Will The Earth Burn Up In 2012?

There has been much talk of late about the doomsday prediction of December 21, 2012 as reflected in the Mayan long calendar. According to some astronomers, on this day our solar system will intersect with the Galactic Equator which only happens every 26,000 years. Since the Mayan calendar began in 3114 BC, they had never experienced anything like this before. The Mayans called this event the Sacred Tree. This alignment with the center of the galaxy also allows for maximum mass and thus maximum gravity. According to the National Earthquake Information Service of the US Geological Survey, earthquakes have gradually increased from 1 severe quake between 1890 and 1899 to 765 from 2000-2004. Could this be due to our solar systems movement towards this Galactic Equator?... NASA predicts that a terrific solar storm will hit the earth in 2012 which will be 30-50 percent greater than anything before it... A massive solar blast from the sun in 2012 could burn up the earth as could a collision with an asteroid or a comet. There has even been talk of a polar shift which could disrupt the functioning of the entire earth and could change the axis of rotation. Such a shift has taken place in our geologic past and could happen again... This apocalyptic date of December 21, 2012 is also found in Hopi myths, the I-Ching, Aztec writings, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Roman Oracles, writing of Seneca Elders, the chief Shaman of the Cherokee Tribe in NC, and even the writings of Nostradamus. The Russian mathematician Sergey Smelyakov of Khartov University taking the constant Phi (1.6180339), the so called Golden Mean or the Fibonacci sequence, and applying it to solar activity and planetary orbits, found that everything seemed to spiral in on itself on December 21, 2012 implying a time implosion or point of bifurcation. The planet Venus is set to make a transit across the face of the sun on December 21, 2012 which happens very infrequently. It did happen recently, however, on June 8, 2004 which means it will happen again in eight years which is very unusual but predicted by the Mayans. I cannot tell you for certain that the earth will be consumed by fire in 2012 or that there will be a polar shift or severe earthquakes, but I can tell you with certainty that one day in the not too distant future it will be consumed by fire and experience a polar shift and severe earthquakes. I can say that because the word of God says so and it did beginning over 2700 years ago, long before the Mayans or the Aztecs or the Hopi or the Seneca or the I-Ching or Nostradamus. Once before because of its sin the earth was destroyed by water in the Great Flood of Noah's day but the Bible says that the world will be destroyed again, this time by fire. "The present heavens and earth, by His word, are being reserved for fire, kept for the Day of Judgment and the destruction of ungodly men" (2 Peter 3:7).

North American Union Meeting Held

An internal memo from Canada's Foreign Affairs and Internal Trade ministry, obtained by World Net News under the Access to Information Act, documents the agenda at the most recent secret summit meeting of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) in Montebello, Quebec, held on August 20-21, 2007. The central activity of the meeting was to figure out a way to get the American people to swallow the idea of the collaboration leading to the North American Union, and to squelch the growing criticism surrounding it. Present at the meeting were U.S. President George Bush, Mexico's President Felipe Calderon, and Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The SPP consists of 20 working groups plus the attending cabinet officers from each country and the heads of state. Also present were members of the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC), the only participants invited to meet behind closed doors with the SPP bureaucrats. The NACC is a largely secretive advisory council to the SPP consisting of representatives from 30 North American corporations selected by the Chambers of Commerce in the three nations. The NACC issued no press releases disclosing specific recommendations made to them by the SPP trilateral working groups tasked with "integrating" and "harmonizing" administrative rules and regulations into a unified North American format. However, the memo documents that the NACC was urged to launch a public relations campaign to counter growing criticism of the trilateral cooperative that is seen by many as a major step toward the North American Union. "Leaders had a successful meeting with the members of the NACC, which had been launched at the leader's meeting in Cancun in March 2006, to counsel governments on how they might enhance North American competitiveness," the memo begins. As discussion continues, the members of the NACC were urged to "assist in confronting and refuting critics of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America". According to paragraph four of the memo, the public relations theme continued during the meeting. "In closing, all leaders expressed a desire for the NACC to play a role in articulating publicly the benefits of greater collaboration in North America." The memo documents a comment by the U.S. President. "In terms of building public support, President Bush suggested engaging the support of those who had benefited from NAFTA and from North American Integration (including small business owners) to tell their stories and humanize the impressive results." Regarding import safety, the document says, "President Bush underlined the importance of tackling the issue more broadly and showing that governments are ahead of this issue in order to prevent a trade protectionist backlash, especially against China." The memo again reinforces the public relations theme, emphasizing, "NACC members should have a role in communicating the merits of North American collaboration, including by engaging their employees and unions."

VeriChip Marketing To Consumers

VeriChip said on April 22, it will begin pitching its implantable RFID chips directly to consumers in a move that aims to link doctors directly to personal health records. VeriChip said it will launch a direct-to-consumer marketing campaign in South Florida on April 28. The general idea appears to be to woo a bunch of retirees to implant an RFID chip (right) and connect the information with personal health records. VeriChip will pitch its wares through HEARx hearing aid stores in the Palm Beach area. Rest assured the idea of implantable RFID chips will freak a few folks out. However, I see RFID as a key component to personal health records, which are patient controlled medical data repositories. Microsoft (HealthVault resources), Google (Google Health resources) and others have pitched personal health records and the idea makes a lot of sense. The problem: What happens if I’m in a car wreck and can’t tell the doctor my log-in and password? What if my personal health record on a portal doesn’t synch up with a hospital’s IT systems? Will I actively manage my personal health record? Simply put, personal health records (PHRs) have their limitations and an RFID chip could expand their use. It would be a lot easier if I were implanted with an RFID chip that could be read when I pass through the doors of the emergency room. Could this RFID chip be hacked? Possibly. But in real world use an implantable RFID chip used for medical purposes makes a lot of sense to me.

DNA of Newborns used by State

The state of Minnesota has advanced a plan to own the DNA of newborns, preserving it in a warehouse for use in genetic research, experimentation, manipulation, and profiling, according to an advocacy organization seeking to protect the privacy of that individual information. "Citizen DNA is citizen property. The government should be required to ask, not allowed to take," said Twila Brase, president of the Citizens' Council on Health Care, a Minnesota-based organization familiar with the progress in that state. "If this bill becomes law, each year 73,000 newborn citizens will not be protected by the state genetic privacy law. The [state] will take their DNA and unless the parents figure it out, the government will keep it," she said. "Children grow up. Eventually, every citizen will have their DNA owned by state government and available for government to engage in genetic research, experimentation, manipulation, and profiling," she warned. "What good is the state genetic privacy law if government warehousing and analysis of every child's DNA from birth is exempt from its informed consent protections?" In Minnesota, the state's genetic privacy law was challenged by the Health Department, which lost a court battle over the issue. But now the legislation could give the state government by legislative activism what it could not obtain through the judiciary. Brase said the state House voted this week to approve the plan forwarded by the state Senate. "If the Senate accepts the minor amendments adopted by the House without a conference committee, the bill could be sent directly to Gov. [Tim] Pawlenty for his signature." The legislative specifically would exempt warehousing, use and analysis of newborn blood and DNA from the informed consent requirements of the 2006 Minnesota Genetic Privacy Law.

