06 geschreven door peter  

Scientific objectivity is a myth — here's why

People are at the heart of the scientific enterprise.  

(Image credit: Matteo Farinella, CC BY-NC)

Even if you don't recall many facts from high school biology, you likely remember the cells required for making babies: egg and sperm. Maybe you can picture a swarm of sperm cells battling each other in a race to be the first to penetrate the egg.

For decades, scientific literature described human conception this way, with the cells mirroring the perceived roles of women and men in society. The egg was thought to be passive while the sperm was active.

Over time, scientists realized that sperm are too weak to penetrate the egg and that the union is more mutual, with the two cells working together. It's no coincidence that these findings were made in the same era when new cultural ideas of more egalitarian gender roles were taking hold.

Scientist Ludwik Fleck is credited with first describing science as a cultural practice in the 1930s. Since then, understanding has continued to build that scientific knowledge is always consistent with the cultural norms of its time.

Despite these insights, across political differences, people strive for and continue to demand scientific objectivity: the idea that science should be unbiased, rational and separable from cultural values and beliefs.

When I entered my Ph.D. program in neuroscience in 2001, I felt the same way. But reading a book by biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling called "Sexing the Body" set me down a different path. It systematically debunked the idea of scientific objectivity, showing how cultural ideas about sex, gender and sexuality were inseparable from the scientific findings. By the time I earned my Ph.D., I began to look more holistically at my research, integrating the social, historical and political context.

From the questions scientists begin with, to the beliefs of the people who conduct the research, to choices in research design, to interpretation of the final results, cultural ideas constantly inform "the science." What if an unbiased science is impossible?

Emergence of idea of scientific objectivity

Science grew to be synonymous with objectivity in the Western university system only over the past few hundred years.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, some Europeans gained traction in challenging the religiously ordained royal order. Consolidation of the university system led to shifts from trust in religious leaders interpreting the word of "god," to trust in "man" making one's own rational decisions, to trust in scientists interpreting "nature." The university system became an important site for legitimizing claims through theories and studies.

Previously, people created knowledge about their world, but there were not strict boundaries between what are now called the humanities, such as history, English and philosophy, and the sciences, including biology, chemistry and physics. Over time, as questions arose about how to trust political decisions, people split the disciplines into categories: subjective versus objective. The splitting came with the creation of other binary oppositions, including the closely related emotionality/rationality divide. These categories were not simply seen as opposite, but in a hierarchy with objectivity and rationality as superior.

A closer look shows that these binary systems are arbitrary and self-reinforcing.

Science is a human endeavor

The sciences are fields of study conducted by humans. These people, called scientists, are part of cultural systems just like everyone else. We scientists are part of families and have political viewpoints. We watch the same movies and TV shows and listen to the same music as nonscientists. We read the same newspapers, cheer for the same sports teams and enjoy the same hobbies as others.

All of these obviously "cultural" parts of our lives are going to affect how scientists approach our jobs and what we consider "common sense" that does not get questioned when we do our experiments.

Beyond individual scientists, the kinds of studies that get conducted are based on what questions are deemed relevant or not by dominant societal norms.

For example, in my Ph.D. work in neuroscience, I saw how different assumptions about hierarchy could influence specific experiments and even the entire field. Neuroscience focuses on what is called the central nervous system. The name itself describes a hierarchical model, with one part of the body "in charge" of the rest. Even within the central nervous system, there was a conceptual hierarchy with the brain controlling the spinal cord.

My research looked more at what happened peripherally in muscles, but the predominant model had the brain at the top. The taken-for-granted idea that a system needs a boss mirrors cultural assumptions. But I realized we could have analyzed the system differently and asked different questions. Instead of the brain being at the top, a different model could focus on how the entire system communicates and works together at coordination.

Every experiment also has assumptions baked in — things that are taken for granted, including definitions. Scientific experiments can become self-fulfilling prophecies.

For example, billions of dollars have been spent on trying to delineate sex differences. However, the definition of male and female is almost never stated in these research papers. At the same time, evidence mounts that these binary categories are a modern invention not based on clear physical differences.

Related: 

• Is there really a difference between male and female brains? Emerging science is revealing the answer.

But the categories are tested so many times that eventually some differences are discovered without putting these results into a statistical model together. Oftentimes, so-called negative findings that don't identify a significant difference are not even reported. Sometimes, meta-analyses based on multiple studies that investigated the same question reveal these statistical errors, as in the search for sex-related brain differences. Similar patterns of slippery definitions that end up reinforcing taken-for-granted assumptions happen with race, sexuality and other socially created categories of difference.

Finally, the end results of experiments can be interpreted in many different ways, adding another point where cultural values are injected into the final scientific conclusions.

Settling on science when there's no objectivity

Vaccines. Abortion. Climate change. Sex categories. Science is at the center of most of today's hottest political debates. While there is much disagreement, the desire to separate politics and science seems to be shared. On both sides of the political divide, there are accusations that the other side's scientists cannot be trusted because of political bias.

Consider the recent controversy over the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's vaccine advisory panel. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, saying they were biased, while some Democratic lawmakers argued back that his move put in place those who would be biased in pushing his vaccine-skeptical agenda.

If removing all bias is impossible, then, how do people create knowledge that can be trusted?

The understanding that all knowledge is created through cultural processes does allow for two or more differing truths to coexist. You see this reality in action around many of today's most controversial subjects. However, this does not mean you must believe all truths equally — that's called total cultural relativism. This perspective ignores the need for people to come to decisions together about truth and reality.

Instead, critical scholars offer democratic processes for people to determine which values are important and for what purposes knowledge should be developed. For example, some of my work has focused on expanding a 1970s Dutch model of the science shop, where community groups come to university settings to share their concerns and needs to help determine research agendas. Other researchers have documented other collaborative practices between scientists and marginalized communities or policy changes, including processes for more interdisciplinary or democratic input, or both.

I argue a more accurate view of science is that pure objectivity is impossible. Once you leave the myth of objectivity behind, though, the way forward is not simple. Instead of a belief in an all-knowing science, we are faced with the reality that humans are responsible for what is researched, how it is researched and what conclusions are drawn from such research.

With this knowledge, we have the opportunity to intentionally set societal values that inform scientific investigations. This requires decisions about how people come to agreements about these values. These agreements need not always be universal but instead can be dependent on the context of who and what a given study might affect. While not simple, using these insights, gained over decades of studying science from both within and outside, may force a more honest conversation between political positions.

• This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/defense/ }

05-09-2025 om 21:49 geschreven door peter  

05-09-2025 om 20:53 geschreven door peter  

When Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Psychology: Exploring the Timeless Pursuit of Flow and Human Flourishing

Throughout human history, the quest for understanding what constitutes a fulfilling and meaningful life has been a central concern across cultures and civilizations. While modern psychology, particularly through the pioneering work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, has introduced the concept of “flow” as a state of complete absorption and optimal performance, this phenomenon is far from a recent discovery. In fact, ancient philosophers, spiritual teachers, and cultural traditions have long recognized and cultivated states akin to flow, often describing them with different terminology but with remarkably similar insights. By examining these ancient perspectives alongside contemporary scientific understanding, we can uncover enduring truths about human nature and explore how reconciling these traditions can enhance our pursuit of well-being, mastery, and purpose in the modern world.

The Concept of Flow in Modern Psychology

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s groundbreaking research in the late 20th century introduced a revolutionary understanding of human consciousness and well-being through the concept of flow. Flow refers to a mental state where individuals are deeply immersed and fully engaged in an activity, experiencing a sense of effortless concentration and a loss of self-awareness. This state is often described as being “in the zone,” where external distractions fade away, and the individual’s focus becomes entirely absorbed in the task at hand.

According to Csikszentmihalyi, people typically experience flow when they undertake activities that challenge their skills just enough to keep them engaged without causing anxiety or boredom. For instance, a musician might enter a flow state when improvising during a performance, or an athlete might experience it during an intense game. During flow, perceptions of time often distort—hours can feel like minutes—and individuals often report feeling a high level of satisfaction and fulfillment. Interestingly, this state is linked to peak performance, heightened creativity, and increased productivity in various domains, including arts, sports, work, and even daily routines.

Modern psychological research has expanded on Csikszentmihalyi’s original work, identifying specific conditions that foster flow. These conditions include having clear goals that provide direction and purpose, receiving immediate feedback that helps individuals adjust their actions, and maintaining a balance between the challenge of the activity and their own skill level. When these elements align, individuals are more likely to experience sustained engagement and intrinsic motivation—doing something because it is inherently rewarding rather than for external rewards like money or recognition.

The implications of understanding flow extend far beyond individual experiences. In education, incorporating activities that promote flow can enhance student engagement and learning outcomes. In the workplace, designing tasks that balance challenge and skill encourages employees to find their work more meaningful and satisfying, ultimately boosting productivity and innovation. Personal development strategies often aim to cultivate flow experiences as a way to improve overall life satisfaction and mental well-being.

Furthermore, flow has been linked to positive mental health outcomes, including reduced stress, increased happiness, and resilience. As modern society becomes increasingly fast-paced and distracted, understanding how to facilitate flow can help individuals find more fulfillment and balance in their everyday lives. Overall, the concept of flow remains a vital area of research within psychology, offering insights into how people can optimize their experiences and achieve a more meaningful and satisfying existence.

Ancient Wisdom and the Recognition of Optimal Experience

Long before the formalization of the concept of flow by Csikszentmihalyi in the 20th century, many cultures and spiritual traditions around the world recognized and described states of consciousness characterized by harmony, mastery, and transcendence. These states often resemble what modern psychology identifies as flow—a mental state where a person is fully immersed in an activity, experiencing effortless engagement, deep focus, and a sense of unity with their environment. These ancient traditions not only acknowledged such experiences but also provided guidance on how to attain them, emphasizing harmony with oneself, others, and the universe. By exploring these teachings, we gain insight into the enduring human pursuit of optimal experience and the universal nature of flow-like states across different cultures and eras.

1. Chinese Philosophy: Wu Wei

In Taoism, one of the most influential Chinese philosophical traditions, the concept of wu wei—literally translating as “non-action” or “effortless action”—serves as a foundational principle for achieving harmony with the natural world. Wu wei advocates for aligning oneself with the spontaneous flow of the Tao, which is considered the underlying principle of all existence. Rather than forcing outcomes or resisting circumstances, practitioners are encouraged to act in a manner that is effortless, spontaneous, and in accordance with nature’s rhythms. This approach fosters a sense of ease and grace in action, allowing individuals to operate with minimal resistance and maximum harmony. When a person successfully embodies wu wei, their actions often feel natural, seamless, and devoid of unnecessary struggle, leading to peak experiences where mastery and effortlessness coexist. In such moments, practitioners often describe a sense of unity with their surroundings, a profound understanding of the interconnectedness of all things, and feelings of transcendence—akin to the psychological state of flow. Taoist masters often exemplify this, engaging in activities such as painting, martial arts, or poetry with a fluidity that appears almost effortless, revealing an intrinsic link between ancient wisdom and modern concepts of optimal experience.

