Defining Death..... the medical way.

In an article from LiveScience today, AWARE is a new study that is meant to discover what happens to the brain when it 

is on the verge of dying. This an effort to explain the idea of near-death experiences.

My mother claimed to have had one in her many hospital stays in my youth. There was the white light, the soul floating above her mortal body on the hospital bed etc.

According to the study 10 to 20 percent of people who live through cardiac arrest tell of lucid thoughts and memories during that time.

I don't believe in the soul or afterlife... death is the end literally. A body becomes an empty shell which should decompose back to the earth gracefully. But the last thoughts of a lifetime of thoughts that then disappear forever has an almost mystical quality to the them. 

More Car Crashes.....Men worse drivers than women.

While researching more on car crash statistics, I found this article. This was published after Morgan Freeman was injured in a car crash last month.

Evidently the leading cause of accidental death in men under 75 is car crashes. Twice as many men die in crashes as women and 81% of all drunk drivers are men.  

It's the end of the World.... but I am fine

the CERN  particule accelerator was finally tested successfully yesterday.... but not at full capacity which might be in another year. Evidently there are some concerns that this science is so powerful that it could destroy the world, perhaps by creating tiny black holes right here on earth. The quest for knowledge is fraught with dangers. Curiosity killed the cat, what the hell is it going to do the human race? I think it is quite exciting, and an interested to see what happens.

Here is the yahoo article: Largest Particle Collider Conducts successful test

From Live Science about the potential to Destroy Earth

And one more thing for the day....
I am in the Exit Art show called "It's Not Easy", part of their SEA (Social Environmental Aesthetics) exhibitions.
Up till August 29th.
Here is the link:
Exit Art

J. G. Ballard. Autopsy of the new millennium
An interesting show, that being in Spain I will miss.
"This exhibition offers an itinerary through Ballard's creative universe: his times and obsessions, his dissection of the secret keys of the contemporary, the traces of his own life in his fictional body of work, his artistic and literary referents, and his precise, disenchanted intuitions of a future life governed by the concepts of aseptic dystopia and disaster."
Ballard Exhibition

Artist-in-Residency at Platte Cove this fall.
I am really excited about spending a week at Platte Cove this October. This is part of the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development arts program. Artists are invited to spend time in this lovely cabin doing whatever it takes to be inspired to create new works, whether writing, visual arts, music etc. No restrictions or expectations except to create. I will be there for four days and plan to spend most of the time outside photographing a project I have been fighting with for a while. No running water, only an outhouse. No phones, no internet, hardly an cellphone service. Just the woods and your self. But luckily Dora will be able to join me. Hope she behaves.
The orientation was in June and it was amazing the surrounding landscape. Waterfalls, steep trails, deep valleys, cliffs, mountains, streams, pools of clear water and full of wildlife. And being there in the early-mid fall season will be even more inspiring. It is funny though how disconnected we sometimes become from nature. A few of the fellow artists who will be at the cabin (at different times) were also at the orientation. It was interesting to see how people from different situations navigate walking and moving through the woods. We climbed down to the foot of the falls, and I started to coin a term in my head called "city legs". Despite the fact that the trail wasn't too difficult, many people found it "scary and treacherous" and had to be helped down. Some were older, but some were very physically fit. It was such an alien landscape with dirt, roots, mud, rocks, steep inclines etc, that they couldn't easily physical adjust from concrete. Though god knows their are plenty of broken up sideswalks in NYC to negotiate. It was more how overwhelming nature can start to feel. A realization that we have strayed so far from the womb that when we find ourselves nearby again, we feel like awkward children. We are not at ease. It takes a while to recall our instincts and start to trust them.

Susannah’s Red Hair: A place of violence in Pelham Bay Park

History: The massacre of Anne Hutchinson and her family in 1643

In August 1643, Anne Hutchinson was massacred along with five of her fifteen children and several servents at her home in what is now Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx by a tribe of Siwony Native Americans. Only Susannah, her ten-year-old daughter was spared because of her red hair, which the Siwony had never seen before. They adopted her into her tribe and named her Autumn Leaf. While the exact location of the massacre is in dispute, legend claims that the massacre occurred near Split Rock or the surrounding area in Pelham Bay Park.


A sketch of an idea I worked on one day in Pelham Bay Park... probably won't continue with the project though I really was interested in the story....

I came across this article and hope to have some time to learn more. It brings to mind the absurd notion of the benevolence
of our gods... and concepts of good and evil as applied to nature outside of humanity.