Who’s Contaminating the Skies in the USA

A large local TV Station (KSLA - Shreveport, LA) had the courage to take on chemtrails. This attracted the attention of Los Angeles network affiliate, "KNBC" which aired a report entitled, "Toxic Sky?". In 1993, Dr. Shyh-Ching Lo, senior researcher at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, patented several virulent strains of mycoplasma. He stated in his own patents that they cause chronic fatigue syndrome. The Institute is currently reconstructing the 1918 Spanish Flu, inserting it into contemporary flu strains and enhancing its lethality. The Spanish Flu killed 675,000 Americans in the 1918-1919 interval. Many of the dead were vaccinated soldiers. Anyone born after 1918 has no immunity to the Spanish Flu. According to one credible source, there is a sub rosa project known as 'Cloverleaf' that uses domestic air carriers retrofitted with special tanks to spray civilian populations with a variety of chemicals. This retired government scientist goes on to say that reconstructed versions of the flu could be inserted into vaccines along with a more benign strain of the inoculum in order to slow the progression of its more deadly component. Chemicals in the "chemtrails" reported nationwide over the preceding decade, may assist the viral envelope to fuse with lung cells, guaranteeing ease of penetration and infection. People will pass along the flu to others and then start dropping like flies. This will cause a panic demand for more flu shots, thus accelerating the cycle. Persons not so inoculated will be blamed for spreading the disease. According to Tim White, "The CIA front, Evergreen Air, located at Pinal Air Park in Marana, Arizona is a longtime CIA/NSA secret facility for more than 40 years. This is the prime modification center that modifies a wide range of aircraft types to conduct the covert "chemtrail" spray operations that began in 1998. Prior to this, selected areas of the U.S. had Chemtrail operations to test all the technology employed in these Chemtrail operations and to determine the operating parameters related to aircraft performance envelopes and optimum atmospheric conditions. Once this was accomplished, the nationwide program began and is being conducted under more than one program code name. The two names most often discussed are "Operation Clover Leaf" and "Operation Rain Dance". Within months of the operation over the United States, Chemtrail spray operations began over wide parts of dozens of countries with the most notable exception being China. Some thoughts from Christopher Gussa, "The Herb Doc", about Chemtrails and the "Conspiracy Theory": I live "just down the road" (about 50 miles) from the Pinal Air Park in Tucson/Marana and I have seen these aircraft in action way too much to deny they are doing anything less than spraying away at us! I also have personally heard from our local MDs that their flu business is always up after a major spraying. Yes, It is very, very real and it does major harm to our health.

Satanism Growing Wildly in Rome

In this predominantly Catholic nation the devil is gaining a foothold. "There is a greater openness towards the devil," Rev. Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican's chief exorcist, said. In fact, Rome has been called the most 'satanized' city in Italy. "Satanism and the occult are in fashion," said Father Pedro Barrajón, a professor of theology. There are an estimated 800 satanic cults operating in the country, with more than 600,000 followers. And their numbers are growing. "The devil's diabolical influence is growing in so many areas of our society. He needs to be driven out!" Pastor Silvano Lilli of International Evangelical Church said. Leading the battle to drive the devil out of Italy is 82-year-old Amorth. Amorth, as the Vatican's Chief Exorcist, is the driving force behind the Catholic Church's renewed campaign against the devil. Amorth says "exorcism is God's true miracle" to confronting the devil and his handmaidens. The devil's growing influence has even gotten the attention of the Vatican. Last year it started offering courses to its bishops on exorcisms. "Our bishops need to know how to confront the devil," Barrajón said. "They need to know how an exorcism is conducted and how to help set people free from the influence of the devil." Italians got a taste of the devil's influence a couple of years ago when two teenagers were stabbed, bludgeoned and buried alive here in the woods northwest Milan. Members of a heavy metal band named the Beasts of Satan were convicted in the double murder. One of the victims was allegedly killed because she resembled the Virgin Mary. Many Italians are forsaking priests for magicians, fortune-tellers and faith healers. "The actions of the devil are not just limited to here in Italy- his evil spirit is roaming the earth, tempting people. We are trying to educate the society and families about the dangers of his influence."

Pope Says World Controlled By Few

Pope Benedict XVI warned diplomats at the United Nations on Friday, April 18, that international cooperation needed to solve urgent problems is "in crisis" because decisions rest in the hands of a few powerful nations. While he didn't identify the countries that have a stranglehold on global power, the German pope—just the third pontiff to address the U.N. General Assembly—addressed long-standing Vatican concerns about the struggle to achieve world peace and the development of the poorest regions. On the one hand, he said, collective action by the international community is needed to solve the planet's greatest challenges. On the other, "we experience the obvious paradox of a multilateral consensus that continues to be in crisis because it is still subordinated to the decisions of a few."

DNA Taken From People in Federal Custody

The Bush administration moved forward recently with a program to expand collecting DNA samples from people in federal custody. The Justice Department formally proposed regulations for collecting the samples, a technique that essentially mirrors taking the fingerprints of people arrested for federal offenses, as well as illegal immigrants detained by federal authorities. The government now collects DNA just from felons. DNA, the genetic marker found in hair and blood and other body fluids, can provide a more concrete link to a crime than fingerprints, which often are not left at a crime scene or are difficult to collect. For the new effort to succeed, the samples, most collected by swabbing an inside cheek, have to be entered into the DNA database of the F.B.I. A spokeswoman for the bureau’s laboratory, Ann Todd, said it already had a backlog of 225,000 samples to be processed, a more complex procedure than entering fingerprints. If Justice Department estimates are accurate, work at the laboratory would increase twelvefold, Ms. Todd said. No additional money was provided for the laboratory when Congress authorized the new collection program in 2006.
Some advocates of the program have questioned whether the backlog will hamper it. In addition, the new regulations would give federal agencies discretion not to collect samples if that would tax their resources, further clouding the effectiveness of the program. The Justice Department, which had worked on the regulations since last year, will write a final version after a 30-day comment period that began on Friday. Officials said they expected the collections to begin by Dec. 31. The department has estimated that 1.2 million people, a vast majority of them illegal immigrants who are not criminally charged, could fall under the regulations. That estimate, the department said, was based on the number of people whom federal agencies arrest and statistics from the Homeland Security Department. A spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department, Laura Keehner, said it was discussing with the Justice Department carrying out the regulations, specifically for illegal immigrants. Although advocates for illegal immigrants condemned the DNA collection as an overreach by the government and potentially damaging to detainees or those who have been erroneously arrested, advocates for crime victims praised the program as another tool to catch killers and rapists. Thirteen states collect DNA from people under arrest.