2. Greek Philosophy: Eudaimonia and Arete

The ancient Greeks, especially Aristotle, articulated ideas closely related to the modern concept of flow through their emphasis on eudaimonia and arete. Eudaimonia, often translated as “flourishing” or “living well,” refers to a life of virtue, purpose, and fulfillment. Aristotle believed that achieving eudaimonia required the cultivation of moral virtues, intellectual development, and the actualization of one’s potential. Central to this pursuit was engaging in activities that develop one’s character and mastery—whether in arts, sciences, or moral conduct. Such activities, when performed with excellence (arete), foster a deep sense of engagement and satisfaction that resembles the experience of flow. For Aristotle, the highest human good was found in the activity of rational contemplation and virtuous action, which involve complete absorption and a sense of harmony with one’s purpose. The Greek philosophical tradition thus recognized that mastery, moral virtue, and intellectual growth are pathways to profound fulfillment—a pursuit that aligns closely with the modern understanding of being fully immersed and engaged in meaningful activity.

3. Indian Spiritual Traditions: Samadhi and Moksha

In Indian spiritual philosophies, especially within Hinduism and Buddhism, states of deep meditative absorption—called samadhi—are considered the pinnacle of spiritual practice. Samadhi refers to a state of intense concentration and unity with the object of meditation, characterized by bliss, clarity, and transcendence. When practitioners achieve samadhi, they experience a complete dissolution of the ego and a profound sense of interconnectedness with all existence. These moments are often described as peak experiences, where duality and self-consciousness fade away, leaving only pure awareness. Similarly, the concept of moksha in Hinduism signifies liberation from the cycle of suffering and rebirth (samsara). Achieving moksha entails realizing one’s true nature and attaining self-realization through disciplined practice, devotion, or insight. These states involve focused effort, detachment from egoic desires, and an experience of unity with the divine or the universe—paralleling the psychological concept of flow, where full absorption and a loss of self-awareness lead to transcendence. Practitioners often describe these experiences as moments of bliss, clarity, and ultimate freedom, emphasizing the importance of discipline and inner harmony in reaching such states.

4. Additional Perspectives and Cross-Cultural Insights

Beyond these major traditions, many other cultures have recognized similar states of optimal experience. Indigenous spiritual practices, for example, often involve rituals, dances, or ceremonies designed to induce trance-like states of unity and mastery. Similarly, Sufi mystics seek fana—an annihilation of the self—through prayer, poetry, and dance, experiencing profound union with the divine. These teachings underscore a universal human tendency to seek states of harmony, mastery, and transcendence that elevate everyday consciousness into moments of peak experience.

The common thread across these diverse traditions is the understanding that achieving harmony within oneself and with the universe leads to states of profound fulfillment and transcendence. These states share remarkable similarities with modern psychological flow—marked by complete absorption, intrinsic motivation, and a sense of unity. By examining these ancient perspectives, we can appreciate that the pursuit of optimal experience is a timeless aspect of human life, rooted in spiritual, philosophical, and practical wisdom accumulated over centuries.

In conclusion, ancient cultures and spiritual traditions recognized and valued states of harmony, mastery, and transcendence that closely resemble the modern concept of flow. Whether through Taoist wu wei, Greek eudaimonia, Indian samadhi and moksha, or other cultural practices, these teachings continue to inspire and inform our understanding of how to achieve peak experiences and live fulfilling lives. Their enduring wisdom highlights that the quest for harmony with oneself, others, and the universe is a fundamental aspect of human nature—an ongoing journey toward the realization of our highest potential.

Universal Themes and Cross-Cultural Parallels

Despite the diverse terminology, cultural backgrounds, and philosophical frameworks, these ancient concepts share fundamental themes that underscore a universal human pursuit: the quest for optimal experience. Central to these ideas are notions such as effortless action, harmonious engagement with one's environment, mastery of skills, and transcendence beyond the ego or ordinary consciousness. These themes reveal that across different civilizations and epochs, humans have sought to understand and attain states of flow or harmony that lead to fulfillment, meaning, and a sense of unity with the world around them. Whether articulated through the Chinese concept of wu wei, the Indian idea of dhyana or meditation, or the Greek notions of eudaimonia, these principles emphasize that the drive for balance and transcendence is ingrained in the human condition.

Bridging Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science

Recent scientific developments, especially in neuroscience and psychology, have begun to shed light on the mechanisms underlying these timeless states. Advanced brain imaging techniques, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG), have identified specific neural patterns associated with flow and similar states of heightened consciousness. Notably, during flow experiences, there is a marked decrease in activity within the prefrontal cortex—the brain region involved in self-awareness, critical judgment, and the narrative of the ego. This reduction explains why individuals often experience a loss of self-consciousness and a sense of effortless immersion in their activity.

Furthermore, the neurochemical landscape during flow states involves the release of mood-enhancing and motivational chemicals such as dopamine, endorphins, and norepinephrine. These neurochemicals contribute to feelings of pleasure, focus, and a sense of mastery, reinforcing the behavior that led to the flow state. The interplay of these biological processes supports the subjective experience of being "in the zone," where effort seems to dissolve, and performance reaches its peak.

Interestingly, these modern scientific insights resonate strongly with ancient teachings. For example, the Chinese philosophy of wu wei emphasizes surrendering ego-driven control and harmonizing with natural laws, which parallels the observed decrease in self-referential brain activity during flow. Similarly, Indian meditative practices often involve focused attention and cultivating a state of inner stillness, aligning with neural patterns seen during flow—reduced cognitive chatter and increased present-moment awareness. These parallels underscore a profound cross-cultural understanding: that the pursuit of effortless engagement and harmony is a shared aspect of human spiritual and psychological development, now increasingly understood through the lens of science as well.

Gossip disk

(Adobe Stock / By ft2010)

Implications for Personal Development and Society

Understanding the profound intersection between ancient wisdom and modern psychology offers a wealth of insights that can significantly enhance human flourishing at both the individual and societal levels. By examining timeless principles rooted in history alongside contemporary scientific findings, we can develop more holistic strategies for personal growth and societal well-being. Here are some key implications, elaborated in detail:

• Cultivating Mindfulness and Presence

Many ancient traditions—such as Buddhism, Stoicism, and Taoism—place a strong emphasis on mindfulness, which involves being fully present in the current moment. This state of awareness allows individuals to engage deeply with their experiences, fostering a sense of flow—a mental state characterized by complete immersion and enjoyment in an activity. Modern psychology supports this, showing that mindfulness practices can reduce stress, improve focus, and enhance emotional regulation. Incorporating mindfulness into daily routines—through meditation, breathing exercises, or simple awareness practices—can help individuals develop greater capacity for deep engagement with their work, relationships, and personal pursuits. For example, taking a few minutes each day to focus on one’s breath or observe surroundings without judgment can cultivate a calm, attentive mind that is better equipped to handle life's challenges. Moreover, mindfulness enhances resilience and promotes a balanced perspective, contributing to long-term mental health and well-being.

• Designing Engaging Activities

An essential aspect of fostering flow is the structuring of activities that strike a balance between challenge and skill level. This principle echoes ancient philosophies which emphasized aligning effort with natural ability to promote harmony and mastery. In practical terms, this means designing tasks—whether in education, professional work, or leisure—that are neither too easy nor overly difficult. When individuals encounter appropriately challenging tasks that stretch their capabilities without overwhelming them, they are more likely to experience intrinsic motivation and a sense of achievement. For instance, educators can tailor assignments to match students’ skill levels, gradually increasing difficulty as competence develops. In workplaces, job roles can be designed to include clear goals and opportunities for skill development. Leisure activities—such as hobbies or sports—can be chosen or adapted to maintain engagement and promote mastery over time. This careful calibration of challenge and skill fosters sustained motivation, personal growth, and a sense of accomplishment.

• Encouraging Virtue and Purpose

The ancient pursuit of eudaimonia (meaningful living) and arete (virtue or excellence) underscores the importance of engaging in purpose-driven activities. When individuals find meaning and align their actions with personal values, they are more likely to experience flow, fulfillment, and resilience. Modern psychology confirms that purpose enhances motivation, well-being, and even physical health. Encouraging individuals to reflect on their core values and to pursue goals that serve a greater good—whether through community service, creative expression, or professional endeavors—can foster a sense of purpose. For example, someone working in healthcare may find deep satisfaction not only in the technical aspects of their job but also in the knowledge that they are contributing to the well-being of others. Societal institutions, such as educational systems and workplaces, can promote purpose by emphasizing ethical values, social responsibility, and personal development. Cultivating a culture that celebrates virtues like compassion, integrity, and perseverance can inspire individuals to live meaningful lives aligned with their highest ideals.

• Creating Supportive Environments

Societies that value mastery, harmony, and spiritual development provide fertile ground for individuals to attain states of optimal experience. These environments can include a variety of institutional and community practices designed to support growth and well-being. Educational systems that emphasize holistic development, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence can nurture students’ potential from a young age. Workplaces that promote autonomy, mastery, and purpose—often referred to as creating a “positive work environment”—can enhance employee engagement and satisfaction. Community practices, such as local clubs, spiritual groups, or volunteer organizations, foster social connection and shared growth. Policies that prioritize mental health, inclusivity, and lifelong learning further reinforce a society’s commitment to individual and collective flourishing. When societal values emphasize harmony, respect, and continual development, individuals are more likely to thrive and reach their full potential. This, in turn, creates a positive feedback loop where societal well-being and personal fulfillment reinforce each other.

• Conclusion

In summary, integrating ancient wisdom with modern psychological insights offers a comprehensive framework for fostering human flourishing. By cultivating mindfulness, designing engaging activities, encouraging virtue and purpose, and creating supportive environments, both individuals and societies can unlock their full potential. These principles emphasize the importance of harmony, deliberate effort, and meaningful engagement—timeless values that remain relevant across cultures and eras. Embracing these insights can lead to more fulfilled individuals and healthier, more resilient societies committed to growth, harmony, and well-being.

