Random Thought of the Day

Here's a pleasant little pick-me-up.

Neil Pasricha, author of The Book of Awesome and the award-winning blog, 1000 Awesome Things shares his thoughts on living a happy and fulfilling life. The key, he says, are the three As of awesome: Attitude, Awareness, and Authenticity. A positive attitude, facilitated by a child-like awareness of all things awesome, and combined with authentic life experiences - those that are true to your heart and your dreams - is the secret to happiness.

In other words, stay positive, appreciate the little things, and stay true to yourself.

Random Thought of the Day

Craig Venter recently announced that his team of scientists have created the very first synthetic lifeforms. Using a computer code and a few jars of chemicals, Venter and his researchers have created a brand new species of bacteria.

He says that with this breakthrough, we have gained an intimate understanding of the complexities of life which will soon allow us to invent life as we desire.

"We have a program with Exxon Mobile to try and develop new strains of algae [seaweed] that can efficiently capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or from concentrated sources [such as the recent oil spill in the Gulf], to make new hydrocarbons that can go into their refineries to make normal gasoline and diesel fuel out of CO2." -Craig Venter, May 2010

See the whole presentation here: Craig Venter unveils "synthetic life"

Whoa, I have just seen into my future...

This video was AWESOME!

Well, you might not enjoy learning about the history of ornithology as much as I do, but this short talk is still quite comical.

Actually, in the next 30 years, I will probably end up becoming this man...making jokes about phallic fungi, over-sized testes, and promiscuous female birds...
Yes, definitely me in 30 years.

Also, Mr. Birkhead talks about an example of how this "frivolous field" of ornithology actually has "real-world" significance! Just for you, Mom!



Linked from TED.com

WHAAAAAAT?????

Holy CRAP!!! I cannot believe that this is possible!!!! This man is amazing. I can't believe it. Completely blowing my mind right now.

Mathemagic. Yup. Math-magic. It sounds pretty cheesy, but OH MY GOODNESS, I am in awe.

Random Thought of the Day

Here's an absolutely mind-blowing TED lecture presented by an exploration expert. Bill Stone, deep cave explorer, was commissioned by NASA to design a mission to Europa in search of extra-terrestrial life. He used his extensive experience exploring the unknown depths of our own planet to design a robot capable of autonomously exploring, documenting, and analyzing the unknown depths of the Europan oceans. But then he goes on to propose a truly radical idea. Bill Stone wants to build a fueling station in space! And not only that, but he claims that he can do it in the next 7 years using less than one trillion dollars!!!

This man is crazy, but might actually revolutionize space travel in the next 20 years.

The oldest living things in the world

Can you guess the age of the world's oldest living organism?

2,000 years old? Nope.

4,000 years old? Not even close.

10,000 years old? Still not close.

100,000 years old? Warmer, but no.

The oldest living thing on Earth is more than 500,000 years old. That's half a MILLION years old!!!

Artist, philosopher and biologist Rachel Sussman has spent the last five years traveling the globe in search of the world's oldest living things. She sees this project as an opportunity for humans to reconsider our idea of time. Watching her presentation from the TED Global 2010 conference has helped me fully comprehend the insignificance of this little blip we call humanity. Again, I am left to wonder why humans continue to pretend to be superior to all other life on Earth. I don't understand how we ever got this idea in our heads. Clearly we just don't look around enough anymore.

Take a moment to look around you every once in a while...






Find more inspiring and mind-blowing talks at www.TED.com

Random Thought of the Day

So, I am sitting here prepping for two different labs focusing on the identification of marine invertebrates and I just had to share some fun information!

Did you know that in some parts of the deep ocean, more than 80% of organisms are bioluminescent?!

That's a crazy high percentage, isn't it?! There's this chica, Edith Widder

who has dedicated her life to studying marine invertebrates of the deep oceans. She invented this brilliant, yet simple method to observe animals of the deep without scaring them off with bright lights and loud engines. With this new method she has discovered tons of new species! Check it out!



This is a video from TED Talks, of course. Once again, gotta love TED.

Random Thought of the Day

How to live to be 100+

Apparently, there is a great deal of research surrounding centenarians.
P.S. A centenarian is an individual who has lived for 100 years or more. Now you know!

Most of this centenarian research is in regards to diet, exercise and general lifestyle habits.

However...

That's not all that scientists are researching. Apparently love has a lot to do with it. Human contact and interaction play an important role in whether you'll reach 60 or 100.

Check it out. Here's a TED Talk on this very same subject!



In addition to this TED Talk, I also started thinking about longevity when a friend told me he was on a paleo diet. What is a paleo diet, you ask? Well, basically, it means eating, exercising and living like...a caveman.

Yup. The caveman diet. It actually sounds very appealing and I'm halfway there anyway. Learn more about it HERE. I would recommend muting the sound, FYI. Silly music.

The title of my blog is too long, therefore Blogger shortens it to "Things Robert Thinks About in his Spa..."

I would think of many glorious things if I were thinking them in a spa. I am quite certain of that. I am also quite certain that a spa would be a very nice place to think. Sadly, I do not own a spa, and therefore, I do very little thinking there. If this blog were indeed a blog about the Things I Think About in my Spa, I think the Things would be few and the blog would be short.

Fortunately for you, dear reader, this blog is not about the Things I Think About in my Spa, and should therefore be filled with much more for you to dearly read. In fact, the title of my blog normally reads Things Robert Thinks About in his Spare Time. That Robert is me, the spare time is mine, and those thoughts and things are now yours. Well, mine originally, dear reader, but as you read dearly, they will become yours. Or perhaps ours. For they are still mine, but I am giving them to you, making them yours. Or do we share them making them ours? I cannot decide which.

Which brings me to my first thought, which I think of often. Ideas. I do a lot of thinking about ideas. Ideas are new thoughts. I could think about them for hours, but for now I will just share this thought; an Idea is the only product valuable to man that increases in quality and quantity when it is shared.

This thought was shared with me by Paul Rommer who spoke at a TED conference and mentioned the sharing of ideas as a way to create growth in a city or a nation. TED's motto is, in fact, "Ideas Worth Spreading." I really like this idea. I want to share it with you!

TED Talks: Ideas worth spreading.

Share TED with a friend today!