The 1994 ET Event with 62 witnesses

American film maker Randall Nickerson is currently visiting southern Africa to make a documentary that follows up an incident that happened at the Ariel School in Ruwa, Zimbabwe, in 1994, when 62 children aged between eight and 12 reported seeing a UFO and “strange beings” during their morning break. Those children are now young adults scattered around the globe. Nickerson is tracking them down and interviewing them about the experience. “Their stories have not changed at all,” he says. “Not what you would expect if they had made it all up.” So what exactly happened on that day in 1994 at the school in Ruwa just east of Harare? “It was morning break and they were out in the school yard playing,” says Nickerson. “They saw one main silver craft that had four others around it,” says Nickerson. “It came down on a hill beyond the school yard that was out of bounds. The boundary was the edge of the school yard, then it was bush and the hill. “They ran to the edge of the school yard to see what this thing was. They saw this small creature walk around on top of the craft while another came down to check out the children. He was all in black, with a very tight suit. The children said he had big eyes ‘like rugby balls’. “The children had direct eye contact with this creature. There seems to have been some kind of communication with the children about the state of the world — what we are doing to the planet, the destruction we are causing, although not all the children got this message. Some of the children were traumatised, others were excited. The young children were the most traumatised as they were at the front of the group. “They all went screaming back to the teachers. The teachers didn’t believe them at first. But then they went home and told their parents who came to the school and wanted to know what had happened.” Soon afterwards the children were asked to draw pictures of what they had seen. “They did this separately. The drawings were all the same.” A BBC television crew were first on the scene to follow it up. In November 1994, Harvard professor of psychiatry John E. Mack visited the school and filmed interviews with the children. He was assisted by South African producer Nicky Carter who had already made a short documentary on the subject for the SABC. “I had a half-brother at the school,” she says. “He was off sick on the day it happened, but the children told him all about it and he contacted me.” Carter has no doubt the children were telling the truth. “When they were interviewed by Mack with all his professional skills it was clear they were telling the truth — their voice tone, their body language. They were so consistent, they told their stories with such conviction. And they spoke about it in their own language. One child recalled being told by the alien that we should not be so ‘techknowledged’.

Masonic Influence in the EU

The French Federation of Le Droit Humain represented by its president, Michel Payen, met on April 8, 2008 with the president of the European Commission, José-Manuel Barroso, This meeting constitutes a major event regarding the place of Freemasonry in the construction of Europe; this place was underscored not only by the interest and attentiveness that President Barroso showed to the delegation and the time he accorded them, but also by the commitments he made to the values espoused by liberal and adogmatic Freemasonry, its positions and its opinions on subjects of concern. It was the first time that Freemasonry, as such, was able to express itself to such a high level European institution. The delegation received assurances from President Barroso of his attachment to the spirit of "laïcité" and to the principle of separation of religion from the State. The delegation stressed the importance of the Enlightenment in the history of Europe, a dimension to be taken into account at least equally with its religious roots, and certainly more closely tied to the roots of antiquity. Finally, a principle of communication between the liberal and adogmatic Masonic Orders and the services of the European Commission, to be used whenever needed, was decided upon. Thus the French Federation of Le Droit Humain will propose, in the near future, a recommendation concerning the principle of emancipation that ought to form the basis of all European education systems, in direct relation to a recognition of the contribution of the Enlightenment to the common culture of the peoples that compose Europe, and in accordance with the principles of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Cloak of Invisibility Made in Theory

Researchers at Toyama Prefectural University and other institutions announced that they theoretically formulated a "perfect invisible cloak." The invisible cloak generates no reflection or phase delay at all even when an electromagnetic wave passes through it. It was developed with the use of an artificial dielectric material called "left-handed metamaterial," which has a negative refractive index n. It can be said that the researchers created a sort of blueprint of the perfect invisible cloak. It is predicted that the use of left-handed metamaterials makes electromagnetic control devices available. Some examples of such devices are a lens that reflects no light and a lens that can provide a perfect focal point. They are believed to be difficult to produce with the existing materials. The latest development relates to one of these control devices. Here, an invisible cloak refers to a columnar or block object with a void in the core or center, which is designed such that a plane electromagnetic wave with a certain frequency irradiated at this object goes around the void and reaches behind the object. In particular, the object may be called "the perfect visible cloak" when the electromagnetic wavefront becomes planar again after passing through the object and the amplitude and the phase of the resultant plane wave completely coincide with those of the wavefront obtained when there is no object. The cloak is named after the fact that it generates no reflection or phase delay when an electromagnetic wave with a given frequency is irradiated and the view behind the cloak can be seen as it is. Thus, taking into account an electromagnetic wave with a specific frequency, it appears as though anything hidden in the void portion of such an object will disappear together with the invisible cloak.

Prepping Students For Super-Humans

Some day – perhaps sooner than we think – we just might be saying “the transhuman race” instead of “the human race.” As technology marches forward at a dizzying pace, the “human-ness” in human beings is under siege. What will it mean to be human as time goes on? Transhumanism, or the transition phase from the “human” to the “posthuman,” brings with it a host of scientific, religious, technological and philosophical questions. ASU is one of 15 universities worldwide to receive a grant to conduct the Templeton Research Lectures, says Carolyn Forbes, assistant director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict. The theme for the four years is “Facing the Challenges of Transhumanism: Religion, Science and Technology.” This year’s events focus on the acceleration of knowledge and technologies that are rapidly changing the human condition, and exploring new ways for perceiving and analyzing a world that is far more complex than once imagined. ASU is one of 15 universities worldwide to receive a grant to conduct the Templeton Research Lectures, says Carolyn Forbes, assistant director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict. But ASU’s focus is a bit different from that of the other participants, she says. While the primary aim of the Templeton Research Lectures is to promote dialogue and research between the physical, biological and human sciences, “ASU is unique in using transhumanism as a theme to talk about how the changes taking place in biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science – and a host of other inter-related technologies – may affect the evolution of the human species,” Forbes says. History professor Hava Tirosh-Samuelson is the guiding force behind ASU’s Templeton Lectures and the other events organized around the theme of transhumanism. “My interest in transhumanism is part of a larger and deeper commitment to the dialogue of science and religion, which is rooted in the conviction that, historically and conceptually, science and religion are not antagonistic but intertwining cultural forces,” Tirosh-Samuelson says. “The term ‘transhumanism’ signifies a young and still-changing ideology that envisions a new phase for the human species as a result of new scientific discoveries and technological advances, especially in genetic engineering, robotics, informatics and nanotechnology.