Challenges in Modern Life

Despite the many insights gained into human psychology and well-being, contemporary society faces numerous barriers that hinder individuals from experiencing the state of flow—those deep, immersive moments of focused engagement and intrinsic satisfaction. One of the most pervasive challenges is the omnipresence of constant connectivity through smartphones, social media, and digital devices. While these tools provide convenience and instant communication, they also lead to frequent interruptions and a fragmented attention span. The bombardment of notifications, messages, and information streams makes it difficult to sustain the sustained concentration required for entering and maintaining flow states.

In addition, the modern emphasis on multitasking—juggling multiple activities simultaneously—further undermines the quality of attention. Although multitasking may seem efficient, it often results in superficial engagement, reducing the likelihood of achieving the deep focus necessary for flow. Scientific studies suggest that the human brain is not well-designed for multitasking; instead, it thrives on focused effort and single-tasking, which foster mastery and intrinsic motivation.

Moreover, the culture of instant gratification prevalent in today's society can divert individuals away from activities that require patience, effort, and long-term commitment—key elements for experiencing flow. The commercialized nature of leisure activities, such as quick-fix entertainment and fleeting social media interactions, encourages a superficial sense of fulfillment that can diminish the value of sustained, meaningful pursuits. As a result, many people may find it increasingly difficult to engage deeply in activities like practicing a craft, learning a new skill, or engaging in creative work.

Recognizing these modern challenges, some thinkers and psychologists advocate for a conscious integration of ancient principles of harmony, effortlessness, and purpose into daily life. Practices such as mindfulness, deliberate unplugging from digital devices, and engaging in activities that align with one's core passions can help restore focus and facilitate flow. By consciously creating space for deep work and intrinsic motivation, individuals can counteract the distractions and superficial pursuits that dominate modern life, thereby enriching their overall well-being and sense of fulfillment.

Conclusion: A Timeless Pursuit

The exploration of ancient wisdom alongside modern psychology reveals that the pursuit of optimal experience, often called "flow," is a fundamental aspect of human nature that transcends different cultures and historical periods. These insights demonstrate that achieving fulfillment in life involves more than temporary pleasures; it requires aligning oneself with natural rhythms, cultivating skills, and engaging in activities that are meaningful, purposeful, and performed with full presence.

Throughout history, various philosophies and spiritual traditions have emphasized the importance of harmony and mastery. Concepts such as wu wei from Taoism, which advocates effortless action in accordance with the natural order; eudaimonia from Aristotle, representing human flourishing through virtuous living; and samadhi from Eastern meditation practices, denoting deep states of focused consciousness, all highlight the timeless nature of these ideas. By revisiting and integrating these ancient teachings, modern individuals and societies can develop more sustainable, fulfilling ways of living that resonate with our innate human tendencies.

Incorporating these principles into daily life offers practical guidance for navigating the complexities and distractions of contemporary society. They encourage us to seek balance, develop mastery in our pursuits, and find joy in the process itself rather than solely focusing on outcomes. By doing so, we honor a shared human heritage—an enduring collective wisdom—that continues to inspire and guide us in our ongoing quest for meaning, personal growth, and deep satisfaction. Ultimately, the pursuit of a meaningful, flow-filled life remains a timeless endeavor rooted in the universal truths of human nature.

References for Further Reading:

• Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper & Row.
• Lao Tzu. (6th century BCE). Tao Te Ching.
• Aristotle. (4th century BCE). Nicomachean Ethics.
• Patanjali. (2nd century BCE). Yoga Sutras.
• Sivananda, S. (1988). The Science of Pranayama. Divine Life Society.
• Nisbett, R. E. (2003). The Geography of Thought. Free Press.

Note: This essay synthesizes ancient philosophical concepts with modern psychological findings to provide a comprehensive understanding of human optimal experience. It emphasizes the universality of these ideas and their relevance in contemporary life.

{ PETER2011 }

22-08-2025 om 21:36 geschreven door peter  

We ademen dagelijks tot 68.000 microplastics in: 100 keer meer dan eerdere schattingen

 Jeannette Kras -Redacteur

{ https://scientias.nl/ }

08-08-2025 om 23:21 geschreven door peter  

Global climate pattern shows signs of shifting. What will happen in the US?

Doyle Rice   USA TODAY

Early signs of a possible La Niña fall and winter are emerging in some climate models, federal forecasters announced July 10.

La Niña is a part of a natural climate cycle officially known as El Niño – Southern Oscillation, called ENSO by scientists. The cycle swings between warmer and cooler seawater in a region along the equator in the tropical Pacific. La Niña is marked by cooler-than-average ocean water in the region.

It is one of the main drivers of weather in the United States, especially during the late fall, winter and early spring. It's the opposite of the more well-known El Niño, which occurs when Pacific Ocean water is at least 0.9 degree warmer than average for three months.

La Niña and El Niño typically have minimal impact on summer weather in the United States, other than some effects on hurricanes. Winter is the one season when they have the most impact.

A typical La Niña winter in the United States brings cold and snow to the Northwest and unusually dry conditions to most of the Southern states, according to the Climate Prediction Center. The Southeast and mid-Atlantic also tend to see higher-than-average temperatures during a La Niña winter. 

Meanwhile, New England and the Upper Midwest, including New York, tend to see lower-than-average temperatures, the Weather Channel said.

View |64 Photos

Lightning, tornadoes and wild storms: Incredible weather photos

More: 

• Will a hurricane impact your state in 2025? Odds get an update.

Map shows what a La Niña could mean for winter 2025-2026

The typical impacts of a La Niña winter in North America include a wetter, colder winter in parts of the northern United States and a drier, warmer winter in parts of the southern United States.

La Niña causes the jet stream to move northward and to weaken over the eastern Pacific. During La Niña winters, the South sees warmer and … Show more   

NOAA

What is La Niña?

La Niña is a natural climate pattern marked by cooler-than-average seawater in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean. When the water cools at least 0.9 degree Fahrenheit below average for three straight months, a La Niña is declared.

"While this may sound like a small change in temperature, it can cause significant changes in the weather patterns around the globe," AccuWeather meteorologist Brian Lada said.

Could the possible La Niña affect the hurricane season?

In general, La Niña conditions favor hurricane development in the Atlantic basin, which includes the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of America, formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico. This is because during La Niña, the strong storm-killing winds known as wind shear relax across the Atlantic basin, allowing hurricanes to more easily develop.

Hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State University, in a July 10 email to USA TODAY, explained that "while Caribbean shear has been quite strong in June and is likely to remain strong throughout most of July, the potential trend more towards cool neutral (or even weak La Niña) later in the season may result in lower shear in the Caribbean later in the season."

The lower the wind shear, the greater the chance for hurricane development in the Atlantic basin.

Typical influence of La Niña on Pacific and Atlantic seasonal hurricane activity.  

NOAA

But the status of ENSO is only part of the hurricane puzzle: Twenty years ago, in 2005, for instance, ENSO-neutral conditions also occurred in the Pacific ‒ and that year spawned the infamously destructive hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the National Weather Service said in an online report.

How likely is a La Niña winter?

Right now, it appears to be a toss-up.

While so-called "ENSO-neutral" conditions are most likely through the late summer, thereafter, chances of La Niña conditions increase into the fall and winter 2025-26, forecasters from the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) said July 10. In fact, one climate model used by the CPC – the North American Multi-Model Ensemble – "favors the onset of La Niña conditions during the Northern Hemisphere fall," the CPC said in its monthly update.

Japan's weather bureau also announced July 10 that there is a 40% chance of La Niña emerging in the fall.

Overall, the CPC said the chances for La Niña remain comparable to the likelihood of ENSO-neutral continuing.

What is ENSO-neutral?

ENSO-neutral means neither El Niño (warmer waters) nor La Niña (cooler waters) conditions are dominant in the Pacific. While El Niño and La Niña have expected impacts on global seasonal weather and climate, what about neutral?

"ENSO-neutral doesn’t mean we expect upcoming seasonal rain, snow, and temperature to be close to average," writes Emily Becker in the CPC's ENSO blog. "Rather, during neutral, we don’t have the same predictive information that El Niño and La Niña’s atmospheric changes provide, making upcoming patterns harder to predict very far in advance."

Contributing: Reuters

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12-07-2025 om 23:31 geschreven door peter  

Scientists discover microplastics in SEMEN and female reproductive fluid – and warn they could spark an infertility crisis

• READ MORE: Terrifying images reveal what microplastics can do to your body 

By XANTHA LEATHAM, EXECUTIVE SCIENCE EDITOR

From the depths of The Mariana Trench to the summit of Everest, microplastics can now be found almost everywhere on Earth.

Now, it turns out even our most intimate moments can't escape their blight.

Scientists have discovered microplastics are 'common' in both male and female reproductive fluids.

And they warned of the potential implications for reproduction, as egg and sperm quality could be impaired.

The team examined follicular fluid – found within the ovaries - from 29 women and the seminal fluid, found within semen, from 22 men.

Analysis revealed a range of commonly-used microplastics were present in more than half of the samples.

This included microplastics linked to non-stick coatings, polystyrene, plastic containers, wool, insulation and cushioning materials. 

Lead researcher Dr Emilio Gomez-Sanchez, from the University of Murcia, said: 'Previous studies had already shown that microplastics can be found in various human organs.

While microplastics are much smaller than this, measuring under 5mm in size, this image shows how plastic particles can break down in the environment (stock image)

Experts have found microplastic particles in both male and female reproductive fluids - and it could have an impact on egg and sperm quality (stock image)

'As a result, we weren't entirely surprised to find microplastics in fluids of the human reproductive system, but we were struck by how common they were – found in 69 per cent of the women and 55 per cent of the men we studied.'

Microplastics are defined as plastic particles under 5mm in size, and there is evidence that they pose a threat to environmental and public health.

While this research did not directly assess how microplastics affect fertility, their detection highlights the need to explore possible implications for human reproductive health, the researchers warned.

'What we know from animal studies is that in the tissues where microplastics accumulate, they can induce inflammation, free radical formation, DNA damage, cellular senescence, and endocrine disruptions,' Dr Gomez-Sanchez added.

'It's possible they could impair egg or sperm quality in humans, but we don't yet have enough evidence to confirm that.'

The scientists said the microplastics probably enter the body through ingestion, inhalation and contact with the skin.

From there they enter the bloodstream, which then distributes them throughout the body – including to the reproductive organs.

They plan to carry out further studies to explore the potential relationship between the presence of microplastics and egg and sperm quality.

Tiny bits of microplastic, seen here as the black dots, have also been previously found in semen samples as part of a Chinese trial

The findings, published in the journal Human Reproduction, were presented at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE).

Commenting on the study Dr Carlos Calhaz-Jorge, Immediate Past Chair of ESHRE, said: 'Environmental factors influencing reproduction are certainly a reality, although not easy to measure objectively.