Astronomers Describe Violent Universe
By SETH BORENSTEIN (AP Science Writer)
From Associated Press
January 11, 2008 6:44 PM EST
WASHINGTON - The deeper astronomers gaze into the cosmos, the more they find it's a bizarre and violent universe. The research findings from this week's annual meeting of U.S. astronomers range from blue orphaned baby stars to menacing "rogue" black holes that roam our galaxy, devouring any planets unlucky enough to be within their limited reach.
"It's an odd universe we live in," said Vanderbilt University astronomer Kelly Holley-Bockelmann. She presented her theory on rogue black holes at the American Astronomical Society's meeting in Austin, Texas, earlier this week.
It should be noted that she's not worried and you shouldn't be either. The odds of one of these black holes swallowing up Earth or the sun or wreaking other havoc is somewhere around 1 in 10 quadrillion in any given year.
"This is the glory of the universe," added J. Craig Wheeler, president of the astronomy association. "What is odd and what is normal is changing."
Just five years ago, astronomers were gazing at a few thousand galaxies where stars formed in a bizarre and violent manner. Now the number is in the millions, thanks to more powerful telescopes and supercomputers to crunch the crucial numbers streaming in from space, said Wheeler, a University of Texas astronomer.
Scientists are finding that not only are they improving their understanding of the basic questions of the universe - such as how did it all start and where is it all going - they also keep stumbling upon unexpected, hard-to-explain cosmic quirks and the potential, but comfortably distant, dangers.
Much of what they keep finding plays out like a stellar version of a violent Quentin Tarantino movie. The violence surrounds and approaches Earth, even though our planet is safe and "in a pretty quiet neighborhood," said Wheeler, author of the book "Cosmic Catastrophes."
One example is an approaching gas cloud discussed at the meeting Friday. The cloud has a mass 1 million times that of the sun. It is 47 quadrillion miles away. But it's heading toward our Milky Way galaxy at 150 miles per second. And when it hits, there will be fireworks that form new stars and "really light up the neighborhood," said astronomer Jay Lockman at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in West Virginia.
But don't worry. It will hit a part of the Milky Way far from Earth and the biggest collision will be 40 million years in the future.
The giant cloud has been known for more than 40 years, but only now have scientists realized how fast it's moving. So fast, Lockman said, that "we can see it sort of plowing up a wave of galactic material in front of it."
When astronomers this week unveiled a giant map of mysterious dark matter in a supercluster of galaxies, they explained that the violence of the cramped-together galaxies is so great that there is now an accepted vocabulary for various types of cosmic brutal behavior.
The gravitational force between the clashing galaxies can cause "slow strangulation," in which crucial gas is gradually removed from the victim galaxy. "Stripping" is a more violent process in which the larger galaxy rips gas from the smaller one. And then there's "harassment," which is a quick fly-by encounter, said astronomer Meghan Gray of the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom.
Gray's presentation essentially showed the victims of galaxy-on-galaxy violence. She and her colleagues are trying to figure out the how the dirty deeds were done.
In the past few days, scientists have unveiled plenty to ooh and aah over:
- Photos of "blue blobs" that astronomers figure are orphaned baby stars. They're called orphans because they were "born in the middle of nowhere" instead of within gas clouds, said Catholic University of America astronomer Duilia F. de Mello.
- A strange quadruplet of four hugging stars, which may eventually help astronomers understand better how stars form.
- A young star surrounded by dust, that may eventually become a planet. It's nicknamed "the moth," because the interaction of star and dust are shaped like one.
- A spiral galaxy with two pairs of arms spinning in opposite directions, like a double pinwheel. It defies what astronomers believe should happen. It is akin to one of those spinning-armed flamingo lawn ornaments, said astronomer Gene Byrd of the University of Alabama.
- The equivalent of post-menopausal stars giving unlikely birth to new planets. Most planets form soon after a sun, but astronomers found two older stars, one at least 400 million years old, with new planets.
"Intellectually and spiritually, if I can use that word with a lower case 's,' it's awe-inspiring," Wheeler said. "It's a great universe."
---

Dec 29th, 2007
These pictures were taken in Forest Park, Queens. A strange park in NYC, in that it is acres of hiking trails and dense wooded areas. But there is the constant reminder of urban surrounding by the garbage hidden in the leaves, broken bottles, lost toys, and misplaced underwear. Every once and a while you happen upon two men enjoying themselves in nature, and with each other.
I love trees, and in winter it is like their bones are revealed, a certain extreme nakedness shows their wonderful architecture. Their branches against a grey sky at times look like veins or a mass of wiring hopelessly entangled. So much beauty if you just look up. Just don't look down sometimes or you'll find yourself entangled in some teenagers lost bra. I'll get around to photographing that later.

I have just done some updating to me older site and more traditional photography site: photozoology
www.photozoology.com
I will be working on updating my www.michellelevante.com site also, and trying to keep up with some new posts.

Here is some text about my favorite tree that grows in Brooklyn:
Tree of Heaven -Ailanthus altissima is a common tree in disturbed urban areas, where it sprouts up just about anywhere, including alleys, sidewalks, parking lots, and streets. Ailanthus altissima is native to Asia, and began its journey west by being introduced to Europe in 1751 by a French Jesuit preist who brought it from Nanking, China to England. The first known specimen was brought into the United States a few decades later by William Hamilton, who planted this species in Philadelphia. A. altissima is considered an "Invasive" species by some. But in reality most of the habitats it invades are places where not many other species can grow. Its only fault may be decreasing the biodiversity of urban weeds; the other species it outcompetes are often non-native themselves. And we are all to blame for this, since the recent success of this species is due in part to the alteration of the landscape by humans.

On Oct 30th at an event for the Artist Collective at Galapagos Art Space, I put together a terarrium installation...
the focal point was a human pelvis and spinal column. I entwined weeds, such as Bitter Sweet Nightshade and thorny vines around the spine. In the pelvis, I place a gourd with a green pepper and the spines from a dead cactus. On the ground were Destroying Angel mushrooms, a poisionous species. In the skull I grew grass. I was wondering if perhaps I had some health code violations placing it in a bar.....