Politics and Human Microchips

Ignorance is a silent killer, and it appears that the U.S. government along with Mexico and Canada, may be as stealthy as Jack the Ripper when it comes to the proposed North American Union Free Trade Agreement. That may be a severe assessment, but when it comes to the end of the American dream, people get a little punchy. Lou Dobbs of CNN calls it, "A proposal for an expanded so-called free trade zone from Alaska to the tip of South America." He says it is not a government program, instead it is formed by international corporations who according to some sources, have seen a 45% increase in profits overall in the last five years, while the American workforce has seen a 3% increase overall. "Its a plan from the business elites, the political elites that will cost more American jobs, cost American sovereignty, but it would fulfill the President's father's vision." Dobbs is referring to a period of time in the late 80's and early 90's when George H.W. Bush was in office, and a single world government was touted frequently. While in office, President Bush described plans for his futuristic notion by saying, "It is a big idea; a new world order, where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause." ... Parties involved include the Council on Foreign Relations, a number of politicians and national governments and several big players in international business. I.D. chip implants? A reporter with securityfocus.com, Scott Ganneman, reported in June 2003 that Applied Digital Solutions had designed an RFID tag - called the VeriChip - for people. "Only 11 mm long, it is designed to go under the skin, where it can be read from four feet away. They sell it as a great way to keep track of children, Alzheimer's patients in danger of wandering, and anyone else with a medical disability, but it gives me the creeps. The possibilities are scary."

Japanese Researchers Creating Cyborgs

Researchers at Osaka University in Japan aren't kidding around about cyborgs. They are looking into ways for robotic limbs to be controlled in real-time by the power of thought, and one such method is by performing invasive (or open-skull) surgery to place sensors directly onto the brain. Brain waves measured from outside the skull are read far less accurately than ones measured directly, so the researchers prefer for an electrode sheet to be placed onto the patient's gray matter. It wouldn't require puncturing the brain in any way — the sheet rests atop the central sulcus and allows scientists to record what happens when a subject moves an arm, a leg, a finger and so on. Bafflingly, a huge line of volunteers hasn't formed. Osaka University is hoping to work with patients already scheduled for open-head surgery, though the study currently has four volunteers. Researchers have been able to measure the intended actions of the four based on their brain waves with around 80% accuracy, and this system is the basis of how robotic limbs will be able to be controlled.

The Military Industrial Complex Rules

In 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously warned the country about the "unwarranted influence" of the "military-industrial complex." But back then, only a relative handful of companies did business with the Pentagon. Today, the military-industrial web is everywhere, Nick Turse writes in his new book, The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives. And "it's nothing like the olive-drab outfit of Eisenhower's day: It reaches deeper into American lives and the American psyche than Eisenhower could ever have imagined. The truth is that, at every turn, in countless, not-so-visible ways [our day-to-day dealings are] wrapped up with the military." Back in Eisenhower's day, arms dealers and mega-corporations, such as Lockheed and General Motors, held sway over the corporate side of the military-industrial complex. Companies like these still play an extremely powerful role today, but they are dwarfed by the sheer number of contractors that stretch from coast to coast and across the globe. Looking at the situation in 1970, almost 10 years after Eisenhower's farewell speech, Sidney Lens, a journalist and expert on U.S. militarism, noted that there were 22,000 prime contractors doing business with the U.S. Department of Defense. Today, the number of prime contractors tops 47,000 with subcontractors reaching well over the 100,000 mark, making for one massive conglomerate touching nearly every sector of society, from top computer manufacturer Dell (the 50th-largest DoD contractor in 2006) to oil giant ExxonMobil (the 30th) to package-shipping titan FedEx (the 26th). In fact, the Pentagon payroll is a veritable who's who of the top companies in the world: IBM; Time-Warner; Ford and General Motors; Microsoft; NBC and its parent company, General Electric; Hilton and Marriott; Columbia TriStar Films and its parent company, Sony; Pfizer; Sara Lee; Procter & Gamble; M&M Mars and Hershey; Nestlé; ESPN and its parent company, Walt Disney; Bank of America; and Johnson & Johnson among many other big-name firms. But the difference between now and then isn't only in scale. As this list suggests, Pentagon spending is reaching into previously neglected areas of American life: entertainment, popular consumer brands, sports. This penetration translates into a remarkable variety of forms of interaction with the public.

Device To Translate ET Languages

If we ever make contact with intelligent aliens, we should be able to build a universal translator to communicate with them, according to a linguist and anthropologist in the US. Such a "babelfish", which gets its name from the translating fish in Douglas Adams's book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, would require a much more advanced understanding of language than we currently have. But a first step would be recognising that all languages must have a universal structure, according to Terrence Deacon of the University of California, Berkeley, US... Deacon argues that no matter how abstract a symbol becomes, it is still somehow grounded in physical reality, and that limits the number of relationships it can have with other symbol words. In turn, this defines the grammatical structure that emerges from stringing words together. If that is true, then in the distant future it might be possible to invent a gadget that uses complex software to decode alien languages on the spot, Deacon said. He presented his ideas on Thursday 17 April at the 2008 Astrobiology Science Conference in Santa Clara, California, US.

US to grow new ears, skin for military

Teams of university scientists backed by US government funds hope to grow new skin, ears, muscles and other body tissue for troops injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. The $US250 million ($NZ317 million) effort aims to address the Pentagon's unprecedented challenge of caring for troops returning from the war zones with multiple traumatic injuries, many of which would have been fatal years ago. "We've had just over 900 people, men, some women with amputations of some kind or another since the start of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq," said Ward Casscells, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. Many have also suffered burns, spinal cord injuries and vision loss. "Getting these people up to where they are functioning and reintegrated, employed, able to help their families and be fully participating members of society, this is our task," he said. Their goal is to develop within five years therapies for burn repair, wound healing without scarring, facial reconstruction and limb reconstruction or regeneration. "We're embarking on a new generation of research that's going to redefine the Army and military medicine as we know it today," he told reporters at the Pentagon.