'The authors of this study found microplastics in over two-thirds of follicular fluids and more than 50 per cent of semen fluids from the studied patients.

'Although the significance of these findings is not yet clear, they should be considered an additional argument in favour of avoiding the generalised use of plastics in our daily lives.'

Previous studies have detected microplastics in human breast milk, blood and even brain tissue.

And separate research has found high levels in everyday items such as tea bags, baby bottles and chopping boards.

Some scientists have urged caution when interpreting the findings of the new study. 

Dr Stephanie Wright, Associate Professor in Environmental Toxicology at Imperial College London, said: 'Without information on the sizes of the microplastic particles observed, it is challenging to interpret how meaningful this data is. 

Scientists from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona have previously warned that a single tea bag can release billions of dangerous microplastics into your body

'There is a high potential for samples to become contaminated with microplastic throughout the sampling, laboratory processing, and analysis procedures. 

'It is not a surprise that microplastics have been found – they are everywhere, even in the lab – but the data provided do not support that they are there as a result of human exposure as opposed to methodological artefact and must be interpreted with caution at this early stage.'

Fay Couceiro, Professor of Environmental Pollution and Head of the Microplastics Research Group at the University of Portsmouth, said: 'The study is very interesting and considering the global reduction in fertility rates, looking at possible causes is very topical and timely. 

'As the authors state, finding microplastics is not that surprising as we have found them in lots of other areas of our bodies. 

'Presence is also not the same as impact and the authors are clear that while they have found microplastics in the reproductive fluids of both men and women, we still don't know how they are affecting us.'

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/index.html }

03-07-2025 om 23:43 geschreven door peter  

Deze gevaren kunnen uit de smeltende Arctische permafrost herrijzen

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Er gebeuren merkwaardige dingen in het poolgebied
Er gebeuren in het hele poolgebied allerlei merkwaardige dingen waar je over moet weten, omdat ze misschien ook gevolgen hebben die jou kunnen treffen.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Bruisende meren en zombiebranden
Daarbij moet je denken aan enorme meren die bruisen van het methaan, ijsgronden die bezwijken onder het gewicht van steeds warmere temperaturen, en zogenaamde 'zombiebranden' die maandenlang ondergronds smeulen.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

De temperaturen stijgen snel
Hogere temperaturen in het poolgebied zijn niet zo'n verrassing voor wetenschappers. Dit deel van de wereld is vier keer zo snel warmer geworden dan het wereldgemiddelde, waardoor de bovenste laag van de Arctische permafrost verzwakt.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Smeltende permafrost is een groot probleem
Het smelten van de Arctische permafrost is een van de meest overziene aspecten van de huidige klimaatveranderingscrisis. En dan vooral op plaatsen als Alaska, Canada en Siberië, waar permafrostlagen lange tijd als een grote vriezer hebben gefungeerd, en grond en potentieel dodelijke organismen insloten.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Een duidelijke bedreiging
De voornaamste bedreiging wordt gevormd door het vrijkomen van steeds grotere hoeveelheden koolstofdioxide en methaangas in de atmosfeer.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Het vieze neefje van de ijskappen
Merritt Turetsky, directeur van het instituut dat onderzoek doet naar de pool- en berggebieden van de Universiteit van Colorado te Boulder, zegt over permafrost: "Permafrost is als het vieze neefje van de ijskappen. Het ligt onder de grond begraven".

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Het is verborgen maar toch daar
"Je ziet het niet. Het is bedekt door vegetatie en grond. Maar het ligt onder de grond. We weten dat het er is. En het heeft een even belangrijke invloed op het wereldklimaat".

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Er kan 1700 miljard ton vrijkomen
De noordelijkste uithoeken van de planeet herbergen ongeveer 1700 miljard metrische ton aan CO₂, wat volgens de National Aeronautics and Space Administration neerkomt op ruwweg 51 keer de hoeveelheid die de wereld in een jaar als 2019 heeft uitgestoten.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Een enorme hoeveelheid
"We hebben het simpelweg over een enorme hoeveelheid koolstof", zegt Brenda Rogers, geassocieerd wetenschapper aan het Woodwell Climate Research Center in Massachusetts.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Het zal niet allemaal ontdooien....
"We verwachten niet dat alles zal ontdooien ... omdat een deel ervan erg diep ligt en dat honderden of duizenden jaren zou duren", zegt Rogers, "Maar zelfs wanneer een fractie daarvan in de atmosfeer terechtkomt, kan dat al gevolgen hebben".

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Er gebeuren merkwaardige dingen
Op dit moment begint al deze eerder gevangen kooldioxide zich een weg te banen naar het aardoppervlak, waardoor ook enkele voorheen onbekende geologische verschijnselen optreden.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Methaankraters
De afgelopen tien jaar zijn er plotseling ongeveer 20 perfect kalendrische kraters opgedoken in de afgelegen noordelijke gebieden van Siberië.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Explosies van methaangas
Deze kraters, met een diameter van tientallen meters, zijn volgens wetenschappers het resultaat van explosies van opgebouwd methaangas onder het aardoppervlak.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Het wordt hier warm
"De poolstreek warmt zo snel op", zei Rogers, "en er gebeuren merkwaardige dingen".

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Branden in Siberië
Een van de meest fascinerende gevolgen van de snelle ontdooiing van de permafrost zijn de hevige bosbranden die hierdoor in Siberië ontstaan. Daarnaast smeulen de ondergrondse branden soms nog maanden na nadat de bovengrondse branden zijn geblust.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Zombiebranden
De wetenschappers die ze bestuderen hebben ze de bijnaam 'zombiebranden' gegeven, en deze branden leveren een steeds grotere bijdrage aan de wereldwijde klimaatcrisis.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Zombiebranden verbranden de permafrost
"De branden zelf zullen een deel van de actieve laag [van de permafrost] verbranden, en daarbij zullen broeikasgassen zoals kooldioxide vrijkomen", verklaart Rogers.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Permafrost beschermt ons tegen emissies en erger
"Maar die verbrande grond werkte ook isolerend en hield de permafrost in de zomer koel. Als die eenmaal weg is, ontstaan er al snel diepere actieve lagen, en dat kan in de daaropvolgende decennia tot nog meer emissies leiden", vervolgde Rogers.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Smeltende permafrost vormt een wereldwijd gezondheidsrisico
De snelle dooi zal niet alleen meer koolstof in de atmosfeer brengen, maar ook een ernstig risico vormen voor de wereldgezondheid.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Jarenlang verborgen ziekten kunnen de kop opsteken
Lang slapende microben die duizenden jaren onder de bevroren permafrost hebben vastgezeten, worden door de opwarming van de polen wakker en leggen oude ziekten bloot.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Het oude miltvuur heeft al slachtoffers gemaakt
In 2016 vond een uitbraak van miltvuur (antrax) plaats in Siberië die samenhing met de ontdooiende permafrost in het gebied, waardoor 72 mensen ziek werden en een 12-jarige jongen stierf.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Het grondwater kan worden getroffen
De bacteriën van ontdooiende menselijke en dierlijke resten van duizenden jaren geleden kunnen ook in het grondwater en daarmee in het drinkwater terechtkomen.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

We zullen waarschijnlijk steeds meer oude ziekten zien
Volgens Jean Michel Claverie, een genomisch onderzoeker gespecialiseerd in oude virussen en bacteriën, komen we waarschijnlijk met nog meer oude ziekten in aanraking als de permafrost ontdooit.

©The Daily Digest

Verkouden worden door een oeroude Neanderthaler
"We kunnen daadwerkelijk een ziekte oplopen via de resten van een Neanderthaler", zegt Claverie, "Dat is toch verbazingwekkend?"

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Oude ziekten kunnen de kop opsteken in een nieuw tijdperk
Ook ziet Claverie geen reden waarom sommige lang verdwenen menselijke infecties niet uit het ijs zouden opduiken en vandaag of in de toekomst kunnen floreren, wanneer de mens zijn immuunafweer ertegen heeft verloren.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

We komen steeds vaker in contact met oude ziekten
Naarmate de temperaturen opwarmen en de noordelijke bodems toegankelijker worden, zullen regeringen en bedrijven naar alle waarschijnlijkheid de nieuw beschikbare grondstoffen van het poolgebied aanboren – waardoor de mens vrijwel zeker in contact zal komen met zeer oude insecten en ziekten.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

De smeltende permafrost laat gemeenten wegzakken
Bijzonder zorgwekkend is ook hoe het ontdooien van de permafrost ons huidige landschap zal veranderen. Gemeenten in Alaska ondervinden nu al de gevolgen van een warmer klimaat.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

De moerassen nemen de plaats in van Nunapitchuk
De afgelegen gemeente Nunapitchuk in Alaska zakt al sinds 1969 weg in de grond en wordt nu opgeslokt door drassige moerassen.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

De moerassen zijn overal!
"De moerassen verschijnen ook tussen de woningen, ze zijn overal in onze gemeente", vertelde oud-inwoner Morris J. Alexie, "Er zijn op dit moment nog zeven huizen die bewoond worden, maar die staan erg scheef en zakken weg in de grond".

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Het land wordt een onleefbaar moeras
"Overal verschijnt moeras... Het zijn net kleine stukken toendragrond. Voorheen hadden we in onze gemeente overal gewoon gras. Het is nu veranderd in een permanent watermoeras".

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Er is geen oplossing
Er bestaat nog geen oplossing voor de dooi. Het IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) voorspelt dat als de wereld voor 2030 de uitstoot met 50 procent vermindert, we waarschijnlijk slechts een stijging van 1,5 °C zullen hebben in de temperatuur op aarde.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

De trend is niet te keren...
Een stijging van 1,5 °C van de wereldtemperatuur lijkt misschien weinig, maar is toch meer dan genoeg om een smeltproces op gang te brengen dat niet ongedaan kan worden gemaakt of teruggedraaid. “Met de stijgende temperaturen is het in principe onmogelijk om permafrost terug te laten groeien", concludeert het ICPP.

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23-06-2025 om 21:29 geschreven door peter  

Wetenschappelijke Analyse: De Verandering van Kleuren in de Oceanen en de Betekenis voor het Klimaat en Ecosysteem

Inleiding

De oceanen vormen het grootste aquatische ecosysteem op aarde, met een cruciale rol in het wereldwijde klimaat, het zuurstofniveau in de atmosfeer, en de biodiversiteit. Recente wetenschappelijke rapporten en satellietwaarnemingen wijzen op een opvallende verandering in de kleur van de oceanen. Dit fenomeen, dat op het eerste gezicht esthetisch en onbeduidend lijkt, heeft diepgaande implicaties voor de oceanografie, klimaatwetenschap en ecologie. In deze analyse wordt de wetenschappelijke basis van de waargenomen kleurverandering onderzocht, inclusief de onderliggende processen, de methoden voor waarneming, en de mogelijke gevolgen voor het mondiale ecosysteem.