Terrorism As Trigger For New World Order

The prospect that the good old industrial nation state is a shrinking violet might rankle patriotic flag-wavers. But Bobbitt's statistic thrusts home an unsettling question: What does it say about the nation state that it has so often failed to provide, in the words of British statesman Douglas Hurd, "the security, prosperity, and the decent environment which the citizens demand"? Might it be time for something new? In Bobbitt's view, the current wars against terror provide a shrill wake-up call to confront this question. The best way to protect citizens of modern democracies, he claims, is to fundamentally rethink the nation state as the guarantor of the freedoms that terrorists intend to obliterate.

Dark matter found on Earth

Particles of invisible "dark matter" have been detected deep inside a mountain in Italy, a collaboration of Italian and Chinese physicists claims. But others remain sceptical of the result, because other experiments have failed to detect any dark matter at all. On Wednesday 16 April, at a workshop in Venice, Italy, the Dark Matter (DAMA) collaboration announced the results of the 4-year second phase of its experiment. DAMA scientists claimed to see dark matter back in 2003, but some scientists believed the result was a quirk of statistics. Now the evidence is stronger. "We are pretty sure now that this [signal] is not a statistical fluke. What it means is another matter," says Francis Halzen, an astroparticle physicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, US. He spoke to New Scientist after attending the announcement by DAMA project leader Rita Bernabei of the University of Rome, Italy. Astronomers believe our galaxy is awash with particles of dark matter, the invisible, unidentified substance that makes up nearly 90% of the matter in the universe. So far, the existence of dark matter in space has only been determined by its gravitational pull on normal stars and galaxies.

Monitoring Patients with Frequencies

Instead of asking friends "How do you feel?" or doctors examining patients, one day such queries and examinations may be replaced by tiny radio antennas implanted under the skin to act as remote sensors of humans' emotional, physiological state. Scientists at the Hebrew University's applied physics department have discovered a method for remote sensing of people's physiological and emotional state. Their initial results were published last week in the prestigious scientific journal The Physical Review Letters and have aroused much results in physicians and scientists. Their invention has been patented and commercialized by Yissum, HU's technology transfer company. The researchers - Profs. Yuri Feldman and Aharon Agranat with Dr. Alexander Puzenko, Dr. Andreas Caduff and doctoral student Paul Ben-Ishai - believe the discovery theoretically could help help monitor medical patients from afar, evaluate athletic performance, diagnose disease and remotely sense stress levels - which could have significant implications for technology in the biomedical engineering, anti-terror and security technology fields. The key is in the surprising shape of human sweat ducts. The researchers discovered that human skin is structured as an array of minute antennas that operate in the "sub-terahertz" frequency range. This discovery is based on investigations of the internal layers of the skin that were undertaken using a new imaging technique called "optical coherent tomography." Images produced by this technique revealed that the sweat ducts - tubes that lead the sweat from the sweat gland to the surface of the skin - are shaped as tiny coils. Similar helical structures with much larger dimensions have been used widely in as antennas in wireless communication systems. This led the investigators to consider the possibility that sweat ducts could behave like tiny helical antennas as well. In a series of experiments, the team measured the electromagnetic radiation reflected from the palm skin at the frequency range between 75GHz and 110GHz. It was found that the level of the reflected intensity depends strongly on the level of activity of the perspiration system. In particular, it was found that the reflected signal is very different if measured in a subject that was relaxed and if measured in a subject following intense physical activity. In a second set of measurements, they found that during the period of return to the relaxed state, the reflected signal was strongly correlated with changes in the blood pressure and the pulse rate that were measured simultaneously.

Middle East News and Bible Prophecy

These days there is much talk centered upon the future timing of the Russian and Iranian led invasion of Israel, foretold in the Bible prophecies of Ezekiel 38 and 39. Due to the newsworthy events that are presently occurring, whereby Russian and Iranian relationships are ever strengthening, prophecy buffs are appropriately attempting with god-speed, to connect the prophetic dots. For those of you who are not familiar with today’s most prevalent prophetic news pervading the Christian and Jewish scholarly communities, you should study Ezekiel 38 and 39, with the understanding that it alludes to a nuclear equipped Russian – Iranian led confederacy, which forms to invade the nation of Israel in the end times. Although scholars are somewhat split as to who all the other enjoining coalition member nations are, they all tend to agree that no explicit reference is made to the inclusion of Palestinians, Syrians, Egyptians, Lebanese, or Jordanians. Furthermore Saudi Arabians apparently abstain from enlisting themselves in the fight alongside Russia, Iran, Turkey, and the additional consortia of nations. The absence of these above listed predominately Arab populations tends to perplex the scholars, often causing them to postulate, rather than promulgate as to the reasons why. Bless their souls, but in their zeal have the prophecy buffs managed to put the colloquial cart before the proverbial horse? Certainly the events described in Ezekiel 38 and 39 are slated to arrive soon, but are they indeed scheduled next? There exists a litany of questions that should be appropriately answered before any scholar dare flip the pages of the prophetic calendar forward to the date of this Goliath Ezekiel event. Newspaper exegesis makes for sensational reporting, but has no inherent ability to accelerate the final fulfillment of a Bible prophecy. Before we list the flurry of questions, let’s ponder the most obvious one, which is; why are the Palestinians, and their Arab neighbors from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan, not declared by Ezekiel to be enlisted members in the Russian – Iranian led coalition? These are the nations that have proven to be the most observable opponents of the Jewish State, since its inception in 1948. It is through much of their Arab soil, that Russia, Iran, and their cohorts intend to travel in order to invade Israel.

Soros: Euro Cannot Replace The Dollar

The euro cannot replace the dollar as the world’s main reserve currency, and a system of two reserve currencies would be unstable, billionaire investor George Soros said on Thursday. “I don’t think the euro can replace the dollar, and a system with two major reserve currencies is not a stable system,” Soros said. The euro has surged to record highs against the US currency as the US economy is seen going into recession. “What we have now is a period of instability and heightened uncertainty,” Soros said. He was in Brussels to promote his latest book, ‘The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means’. It was still a time of wealth destruction, Soros said, and he advised investors to find ways to preserve capital until it was clear how the authorities and markets would respond. He said the main lesson from the current financial market turmoil was the need to control credit and not just money supply, and added that markets were not yet out of trouble. “There is a commodities bubble still in the growth phase while other bubbles are being deflated,” Soros said.