Waarnemingen en Methodologie

De toename of verandering in oceaankleuren wordt voornamelijk gedocumenteerd via satellietbeelden en remote sensing-technologieën. Satellieten zoals NASA’s MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) en ESA’s Sentinel-3 gebruiken spectroradiometrische instrumenten om de reflectie en absorptie van licht door het oceaanwater te meten. Deze metingen maken het mogelijk om de kleur van het water te kwantificeren in termen van de reflectie in verschillende golflengten, die vervolgens worden vertaald naar kwantitatieve parameters zoals chlorofyl-a concentraties en de aanwezigheid van plankton of andere deeltjes.

De waarnemingen laten zien dat bepaalde oceanen en oceanische regio’s, zoals de Noord-Atlantische Oceaan, de gebieden rond de Indische Oceaan en de Stille Oceaan, in de loop van de afgelopen decennia een duidelijke verandering in kleur vertonen. Vaak wordt deze verandering gekenmerkt door een intensivering van de groene en bruine tinten, wat wijst op een verhoogde aanwezigheid van fytoplankton en organisch materiaal in het water. Het gebruik van algoritmes voor het analyseren van satellietbeelden maakt het mogelijk om deze veranderingen te kwantificeren en te volgen over tijd.

Fysiologische en Biologische Oorzaken

De primaire oorzaak van de verandering in oceaankleuren wordt toegeschreven aan de toename van fytoplankton, microscopische fotosynthetische organismen die een belangrijke rol spelen in de koolstofcyclus en het zuurstofniveau in de atmosfeer. De verhoogde aanwezigheid van fytoplankton wordt vaak gekoppeld aan verhoogde nutrientenconcentraties in het water, zoals stikstof en fosfor, die de groei van deze organismen stimuleren.

Deze nutrienten kunnen afkomstig zijn uit verschillende bronnen:

• Landelijke afvoer en rivierwater: Door intensieve landbouw en stedelijke afvoer wordt een verhoogde hoeveelheid nutrienten in rivierwater geloosd, dat vervolgens in de oceaan terechtkomt.
• Zeewatervervuiling en industriële emissies: Sommige regio’s krijgen te maken met anthropogene vervuiling die de nutrientenbalans beïnvloedt.
• Klimaatverandering en oceaanstraling: Toenemende temperaturen en veranderende oceaanstromingen zorgen voor een betere menging en distributie van nutrienten en organisch materiaal.

Een hogere concentratie van fytoplankton leidt tot een toename in chlorofyl-a, wat direct gerelateerd is aan de groene tinten in de oceaan. Deze verhoogde algengroei, vaak aangeduid als “algenbloei”, kan natuurlijk voorkomen, maar wordt in veel gevallen versterkt door menselijke activiteiten.

Naast fytoplankton kunnen ook andere deeltjes, zoals sedimenten, zand en organisch materiaal, bijdragen aan de kleurverandering. Sedimenten die door rivierafvoer worden meegenomen, kunnen bijvoorbeeld de waterkleur donkerder maken, vooral in kustgebieden.

Uit het nieuwe onderzoek blijkt dat 21% van de wereldwijde oceaan een afname van de diepte van de verlichte zones heeft ervaren.

Krediet: Getty

Chemische en Fysische Processen

De verandering van oceaankleuren wordt niet alleen beïnvloed door biologische factoren, maar ook door fysische en chemische processen die de optische eigenschappen van water bepalen:

• Veranderingen in de lichtabsorptie en -reflectie: De aanwezigheid van organisch materiaal en deeltjes beïnvloedt hoe licht wordt gereflecteerd en geabsorbeerd. Fytoplankton en organisch materiaal absorberen licht in specifieke golflengten, wat leidt tot een verschuiving in de waargenomen kleur.
• Oceaanstraling en temperatuur: Hogere temperaturen kunnen leiden tot een verhoogde fotosynthetische activiteit en algengroei, wat op zijn beurt de kleur beïnvloedt.
• Oceaanstromingen en menging: Verschillende watermassa's mengen elkaar, waardoor de samenstelling en kleur van het water kunnen veranderen. Bijvoorbeeld, verplaatsingen van koud en warm water kunnen leiden tot regionale kleurveranderingen.

Een donker wordende fotische zone zou dieren kunnen dwingen om dichter naar het oppervlak te gaan, waar de concurrentie om hulpbronnen groter is, aldus de onderzoekers.

Krediet: Getty

Ecologische en Klimaatimplicaties

De waargenomen verandering in oceaankleuren heeft belangrijke ecologische gevolgen:

1. Veranderingen in het mariene ecosysteem: Een toename in fytoplankton kan leiden tot “algenbloei”, die op zijn beurt de zuurstofvoorziening in het water beïnvloedt. Bij massale algenbloei kunnen dood organisch materiaal en afbraakprocessen zuurstoftekorten veroorzaken, wat bekend staat als hypoxie of “dead zones”.

2. Effect op het voedselweb: Fytoplankton vormt de basis van het mariene voedselweb. Een verandering in de hoeveelheid en types van fytoplankton heeft directe gevolgen voor het hele mariene ecosysteem. Een toename kan leiden tot een verschuiving in de soortenrijkdom en de biodiversiteit. Sommige soorten fytoplankton kunnen giftige stoffen produceren, wat de voedselketen kan verontreinigen en schadelijk kan zijn voor zeezoogdieren, vissen en menselijke consumptie. Daarnaast kunnen veranderingen in de samenstelling van de fytoplanktongemeenschap de populaties van andere mariene organismen beïnvloeden, zoals kleine kreeftachtigen (krill) en planktoneters, wat verder de stabiliteit van het ecosysteem onder druk zet.

   Klimaatverandering en oceaanverzuring versterken deze effecten nog verder. Door de opwarming van de aarde neemt de oceaanopwarming toe, wat de stratificatie van het water vergemakkelijkt. Dit betekent dat warme, minder gemengde oppervlaktewaterlagen langer blijven bestaan, waardoor de toevoer van voedingsstoffen naar het oppervlakte vermindert. Dit kan leiden tot minder productieve gebieden voor fytoplankton, maar in sommige regio’s kunnen warmere omstandigheden juist een toename van bepaalde soorten veroorzaken. Tegelijkertijd zorgt de opname van CO2 door de oceaan voor verzuring, wat de groei en het functioneren van kalkproducerende organismen zoals koraal en schelpdieren beïnvloedt.

   De ecologische gevolgen van dergelijke veranderingen zijn ingrijpend. Bijvoorbeeld, de afname van kalkhoudende organismen kan het mariene voedselweb verder destabiliseren, aangezien veel van deze organismen een essentiële rol spelen in het ecosysteem. Bovendien kunnen grote algenbloei en de daaropvolgende hypoxie leiden tot massale sterfte onder zeeleven, wat niet alleen de biodiversiteit aantast, maar ook de visserij en lokale gemeenschappen die afhankelijk zijn van gezonde oceanen.

   Klimaatimplicaties kunnen zich verder uiten in de versterking van de klimaatverandering zelf. Oceanen functioneren als een koolstofput, maar de versnelde opname van CO2 en de daarmee gepaard gaande verzuring verminderen hun capaciteit om koolstof op te slaan. Dit versterkt de opwarming van de aarde en versnelt de negatieve ecologische effecten.

   Bovendien beïnvloeden de veranderingen in oceaankleuren en de bijbehorende ecologische processen ook het wereldwijde klimaat. Een verstoord marien ecosysteem kan leiden tot veranderingen in de koolstofcyclus en de wereldwijde temperatuurregulatie. Dit onderstreept het belang van het monitoren van oceaanveranderingen en het nemen van passende maatregelen om de negatieve gevolgen te beperken.

A world map showing changes in global photic zones between 2003 and 2022. Reds indicate regions where the oceans are getting darker, while blues indicate regions where oceans are getting lighter and white indicates regions where there was no statistically significant change over the period.

Credit: University of Plymouth

Conclusie

Het observeren van veranderingen in oceaankleuren biedt belangrijke inzichten in de ecologische en klimaatimplicaties van de recente milieuveranderingen. De toename van fytoplankton en de daaruit voortvloeiende algenbloei kunnen zowel positieve als negatieve effecten hebben op het mariene ecosysteem. Echter, de negatieve gevolgen, zoals hypoxie, verlies van biodiversiteit en verstoring van het voedselweb, wegen op lange termijn zwaarder. Klimaatverandering en oceaanverzuring versterken deze problemen en maken het noodzakelijk dat wereldwijd actie wordt ondernomen. Het beschermen van onze oceanen vergt een geïntegreerde aanpak, inclusief vermindering van broeikasgasemissies, duurzame visserijpraktijken en het bevorderen van mariene biodiversiteit. Alleen door bewustwording en collectieve inspanning kunnen we de ecologische en klimaatimplicaties beperken en zorgen voor een gezonde oceaan voor toekomstige generaties.

{ PETER2011 }

20-06-2025 om 23:29 geschreven door peter  

De zesde massale uitsterving in de wereld: "Waarschijnlijk al begonnen"

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

De vorige keer sneuvelden de dinosauriërs
De vijfde massale uitsterving vond 65 miljoen jaar geleden plaats toen een asteroïde de dinosauriërs van de aardbodem wegvaagde. Nu vrezen wetenschappers dat de zesde uitsterving misschien al begonnen is.

©The Daily Digest

Een nieuwe massale uitsterving
Volgens een team onder leiding van Prof. Robert Cowie, van de Universiteit van Hawaï, wordt in een onderzoek dat gepubliceerd is in Biological Reviews gesteld dat het "steeds waarschijnlijker" is dat wij ons in de beginfase van een nieuwe massale uitsterving bevinden.

©The Daily Digest

Het is aan de gang
"Ontkenning ervan is eenvoudigweg in strijd met de enorme hoeveelheid gegevens die zich snel opstapelen. Er is geen plaats meer voor scepsis en de vraag of het wel echt gebeurt", zo stelt het 

©Aangeboden door Showbizz Daily Netherlands

Wat is massale uitsterving?
Er is sprake van een massale uitsterving wanneer ongeveer 70% van het dieren- en plantenleven ophoudt te bestaan. Het is dus een wereldwijde ramp waarbij de biodiversiteit en het ecosysteem in het gedrang komen.