Strange striped currents in our oceans

It's amazing that nobody has spotted it before. Superimposed on every ocean on the planet there is a striped pattern of currents. Yet what causes them is a mystery. Between 1992 and 2003, Peter Niiler of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California, and colleagues collected data from more than 10,000 drifting ocean buoys, which they tracked with satellites. As expected, the buoys’ movements were influenced mainly by known global currents, which are driven by wind and by differences in the temperature and salinity of seawater. But when the team analysed the data, it emerged that something else had been subtly influencing the buoys’ paths. It turned out that there were alternating strips of water running eastward or westward, a bit like parallel moving sidewalks. Niiler recalls his reaction: “My God, we’ve never seen these before.” Satellite measurements showed that the interfaces between adjacent currents were alternately associated with slight peaks and troughs in sea level. When the team looked at this variation globally, they found that the 150-kilometre-wide bands covered pretty much every ocean. To confirm that the currents were real, the team set out to measure them directly in two regions in the eastern Pacific. “Their existence is so surprising that we had to prove first that they are not an artefact of satellite data,” says Nikolai Maximenko of the University of Hawaii. Sure enough, they recorded currents flowing in opposite directions at around 40 metres per hour. This is slower than most previously known ocean currents, which may explain why the striped flows have remained undiscovered until now. “Only a very lazy canoeist would notice the effect,” says Maximenko. The flows extend right down to the ocean floor, and the boundaries between currents are alternately associated with peaks and troughs in temperature as well as sea level. This suggests that they influence processes such as nutrient and energy flow around the oceans, but this has yet to be proven, says Niiler. What causes the striped flows remains a puzzle. “They are a fascinating new aspect to the ocean’s circulation, but the jury is still out on the mechanisms leading to their formation,” says Geoff Vallis of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University. He points out that similar patterns exist in atmospheric flows on other planets, for example, Jupiter. Whether similar effects are at play here is unclear, he says.

Prehistoric Civilization Built By Giants

According to Inca legend, Lake Titicaca was revered as the location where the god Viracocha [Quetzalcoatl] created a race of giants and later, the first humans. The Inca maintained that the giants built Tiahuanaco and also many other cities and structures in the area. However, due to their great evil, Viracocha destroyed the giants in a world flood. This legend is still believed by the local Indian inhabitants to this day. The geoglyphs covering this area also exhibit extreme age. In areas where ice age sediment surrounding hills and mountains has been eroded by rain and wind, patterns carved into the bedrock underneath the sediment has been exposed, suggesting their creation sometime before the last glacial melt near the end of the Pleistocene era, c. 13,000 years ago. Early researchers speculated that Inca and pre-Inca farming techniques produced the anomalous patterns on the ground around Lake Titicaca, especially in the horizontal terracing found surrounding the lake itself. However, the altitude of the Bolivian high plain presents several problems with a farming related explanation for the majority of the geoglyphs in the region. At an average of 12,500 feet above sea level, most of the shapes and patterns are located in areas that have not been conducive for growing crops for the last 10,000 years. Their creation would have required an immense workforce laboring for hundreds of years in such thin air that altitude sickness was a real danger... literally, a super human effort. Additionally, recent high-resolution satellite images suggest that most of the features are characteristic of religious and ritualistic forms of pre-Incan art. They may even represent a sophisticated yet unknown form of communication.

A 'brain cap' may warn us of mistakes

The possibility that car drivers could one day wear a special cap to warn when they are showing dangerous lapses in concentration is raised today. Scientists have found that it is possible to tell if a person is likely to make a mistake up to half a minute before they are even aware they have made it. The discovery suggests that one day employees could monitor the brain of a person doing a monotonous but important task, such as monitoring nuclear plant safety, driving or piloting a plane, to improve safety. Human errors, according to Dr Tom Eichele of the University of Bergen, Dr Stefan Debener of the MRC Institute of Hearing Research, Southampton, and colleagues in Germany and the US, are not solely the result of momentary fluctuations in concentration or brain activity, as had previously been suspected, but due to the brain itself doing the equivalent of losing its focus on doing a task: it reveals a drift in attention. To detect this drift, the researchers used a kind of scanner method, functional magnetic resonance imaging, to study blood flow in the brain of subjects engaged in a flanker task, a classic psychology test in which a subject has to say if he can see, for example, a certain shape when surrounded by distracting shapes. The team reports in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that it found that a set of regions in the brain displayed altered activity up to 30 seconds before a subject made a mistake. These areas include a part of the brain's default mode network, located in a posterior midline cortex, which showed a gradual increase in activity as the brain became fatigued by a repetitive task. The authors noted that, simultaneously, brain activity also decreased in frontal brain regions associated with maintaining effort while performing a task before a mistake occurred. Once the subjects committed and detected their errors, they re-engaged in the task, and the activity pattern reset, according to the team, which is now studying what this pattern does in other circumstances, and how the new analysis method developed could be used in clinical research. As for using the method to monitor workers, that would require a cheap, lightweight and mobile alternative to the bulky scanners used for the experiment, says Dr Eichele. However, it might be possible to find corresponding patterns of electrical activity that can be picked up by scalp electrodes, a more old fashioned method called EEG (electro-encephalography). "In the EEG literature there are some reports that found error-preceding activity, but so far not longer than a couple of hundred milliseconds (thousandths) of a second or so ahead," says Dr Eichele, whose team is seeing if this simpler method can detect errors. There are already commercial brain caps in use for mind control of computer games - Emotiv Systems, from San Francisco, has developed EEG caps that use the electrical signals from a player's brain to control the on-screen action.

UFOs: Why No "Open Contact"?