©The Daily Digest

Weekdieren
Het onderzoek van Cowie richt zich met name op ongewervelde dieren, meer bepaald op weekdieren. Het team achter dit onderzoek is van mening dat de IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) onevenredig veel aandacht besteedt aan gewervelde dieren, zoals vogels en zoogdieren.

©The Daily Digest

Beeld: Ed van Duijin / Unsplash

Diversiteit van dieren
"De IUCN heeft niet zomaar een fractie van ongewervelde dieren geëvalueerd. Het gaat om insecten, slakken, spinnen en schaaldieren die samen 95% van de diversiteit aan dieren uitmaken", vertelde Cowie aan Vice.

©Aangeboden door Showbizz Daily Netherlands

Sinds 1500
Uit het onderzoek van Cowie en zijn team blijkt dat er sinds 1500 ongeveer 7,5% tot 13% van de soorten verdwenen is, wat erop wijst dat wij op een massale uitsterving afstevenen.

Afgebeeld: Een Tasmaanse tijger (Thylacine) uit 1936 is uitgestorven verklaard en wordt tentoongesteld in het Australian Museum in Sydney.

©The Daily Digest

Het is onze schuld
Mochten wij inderdaad op weg zijn naar de zesde massale uitsterving, dan zal het de eerste keer zijn dat de oorzaak daarvan aan het ingrijpen van een soort toe te schrijven is. In dit geval de mens.

©Aangeboden door The Daily Digest

Het antropoceen
Het effect van de mens op het milieu is zelfs zo enorm dat veel wetenschappers stellen dat wij in een nieuw geologisch tijdperk leven: het antropoceen. Dat begon toen de mens een significante invloed is gaan uitoefenen op de geologie en de ecosystemen van de aarde.

©The Daily Digest

Landbouw
Tot nu toe blijft het antropoceen een hypothetisch gegeven. Sommigen beweren dat het begon toen de mens zich met de landbouw ging bezighouden zo'n 12.000 tot 15.000 jaar geleden.

©The Daily Digest

Great Acceleration
Andere deskundigen brengen het antropoceen in verband met de zogenaamde Great Acceleration. Dat is de verbazingwekkende snelheid van de menselijke groei en het verbruik van grondstoffen die na de Tweede Wereldoorlog tot een hoogtepunt kwam.

©The Daily Digest

Dappere nieuwe wereld
De wereld waarin onze grootouders geboren zijn, verschilt dan ook totaal van de wereld waarin wij nu leven.

©The Daily Digest

Beeld: Dmitry Grigoriev / Unsplash

Bijen en vlinders
Een goed voorbeeld van de naderende zesde massale uitsterving is de verdwijning van bijen en vlinders wereldwijd.

©The Daily Digest

Beeld: Annie Spratt / Unsplash

Binnen één generatie

Volgens The Guardian is de hommelpopulatie in Europa en Noord-Amerika in slechts één generatie met meer dan 30% gedaald, wat wijst op massaal uitsterven.

©The Daily Digest

Meer dan honing
Het uitsterven van de hommelpopulatie heeft ook gevolgen voor de mens. De bijen zijn niet alleen verantwoordelijk voor de honing, maar bestuiven ook gewassen zoals tomaten en bessen. Zonder hen wordt er minder voedsel geproduceerd.

©The Daily Digest

Beeld: Ed van Dujin / Unsplash

Het vlindereffect
National Geographic weet te melden dat ondertussen ook meer dan 450 soorten vlinders in het zuidwesten van de VS dreigen te verdwijnen.

©The Daily Digest

Essentieel voor de bestuiving
Vlinders zijn bovendien van essentieel belang voor de bestuiving van veel planten en bloemen en hebben zo invloed op de voedselketen en het hele ecosysteem.

©The Daily Digest

Een ongemakkelijke waarheid
De belangrijkste boosdoener voor de afname van het aantal bijen en vlinders is het warmere weer als gevolg van de klimaatverandering. De stijgende temperaturen veranderen vroegere habitat van deze soorten in iets onherbergzaams.

©The Daily Digest

Afgebeeld: De gevolgen van ontbossing in het Amazonewoud.

Land en grondstoffen

Hierbij is nog niet eens rekening gehouden met het buitensporige gebruik van land en grondstoffen, waardoor hele ecosystemen worden aangetast of ronduit vernietigd.

©The Daily Digest

Wij hebben het vuur aangestoken
De schade die de mens aan de planeet heeft toegebracht, is onomkeerbaar gebleken. Het zorgwekkendste is dat het, ondanks eindeloze initiatieven en topontmoetingen met de beste bedoelingen, tot op de dag van vandaag gewoon doorgaat.

©The Daily Digest

De tijd dringt
Ondertussen begint de tijd te dringen om nog het kostbare evenwicht te behouden dat de mensheid al duizenden jaren in staat heeft gesteld te leven. Wie weet voor welke uitdagingen de volgende generatie zal komen te staan, als wij dat evenwicht eenmaal verloren hebben.

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10-06-2025 om 21:57 geschreven door peter  

Scientists break down cheap plastic using the air — and turn it into something far more valuable

"The U.S. is the number one plastic polluter per capita, and we only recycle 5% of those plastics," co-corresponding author Yosi Kratish, a research assistant professor of chemistry at Northwestern University, said in a statement. "What's particularly exciting about our research is that we harnessed moisture from air to break down the plastics, achieving an exceptionally clean and selective process. By recovering the monomers, which are the basic building blocks of PET [polyethylene terephthalate], we can recycle or even upcycle them into more valuable materials."

Plastic waste is an increasingly important issue. Over half of the plastic ever made has been produced since 2000, and annual production is projected to double by 2050, according to the European Environment Agency.

To date, only 9% of the plastics ever produced have been recycled. The remainder, with lifetimes often lasting generations, can have serious environmental and health impacts. For example, they wash out to sea to form floating blobs of trash, harm wildlife, and break down into microplastics that can enter the human brain and other parts of our bodies.

Related: 

• Will we ever be able to stop using plastic?

To find a new method to break down some of this waste, the researchers applied a molybdenum catalyst — a silver, ductile metal — and activated carbon to PET, the most common type of polyester plastic. The researchers then heated the mixture. After a short time, this broke the polyethylene's chemical bonds.

Then, when the team exposed the material to air, the mixture transformed into TPA, a valuable polyester precursor; and acetaldehyde, an industrial chemical that is also valuable and is easy to lift from the mixture.

When they tested the method on mixed plastics, the researchers found that it had an effect only on the polyester materials. That meant they didn't have to presort the plastics. It worked onlastic bottles, T-shirts and colored plastics, breaking them down into pure, colorless TPA.

"It worked perfectly," Kratish said. "When we added extra water, it stopped working because it was too much water. It's a fine balance. But it turns out the amount of water in air was just the right amount."

The team's next steps will be to adapt the process to large-scale industrial applications.

"Our technology has the potential to significantly reduce plastic pollution, lower the environmental footprint of plastics and contribute to a circular economy where materials are reused rather than discarded," study first author Naveen Malik, who was a researcher at Northwestern University at the time, said in the statement. "It's a tangible step toward a cleaner, greener future, and it demonstrates how innovative chemistry can address global challenges in a way that aligns with nature."

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01-06-2025 om 21:34 geschreven door peter  

The Scientist Who Says Nature Has Memory and Minds Aren’t Trapped in Brains

His work has appeared in many well-known magazines and newspapers, and he has been featured on BBC radio and TV.

In the interview, philosopher Hilary Lawson asks Rupert Sheldrake why the scientific community has been so critical of his work, even though he has been very successful with the general public. Sheldrake explains that the scientific community is not just one group—it’s made up of many different people with different opinions.

When he first shared his ideas, some scientists were interested and friendly, while others were more skeptical. He had especially good experiences with scientists in India, who were open to his ideas, like morphic resonance.

But things changed after he published his first book, A New Science of Life, in 1981. A powerful editor at the science journal Nature, Sir John Maddox, harshly criticized the book and even said it was “a book for burning.” This public attack made Sheldrake seem like an outsider or a heretic in the eyes of many scientists, which made others afraid to openly support him.

Sheldrake believes that the scientists who attack him most often are militant atheists. He explains that these people treat materialist science almost like a religion, and because his work challenges their worldview, they react very strongly. This kind of criticism also appears on platforms like Wikipedia, where a group called “guerrilla skeptics” has taken control of his biography and prevents others from changing it.

However, Sheldrake also says that most scientists are not so extreme. When he gives talks at scientific institutions, people often come up to him privately afterward and say they’re very interested in his work and have had similar experiences, like feeling telepathic connections or sensing when their dog knows they’re coming home. But they admit they’re afraid to speak up about it because they don’t want to be judged or attacked by their peers. Sheldrake tells them that they’re not alone, and many of their colleagues feel the same way in secret.

Sheldrake agrees that he does have a philosophical view. His worldview is holistic: he believes that consciousness exists throughout the universe, that minds extend beyond just the brain, and that nature has a kind of memory—what he calls “morphic resonance.” These ideas go against the usual materialist and mechanistic view of science, which sees everything as just matter and machines. But Sheldrake says the key difference is that he thinks all of these views—including his own—should be openly discussed and tested scientifically. He does experiments to test his theories.

He says the people who oppose him don’t want open discussion. Instead, they label anything that doesn’t fit their materialist worldview as “pseudoscience” and try to cancel or suppress it. He calls this an unfair, one-sided situation.

Sheldrake points out that in most areas of life, like philosophy, politics, or religion, there are many different points of view, and people accept that. But in science, he says, there’s no real culture of open debate about controversial ideas. Instead, the dominant view controls everything: funding, journals, jobs, peer review, and government science advice. Those who don’t agree with the mainstream often get pushed out and silenced.

Sheldrake sees his ideas as models, not as the final truth. Morphic resonance is the idea that memory exists in nature and that past forms and behaviors influence present ones based on similarity.

He thinks some kind of memory in nature must exist because, in his view, evolutionary biology doesn’t make full sense without it. But he admits that while he’s fairly sure the phenomenon is real, he doesn’t know for certain that his specific explanation is correct.

He says it’s the only detailed model of its kind currently out there, though other, more general ideas touch on memory in the universe, like in Hindu and Buddhist beliefs about karma, which also involve effects traveling across time.

Sheldrake compares his situation to how science developed over time. For example, Michael Faraday proposed the existence of electric and magnetic fields without knowing exactly how they worked. Later, James Clerk Maxwell created a mathematical model involving the “ether,” which was widely accepted until Einste in’s theory of relativity showed that the ether didn’t exist.