Assuming that UFOs represent extraterrestrial visitors (whether humanoid aliens in spacecraft or something stranger), there's no denying the secretive way in which the phenomenon has unfolded since the dawn of the "modern" UFO era in 1947. Strident debunkers have seized on the "ufonauts'" seeming desire to remain unseen as evidence that they don't exist--and maintain that studying evidence that might suggest the contrary can only be a waste of resources. Although I think the debunking argument is steeped in anthropocentric baggage, it's a fair enough question, at least in principle: Why would aliens go to the trouble of crossing interstellar distances if they possessed no interest in revealing themselves? There are several possible answers, none of them particularly comforting. 1.) We're being observed as part of some long-term anthropological study. In this scenario, occasional run-ins with UFOs and their occupants are purely accidental. The aliens rely on a screen of plausible deniability, lurking where least expected in order to further their scientific aims and taking considerable effort to leave the human population unsuspecting. 2.) We're being prepared, however patiently, for contact at some later time. Maybe the aliens are engaged in a psychosocial campaign designed to inoculate us to the presence of "others," thus ensuring we make for interesting company when we're eventually deemed ready for open dialogue. 3.) On the other hand, perhaps we're being harvested like so many unsuspecting cattle. Much of the "abduction" literature is concerned with the alleged taking of reproductive material and the creation of human-alien "hybrid" offspring. Author David Jacobs, for one, sees a distinctly malevolent agenda afoot. In his book "The Threat," he describes what amounts to an impending takeover by aliens who've been stealthily acclimating themselves to our planet. In my opinion, Jacobs' perspective is severely limited; nevertheless, it provides an engagingly paranoid synthesis that deserves attention if only to be intelligently refuted. 4.) The aliens are here for purposes that have little or nothing to do with us. Earth could be a way-station or even a vacation spot. Similarly, the aliens could be avoiding open contact for much the same reason humans avoid "open contact" with chimpanzees: we have nothing of value to gain that can't be deduced from passive observation. 5.) In the same spirit as number two (above), the aliens might desire contact but consider our social paradigms too fragile to accommodate a meaningful exchange of ideas. If our own history is any indication, abrupt encounters between cultures of differing technological prowess end in disaster; the aliens could be entirely aware of such a risk, deciding to monitor our social evolution until we're up for the challenge. The problem with the above scenarios is the unwelcome (and often deliberately ignored) complexity of the UFO phenomenon. We seem to be dealing with an intelligence every bit as "paranormal" as it is "technological.

Propelling RFD For Tracking Technology

A Los Angeles start-up says it has developed a way to dramatically expand the range of a popular wireless tracking technology, opening up many new applications for low-cost identification tags. Closely held Mojix Inc. says its enhancements to a technology known as RFID -- for radio frequency identification -- sharply reduce the cost of setting up wireless networks that can cover entire warehouses, stores, distribution centers and yards where heavy equipment is stored. Such networks can be used to quickly locate goods and track their movements without having to be close to a scanning device. Networks with similar capabilities today typically require sophisticated RFID tags that cost anywhere from around $4 to more than $1,000 each, said John Fontanella, an analyst at AMR Research. Mojix says its hardware uses simpler tags that cost as little as 10 cents each. "I think this could have significant impact," said Michael Liard, an analyst at ABI research, of Mojix's technology. RFID, a more-sophisticated successor to bar codes, is used for applications such as preventing shoplifting of garments in stores and handling payments at bridge toll gates. Applying identification tags to pallets and boxes of goods has been touted as a better way to track inventories at retailers, manufacturers and other companies. But adoption has been slower than some companies expected, because of conversion costs and other issues. The least-expensive form of the technology uses what the industry calls "passive" RFID tags, which have no power source or means to transmit data on their own. They are activated by radio signals from a device called a reader, which allows the tags to answer by sending information such as product identification numbers. Readers for passive tags typically have a maximum transmission range of about 30 feet, said Ramin Sadr, Mojix's chief executive. Partly as a result, companies often only deploy RFID networks in limited locations, such has around loading docks so they can track goods entering and leaving warehouses. But in the late 1980s, Mr. Sadr and other Mojix engineers worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on technology used in long-range communications to spacecraft. They attempted to apply some of those concepts to RFID. The system they developed uses a grid of low-cost transmitters to provide radio energy to nearby RFID tags, which respond by sending signals to an unusually sensitive central receiver, Mr. Sadr said. Each of the company's receivers can manage signals from 512 transmitters -- each as far as 600 feet away, Mr. Sadr said. The resulting coverage area can be up to 250,000 square feet, or about 100 times the coverage area of previous systems based on conventional tag readers, he added. Mojix isn't disclosing exact pricing, but estimates that a network based on its technology will cost 20% to 25% less than other typical RFID systems as well as offer more-sophisticated capabilities. Mojix isn't likely to lack for competition. Ronny Haraldsvik, vice president of marketing and industry relations at Alien Technology Corp., a maker of RFID tags and readers in Morgan Hill, Calif., said Mojix appears to be targeting long-range applications now served by companies that use active RFID tags. "They are very entrenched," he said.

DHS Terror Funds Creating Police Grid

CEDAP awardees have included local FEMA offices, fire and emergency units, and local and state police. The grantees’ own websites glorify the use of the CEDAP equipment to do everything from fighting crime to rescuing kittens from trees. The equipment was appropriated by Congress to the DHS to stop terrorism, yet there is little evidence that any of this equipment has been used to find one terrorist or prevent one single terrorist attack. It’s all done to stop red light runners, tail gaters, dead beat dads, and local dope sellers, all problems that could be solved with some good old detective work and a court order. Millions of dollars in used equipment, sometimes military equipment, does not need to be funded to the states just to get cats out of trees and sniff out marijuana bags at the local high school.

Biometric Traveler ID System

The Homeland Security Department today published notice it will begin testing an International Registered Traveler program at three airports starting June 10 to expedite airport clearances for prescreened travelers. Under the program, travelers who are registered in the program may bypass passport control when returning to the United States. Instead, they may verify their identities at automated kiosks at the Federal Inspection Services area of each airport. The program will use fingerprint biometric technology for the verifications. At the kiosk, the traveler will insert into a reader either their machine-readable passport or machine-readable permanent-resident card. Then, the traveler must provide fingerprints electronically, pose for a digital photograph and respond to questions on a touch-screen computer. Once the procedures are completed, the traveler receives a receipt enabling passage through exit control.

ETs & DNA Synthesis: Is Seti Dangerous?

The idea that the passive SETI can be dangerous is not new. F. Hoyle suggested in the novel "Andromeda” a scheme of alien attack through SETI signals. According to the plot, astronomers got alien signal, which contains a description of a computer and a computer program for it. This machine creates a description of the genetic code of substance. On the basis of this code was crated intelligent creature - Andromeda girl, which, working together with the computer, creating advanced technology for the military. First, people do not trust it, but then they see that it makes useful ideas. However, the main characters realize that the computer acts hostile to human civilization and he destroys the computer, and the girl dies. This scenario is fiction, because most scientists do not believe in the possibility of a strong AI, and, secondly, because we do not have the technology that enables synthesize of new living organism only on its genetic code. Or at least, we have not until recently. Current technology of sequencing and DNA synthesis, as well as progress in developing a code of DNA modified with another set of the alphabet, indicate that in 10 years the task of re-establishing living being sent from space on the computer codes would be feasible. The researchers emphasize however, that the research is still in its initial stages, and as they "sail in unsheltered water," it will take some time before the full significance of the research is understood and its technological potential is fully evaluated.