Then, quantum physics introduced entirely new ideas. So, the models changed over time, but the actual phenomena—like electricity and magnetism—remained real and important. He sees his theory of morphic fields and resonance in the same way: the phenomenon may be real, but the model explaining it might evolve.

Read also:

• Ex-NASA Scientist Claims: “Consciousness Is Fundamental — Our Reality Is a Simulation”
• This Billionaire Saw Interdimensional Beings and Claims G-LOC Unlocks Out-of-Body Consciousness
• This is Ingo Swann: The Man Who Saw Jupiter’s Rings Before NASA Did

That’s why he keeps doing experiments. If he already knew the truth, he says, there’d be no need to keep testing his ideas. The point is to explore and discover, not to claim he already has all the answers.

Sheldrake says that his theory of morphic resonance, which he describes as a theory of memory, could have several real-world uses. He explains that this theory includes not only the memory we have in our minds but also a kind of collective memory that influences learning. According to him, if morphic resonance is real, then people could learn faster and better by tapping into the experiences of others who have already learned the same things in the past.

He says this might explain why people often learn practical skills, like sports or using tools, better through doing and repetition rather than through books. He thinks this approach could especially help in teaching languages.

For example, learners could benefit more from immersive, experience-based methods that connect with this collective memory instead of memorizing grammar rules and verb lists (like how he was taught French).

He also believes morphic resonance could be important in treating memory-related issues like Alzheimer’s or other psychological problems.

Looking ahead, he imagines that if we could build computers based on morphic resonance (which he says would need to be analog rather than digital), they might be able to access shared memory banks. These computers could lead to a type of artificial intelligence that is truly intelligent, not just simulating human thinking.

Sheldrake also talks about another area of his research: the idea of the extended mind. This includes things like the feeling of being stared at, telepathy, and intuitions about future events (what he calls “pre-sentiment”).

He believes that if we could train people to improve these intuitive skills, they might be better at sensing dangers or responding more naturally to situations in daily life. He says there’s a lot of potential for training in this area.

Sheldrake explains laws of nature were fixed at the moment of the Big Bang and never change. Instead, it suggests that just like nature evolves, the “laws” of nature might also change and grow over time. Instead of calling them laws (which is a very human concept), Sheldrake prefers to think of them as habits of nature—patterns that repeat and get stronger the more they happen, just like how animals or people develop habits. (Source)

He believes that everything in nature, including living things, thoughts, and even social behaviors, is guided by invisible fields called morphic fields. These fields carry memory from the past and influence present behavior. So if something has happened many times before, it’s more likely to happen again. That’s how species inherit instincts or how languages and cultures form and evolve.

He says these morphic fields affect our minds too. For example, the feeling that someone is staring at you, or the experience of thinking about someone just before they call you, might not be coincidences—they could be examples of telepathy through morphic fields. According to Sheldrake, this is not magic or paranormal, but a natural process. Experiments have shown that people often correctly guess who is calling them on the phone, and this might be a common form of human telepathy. Similar behavior is also seen in animals, like dogs, that know when their owners are coming home.

Morphic fields are not limited to the brain—they can reach far beyond the body, just like magnetic fields go beyond magnets or cell phone signals go beyond the phone. These fields help explain connections between people or animals, even over long distances.

{ https://howandwhys.com/ }

21-05-2025 om 20:54 geschreven door peter  

27 weirdest things on Google Earth - PART I

{ https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth }

20-05-2025 om 22:56 geschreven door peter  

27 weirdest things on Google Earth - PART II

Vostok Island, which sits in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, appears to be blacked out on Google Earth. 

{ https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth }

20-05-2025 om 22:47 geschreven door peter  

GERELATEERDE VIDEO'S

{ https://scientias.nl/nieuws/natuur-klimaat/ }

10-05-2025 om 23:32 geschreven door peter  

La Niña is dead — what that means for this year's hurricanes and weather

How will climate change impact ENSO patterns?

No one knows how climate change will affect ENSO patterns, but scientists are concerned about the warming oceans and atmosphere.

"Warmer air holds more water. It's fundamental," Becker said. "That's a factor in why we're seeing some hurricanes deposit unbelievable amounts of rain — it's partly due to the higher moisture capacity of the atmosphere."

Warm waters can extend a hurricane season or fuel storms farther north. Once envisioned as coastal threats, storms are increasingly driving inland. For example, Hurricane Helene devastated Appalachian communities hundreds of miles from the sea in 2024. "You're making a better and bigger sponge, and it gets wrung out somewhere," Di Liberto said. "And communities have to deal with incomprehensible amounts of rainfall and flooding."

However, our understanding of hurricanes is incomplete, Done said. Our observational record extends back less than 160 years — just a blink of geologic time. Scientists who have studied the geologic record of ancient cyclones have found evidence of stronger hurricanes making landfall in the distant past, often tied to periods of climate change.

If the present is the key to the past, the past nods back: Earth has seen worse — and with oceans warming fast, scientists warn it may only be a matter of time before historically unprecedented storms strike again.

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{ https://www.livescience.com/ }

06-05-2025 om 23:15 geschreven door peter  

Atlantic ocean currents are weakening — and it could make the climate in some regions unrecognizable

Related: A long-lost ice sheet could predict the future of New York City — one in which Lower Manhattan and Coney Island are 'perpetually submerged'

To travel back south, surface waters in the North Atlantic must plunge down the water column and merge with bottom currents. Climate scientists say this sinking step is where the circulation is slowing down, because surface waters have to be very salty, and therefore very dense, to sink. But growing rivers of meltwater from the Greenland Ice Sheet and the Arctic are diluting the salt concentrations of surface waters, preventing them from plunging to the seafloor.

The warming hole that worries scientists is in a spot where the AMOC releases heat. Ocean temperatures there are lower than researchers would expect to see, given current global temperatures, if the AMOC were still going strong. That suggests heat transport from south to north has already declined.

And with climate change cooking the planet, there is a risk that more fresh water will pour into the North Atlantic, triggering a feedback loop that would accelerate the weakening of the AMOC. As ocean currents slow, the amount of salt reaching the North Atlantic may decrease, making it harder for already-diluted surface waters to sink.

"When you have a strong AMOC, it draws in salty water," David Thornalley, an ocean and climate scientist at University College London, told Live Science. "If you start to weaken the AMOC, less salty water gets drawn into the North Atlantic, and that then weakens the AMOC, and then it's a runaway process."

Defining "collapse"

The warming hole is one piece of evidence suggesting the AMOC has already weakened, but not everyone agrees.

The problem is that direct measurements of the AMOC's strength only go back to 2004, so researchers rely on indirect "fingerprints" — climate parameters they think are linked to the AMOC — to identify long-term trends in Atlantic circulation.

The trouble with fingerprints is that they give variable — and sometimes contradictory — results. For instance, a 2018 study suggested weakening, while research published in January suggests Atlantic currents have not declined over the past 60 years, though some scientists criticized the January study's data.

Regardless of whether Atlantic currents have already slowed, most scientists think they will in the future.

Should the circulation weaken significantly, "some pretty major changes are going to happen," Thornalley said, "and they're going to happen gradually over the 21st century."

For one, dwindling ocean currents will carry less heat to countries like Norway, Sweden and the U.K., leading to cooler temperatures in these regions. The amount of cooling will depend on how much strength the AMOC loses.

Climate models generate varying predictions, depending on what assumptions are baked into them, how sensitive they are to certain climate factors, and the data researchers feed the models. Some show a 10% reduction in the AMOC's strength, while others predict a decline closer to 50%, Marsh said.

"A 50% reduction would be far more substantial of an impact on our regional climate," Marsh said, adding that the resulting drop in temperature would disrupt industries that depend on the weather, such as farming. By comparison, "A 10% weakening of the AMOC would be noticeable, but manageable," he said. "It probably would make our weather a little less mild in the wintertime, in particular."

A complete collapse is unlikely, a study published in February found. Even if surface waters stop plunging in the North Atlantic, there are relatively constant factors, such as the wind, that drive the movement of water, Marsh said.

"A collapse, which is some hypothetical 100% failure of the [AMOC], just doesn't feel plausible to me," Marsh said. But the AMOC doesn't need to collapse to throw human lives and systems into chaos, he added.

"Really wild things"

Cooling in the North Atlantic and Northwest Europe could offset some of the warming from climate change — but that may not be a good thing, Marsh said. A drop in temperatures may alter atmospheric processes that drive storms and other weather events in these regions, he said.

Cooling in the North Atlantic won't directly make the U.S. East Coast colder, Marsh said. That's because weather in the Northeast is dictated more by the Arctic polar vortex, a ring of cold wind that circles the North Pole and traps frigid air near the Arctic. If this band becomes deformed or expands, which it sometimes does in the winter, chilly air escapes and sweeps over the Midwest and as far south as the Gulf.

But a weaker AMOC could alter the Arctic polar vortex, which would, in turn, affect the Northeast, Marsh said. The vortex is vulnerable to changes in climate, and recent evidence suggests the structure is already behaving strangely.

Direct impacts on the East Coast and Northwest Europe could also result from sea level rise. Sea levels in parts of the North Atlantic are currently 2.3 feet (70 centimeters) lower than they would be if the AMOC were weaker, because strong currents create uneven sea levels. If the AMOC weakens, water may redistribute itself and add to the sea level rise caused directly by global warming.

As the Northern Hemisphere cools, tropical and subtropical regions could also be thrown into chaos. Studies indicate that a colder North Atlantic would alter Earth's energy balance and trigger a southward shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), a band of clouds that encircles the globe near the equator.

The moisture-laden ITCZ bobs up and down depending on Earth's position relative to the sun, bringing heavy rainfall and storms. It is responsible for monsoons — weather patterns with distinct wet and dry seasons — in South America, West Africa, India and East Asia.

Should the ITCZ shift southward, research suggests it would throw monsoons out of whack for at least 100 years. "Right now, we have these regions that are used to getting this very intense rainfall in their wet seasons," said Ben-Yami, the lead author of this research. Ecosystems are adapted to these downpours, and people depend on rainfall for agriculture, she said.

A southward shift of the ITCZ would lead to shorter and drier wet seasons in places like West Africa. These effects could persist for decades and severely disrupt life around the equator, Ben-Yami said. "Farmers somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, they need that rainfall," she said.

Shifts in rainfall would affect the Amazon rainforest, too. The effects may differ between the Northern and Southern parts, because the rainforest is so big that the southern part would still receive significant rainfall even if the ITCZ were to shift southward, Ben-Yami said.

But the northern Amazon rainforest — including parts of Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Suriname, Guyana, French Guiana and Brazil — would experience longer and more intense dry seasons, which would be devastating for the region, she said.

Combined, the effects of a weakened AMOC could cost hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars, Thornalley said. "It's a pretty global shift in climate — it would be very, very expensive," Thornalley told Live Science.

What's more, North Atlantic sediments from the last ice age (120,000 to 11,500 years ago) suggest that abrupt shifts in climate linked to the AMOC have occurred in the past.

"We know the climate can do really wild things," Thornalley said. "We know that really, really, really well."

Making predictions

Researchers say the AMOC will weaken significantly before 2100, but pinpointing exactly when the biggest change will happen is tricky.

Because direct measurements go back only 20 years, scientists often extrapolate from historical data to estimate when Atlantic currents might reach a tipping point. Tipping points are thresholds in some of Earth's systems that, once exceeded, can flip these systems from one stable state into a profoundly different one.

A good analogy to explain tipping points is a chair, Ben-Yami said. A chair is stable when it is standing on four legs or lying down; any position between these two is unstable. A person sitting on the chair can tip it backward slightly, but past a certain threshold, the chair tumbles to the ground.

An attention-grabbing study in 2023 concluded that the AMOC could reach a tipping point as early as this year. The authors used sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic subpolar gyre between 1870 and 2020 to calculate fluctuations in the AMOC's resilience and strength. Their model suggested Atlantic currents are growing less resilient and weaker, to the point of possibly tipping before mid-century.

In a 2024 paper, however, Ben-Yami and other experts argued that there is too much uncertainty in data from before 2004 to predict when the AMOC might tip. "Once you take all these uncertainties into account, you don't get a practical prediction," she said.

Not having robust predictions is perhaps worse than knowing when the system will fail, because the future is so unclear, Ben-Yami said. "We should be even more careful" in the face of this uncertainty, she cautioned.

While some researchers are looking to the past for answers, others are searching for early warning signals that hold clues about future changes in the AMOC. One of these signals is the amount of fresh water flowing into the Atlantic at a latitude of 34 degrees south, near the tip of South Africa. Models suggest fresh water transport there will hit a minimum about 25 years before the AMOC reaches a tipping point, meaning experts could accurately predict shifts in the AMOC before the biggest changes occur.

But knowing about this minimum won't help anyone prevent the AMOC from weakening significantly, because it will be too late to reverse the driver — human-caused climate change — by the time the minimum is reached, said E.J.V. (Emma) Smolders, a doctoral student who specializes in AMOC early warning signals at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

"We're getting more and more worried," Smolders told Live Science, adding that her research group is trying to find other warning signals that will help scientists make predictions with more lead time to act.

Her group described one of these alternative signals in a study published to the preprint database arXiv in June 2024. The study, which has not been peer-reviewed yet, found that salinity in the Atlantic near the tip of South Africa may be a better indicator than fresh water of when the AMOC will weaken.

Based on patterns in this salt transport, Smolders and colleagues estimated that the AMOC will "collapse" around 2050, which agrees with previous, peer-reviewed research.

Looking for early warning signals is important, because "it could be that we need as much advanced knowledge as possible to prepare civilian, even military, assets" to deal with the consequences of AMOC weakening, Marsh said. These assets may be needed to shield infrastructure and communities from unpredictable weather, he said.

Ultimately, regardless of whether we know exactly when the AMOC will decline, the takeaway is the same, Marsh and others said: Stop global warming by slashing the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere.

The possibility that the AMOC could be approaching a tipping point "should be enough incentive, alongside knowing what the impact would be, for us to want to stop what we're doing," Thornalley said. "We might not be able to say exactly how long we've got left, but [the evidence] suggests we could have a tipping point, and we really want to avoid that."

• Editor's note: This article was updated at 5:14 E.D.T on April 25 to correct an error in the introduction. The blob in the North Atlantic is cold, not warm.
• This story is part of The 89 Percent Project, an initiative of the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now.

{ https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth }

28-04-2025 om 00:27 geschreven door peter  

Microplastics have been in 'pristine streams' for half a century — what could that mean for human health?

"The inclusion of plastic in the casing of a caddisfly means plastic is entering the food chain," said lead study author Auke-Florian Hiemstra, a doctoral candidate in evolutionary ecology at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center.

"Many birds and fish eat these caddisfly larvae, and some swallow them including their casing," Hiemstra told Live Science in an email. "If caddisflies have been affected by microplastics for over half a century, that means the broader ecosystem is affected too."

Related: 

• Recycled black plastic can contain flame retardants, viral study found. That's still true — but their math was off

The casing specimens in the study are part of the natural history collections at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands. The researchers used a technique called energy dispersive X-ray analysis to reveal chemical elements and additives commonly associated with plastics inside the casings.

This provided a rare snapshot into the impact of microplastics on freshwater systems, which represent less than 4% of current studies on microplastics, Hiemstra said. Generally, the presence of microplastics in the 2000s is well documented, but the historical timeline of microplastic pollution has remained vague. This lack of historical data has made it difficult to assess how long ecosystems and human populations have been exposed to microplastics, thus complicating risk assessments and epidemiological studies.

So, how might this study change our understanding of the history of microplastic exposure and its potential impacts on human health?

Microplastics in nature and the body

Microplastics are tiny fragments of synthetic polymers that can take anywhere from hundreds to thousands of years to degrade. They're defined as being between 1 micrometer and 5 millimeters long. Today, they seem to be found virtually everywhere: in clouds, the air we breathe, food, drinking water, and human blood and breast milk. These particles stem from the breakdown of larger plastics, and in some cases, they are intentionally manufactured for use in certain cosmetics and cleaning products.

Research suggests that the human body clears out some larger microplastics measuring up to 150 micrometers long, while fragments smaller than 10 micrometers may be absorbed into tissues. But recent research suggests that some plastics in our bodies are even tinier than that.

While what qualifies as "nanoplastic" is still under debate, these ultrasmall particles are typically considered to be any plastic fragments smaller than 1 micrometer (or 1,000 nanometers) in diameter. A human hair, by comparison, is around 80,000 nanometers wide. Nanoplastics are small enough to potentially pass through cell membranes, studies suggest.

Matthew Campen, a toxicologist at the University of New Mexico, recently led a study that pointed to the presence of nanoplastics in human tissues. Using advanced, high-resolution imaging techniques, his team identified plastic fragments measuring no more than 200 nanometers in length — thin enough that they were translucent — in brain tissue from a few dozen organ donors.

After its publication, some of the analytical techniques used in the study were criticized, so the exact quantities of different types of plastic may be off, experts told Live Science. But by detecting nanoplastics, the findings expand upon previous work that relied on microscopes that could only detect particles up to 25 times larger.

That study, which included samples collected between 2016 and 2024, also suggested that later samples carried higher concentrations of plastics, and that the brains of individuals who died with dementia contained more plastic than healthy brains. These results raised questions about whether the public's plastic exposure has been increasing over time.

Hiemstra's new findings feed into that broader discussion and may have implications for how we understand the health risks of microplastics. If the pollutants have been present throughout the environment — not only near industrial sites — since the 1970s, that might reframe our understanding of where people have been exposed and for how long. Plastics not only accumulate in the environment, but also in the body, so better understanding the timeline and extent of exposure can help scientists unpack its long-term health outcomes.

As Hiemstra's study was focused on only the Netherlands, though, other work will need to be done to understand the history of microplastic pollution on a global scale.

Related: 

• 'Very concerning': Microplastics can accumulate in cancer cells and may help them spread, study hints

What do microplastics do to our bodies?

Scientists are still working to understand exactly how microplastics and the chemicals within plastics — such as phthalates and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) — might affect our bodies, Tracey Woodruff, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) who studies how pollutants affect reproductive and developmental health, told Live Science.

Early research has linked plastic exposure to the risk of various health conditions, including heart disease, lung disorders, cancer and Alzheimer's disease. In each of these cases, the link is correlative, so it's not clear if or how the plastics might be contributing to the diseases. In addition, in lab-dish studies, some types of plastics appear to be relatively harmless, while others have been shown to kill human cells in vitro.

In 2024, Woodruff and her team at UCSF's Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment published a systematic review of nearly 2,000 studies on the health effects of microplastics as part of a California state-commissioned report aimed at guiding policy decisions. The review identified potential health effects on respiratory, digestive and reproductive health, and particularly on sperm.

"While a link between chemicals in plastics and chronic diseases is clear, it's hard to separate the effects of the microplastic from its chemical additives," Woodruff noted.

She added that, "with rising cancer rates among younger people and increasing exposure [to microplastics] from early life, the potential long-term health risks — especially for those exposed in utero — remain a major concern," Woodruff said. Exposure to pollution is one of several competing theories for why the rates of certain cancers are rising in people under 50.

"More data will help address the uncertainty in the findings, but we're being exposed to [microplastics] right now, so it would be prudent to reduce exposures," Woodruff said.

While it's suspected that microplastics have negative impacts on human health, the World Health Organization emphasizes that the evidence for these effects is still limited and inconclusive.

"Our understanding of the potential harms of microplastic exposure is very preliminary at this stage," said Bernardo Lemos, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Arizona and an adjunct professor of environmental epigenetics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Lemos has led research to document the effects of microplastic exposure in humans and in model organisms, such as fruit flies, mice and fish.

"I am sure there will be many more studies documenting an abundance of microplastics in historical samples," Lemos told Live Science in an email. "It will be interesting to document how microplastics' abundance and quality change over decades." The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, an intergovernmental organization, predicts that plastic production may triple by 2060.

Related: 

• Humans inhale a staggering amount of microplastic every week. Here's where it ends up

Is it possible to avoid microplastics?

While Woodruff noted it would be prudent to reduce microplastic exposure, it's unclear what levels of micro- and nanoplastics we're realistically taking in on a daily basis. "Plastics can degrade into smaller fragments, but they persist, so we're going to be exposed to them for a very long time," Woodruff said.

She suggested that, at the individual level, people can reduce their exposure to microplastics and the chemicals in them by consuming fewer ultraprocessed foods, which are more likely to come into contact with plastic than whole or less-processed foods. She also suggested that it may help to avoid plastic containers, bottles and packaging where possible.

"There is still so little known about the history of microplastics," Hiemstra said. But thanks to collections that include specimens like the caddisfly casings, we may have unknowingly collected more evidence than we thought about the early days of this pollutant.

Other natural history collections around the world may harbor even older casings with microplastics, he suggested, highlighting the untapped value of such collections as tools for environmental science. They may offer a way to establish historical baselines of microplastic pollution, which are still largely missing from the record and could help us trace the true health impact of plastics.

{ https://www.livescience.com/health }

27-04-2025 om 23:58 geschreven door peter