Human and Animal Hybrids: Chimeras

On Nov. 19, 2004 the Washington Post published an astonishing article that told us, among other things, "In Minnesota, pigs are being born with human blood in their veins. In Nevada, there are sheep whose livers and hearts are largely human. In California, mice peer from their cages with human brain cells firing inside their skulls." Less than a year later (June 27, 2005), Scientific American followed up with a more in-depth story on the same issue, human-animal chimeras, individuals who are composed of two genetically distinct types of cells, e.g. human and mouse): "In Greek mythology, the chimera was a monster that combined the parts of a goat, a lion and a serpent. With such a namesake, laboratory-bred chimeras may sound like a bad idea born of pure scientific hubris. Yet they may be unavoidable if stem cells are ever to be realized as therapies. Researchers will need to study how stem cells behave and react to chemical cues inside the body. Unless they are to do those risky first experiments in humans, they will need the freedom to test in animals and thereby make chimeras."

Experts say Bigfoot Is In S.C

Something apparently attacked Bob and Dixie Rawson’s van in the early morning hours of Feb. 28. The Rawsons live about two miles southeast of downtown Bishopville. They woke up Feb. 28 to find the front fender of their 2002 Dodge Grand Caravan chewed up, bite marks through the front grill, wheels on both sides bitten and metal crumpled in a wad. There was also blood on the front and sides of the car. While there has been no “official” sighting of the Lizard Man since July 1988, the Rawsons’ evidence has created a stir, not just locally but nationwide. After the Rawsons contacted a Columbia TV station, the story was aired on CNN. In March, filmmaker and self-proclaimed Bigfoot hunter Tom Biscardi and his five-man team visited Bishopville to discover the truth of the Lee County incident. Equipped with thermal imagers and high-tech cameras, Biscardi conducted initial forensic tests and sent the evidence to California. The team also planned to use its cameras overnight in search of the creature. The initial evidence found by Biscardi’s team is compelling, he said. “You’ve got the real deal here.” If you want to read a lot more about Bigfoot or over 40 different creatures of Cryptozoology, please visit the website: Unknown Creatures, at: http://www.unknown-creatures.com

Designing Babies From Genes

In the United States, this combination of reproductive and genetic medicine -- what one scientist has dubbed "reprogenetics" -- remains largely unregulated, but Britain has a formal agency, the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA), that must approve all requests for PGD. In July 2007, after considerable deliberation, the HFEA approved the procedure for both families. The concern was not about the use of PGD to avoid genetic disease, since embryo screening for serious disorders is commonplace now on both sides of the Atlantic. What troubled the HFEA was the fact that an embryo carrying the cancer mutation could go on to live for 40 or 50 years before ever developing cancer, and there was a chance it might never develop. Did this warrant selecting and discarding embryos? To its critics, the HFEA, in approving this request, crossed a bright line separating legitimate medical genetics from the quest for "the perfect baby." Like it or not, that decision is a sign of things to come.

Mammoth Cloaning Within 2 Years

The mammoth species has been extinct since the Ice Age. Tests on Lyuba showed she was fed on milk and was three to four months old when she died 37,000 years ago in what is now the Yamalo-Nenetsk region in Russia's Arctic. Scientists were excited by the find because, although her shaggy coat was gone, her skin was intact, protecting her internal organs from contamination by modern-day microbes. Tikhonov, who heads the Zoological Museum in Russia's second city of St Petersburg, said Lyuba's contribution to science could be far bigger than thought up to now. "If we take samples of Lyuba's tissues by biopsy, without unfreezing her, there is a big chance we can obtain promising results in genetics and microbiology," he said by telephone from St Petersburg. "I believe the genetic map (of the mammoth) will be decoded within a year or two.

The New Genetically Modified Humans

For more than 100 years, athletes have striven to complete the marathon in less than two hours. Now scientists believe that advances in genetics could lead to a runner completing the 26.22mile course in 90 minutes. After a series of laboratory breakthroughs they claim that bio-engineering techniques could be used to create a superhuman long-distance runner. The scientists claim that modifying the human genome could, in theory, increase the size of an athlete’s heart, boost the number of red blood cells supplying the body with oxygen and increase the endurance of specific muscles by up to 10%.

Santo Daime: The New Religion

Wherever I look, that is where I am. I can see everything from every angle, all at the same time. In fact, I feel I am everywhere. Outside, in the forest, the thrum of frogs and cicadas drowns out the sound of shrieking monkeys. Below me, the floor is shimmering, vanishing in waves like a spent mirage. Behind, I feel a cold vibration on my neck and sense a growling malevolence. I turn and see a red door, bulging at the hinges. Overcome with dread, I push hard to keep it closed, and all the while I feel a horrible nausea. When will this end, I am thinking. And, with sweat running down my forehead, how can I survive it? Welcome to the Church of Santo Daime, one of the fastest growing religions in the world. Its mixture of Christianity, South American shamanism and African animism is proving irresistible to thousands of new believers across the globe. But it is its central sacrament, ayahuasca, a powerful hallucinogenic brew made from rainforest plants - a brew that I have just drunk - that makes the Church so appealing to some yet so controversial to others. Santo Daime groups believe that ayahuasca, or Daime, as they call it, is a manifestation of Jesus Christ that brings them closer to God. Their visions, sometimes terrifying, sometimes blissful, help them to make sense of themselves, their universe and their god. Theirs is a young church - less than 80 years old - but in recent times it has spread throughout South America to the US and Canada, the Far East and Australasia, across mainland Europe and on to the UK. According to followers I have interviewed, the number of worshippers in Britain is in the mid-hundreds, operating in London, Devon, Cornwall, Northern Ireland, Wales and Yorkshire. But these numbers are growing in spite of an obvious hurdle - the active ingredient in ayahuasca, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), is a Class A drug. Irina Shutova, 41, an engineer from North London, says she attends secret Santo Daime ceremonies in nearby Kentish Town. “I have been going for 2 years,” she says. “I found out about them from a very cl