Dirty Pictures | Full Documentary | Alexander Shulgin | Ann Shulgin

Dirty Pictures | Full Documentary | Alexander Shulgin | Ann Shulgin | Ted Shulgin | Bob Seager

https://youtu.be/aZLkAMDO5dI

 

Explore the mind of Alexander Shulgin, the genius behind MDMA's synthesis, more commonly known as Ecstasy. This riveting documentary dives into the heart of psychedelic research, merging chemistry, neuroscience, and philosophy to question the untapped potentials of the human mind.

2010 American Documentary: Psychedelic Science Unveiled

The film presents an intimate look at Alexander Shulgin's pioneering work, his synthesis of over 200 psychedelic compounds, including MDMA, and his profound influence on psychoactive drug research. The narrative is enriched by contributions from Ann and Ted Shulgin, continuing the family's legacy in exploring psychedelic substances, with additional insights from experts like pharmacologist William Fantegrossi. 

Directed by Etienne Sauret, this documentary not only celebrates Shulgin's scientific achievements but also navigates the complexities of his role as a controversial figure in the realm of psychedelic studies. Nominated for the 2010 SXSW Grand Jury Award in Documentary Feature, 'Dirty Pictures' offers a rare glimpse into Shulgin's laboratory and his challenges, underscoring the documentary's deep exploration of science, society, and the quest for understanding the human psyche.

This documentary is a must-watch for anyone fascinated by the intersection of science and consciousness, offering an unparalleled insight into the life and work of one of the most influential figures in psychedelic research.

The controversy surrounding psychedelic scientific research hinges on a delicate balance between groundbreaking potential and societal apprehension. At the heart of this debate is the transformative power of psychedelics to alter human consciousness, offering unprecedented insights into the mind, potential therapeutic applications for mental health conditions, and a deeper understanding of our cognitive processes. However, this exploration comes with challenges, notably the stigma and legal constraints rooted in decades of prohibition and negative public perception. 

Director: Etienne Sauret

Stars: Alexander Shulgin, Ann Shulgin, Ted Shulgin, Bob Seager, David Nichols, William Fantegrossi.

Willie Nelson - Are You Sure

  

Willie Nelson - Are You Sure

Look around you

Look down the bar from you

At the faces that you see

Are you sure this is where you want to be?

These are your friends

But are they real friends?

Do they love you as much as me?

Are you sure this is where you want to be?

https://youtu.be/Mk4llZw_Zj0

92-year-Old Sprinter’s Muscles Baffle Scientists, Resemble Those In Their 20s

 

Her secret, if she has one, is neither a miracle supplement nor a hidden training formula. It is consistency, joy and the refusal to surrender to stillness.

The 92-year-old wonder with muscle cells of sprinters in their 20s

By Olivier Acuña Barba • Published: 24 Aug 2025 • 

Emma Maria Mazzenga is 92 years of age but has the muscle cells of someone in their 20s Credit: Federazione Italiana di Atletica Leggera

 

Emma Maria Mazzenga has the world wondering how she does it, and scientists studying her muscles, nerves, and mitochondria, the cell powerhouse, to gain a better understanding of how she’s able to keep running at 92 and beating her own records.

She’s simply amazing. Emma dislocated her shoulder during a race in Germany a dozen years ago because she threw herself ahead of a competitor to win the race. “The woman next to me was about to overtake me,” Mazzenga said. She was 79 at the time. “Now, Mazzenga, who lives in Padua, Italy, is running out of competition,” wrote the Washington Post in a special report about her. “At 5-foot-1, she’s an elite sprinter with four age-group world records to her name — and very few opponents to race against.” Last year, Mazzenga broke the outdoor 200-metre world record for women over 90 with a time of 51.47 seconds. A month later, she broke her own record by a second.

The US influential news outlet said that Mazzenga seems to possess cardiorespiratory fitness of someone in their 50s, and her muscle mitochondria function as well as a healthy 20-year-old, researchers studying her have said. Marta Colosio, a postdoctoral fellow at Marquette University and the first author of the case study, told the Washington Post she has not found another 90-year-old who can compare to Mazzenga. “She’s ageing, but she can do things that at 91, people can’t do.”

Mazzenga said “all hell broke loose” when the elderly sprinter broke the indoor 200-metre world record for her age group last January with a time of 54.47. “I ended up in the newspapers, something which had never happened before.” Scientists reached out to her, asking to study her. In the lab, researchers used a needle to collect a piece of muscle the size of a pencil eraser from Mazzenga’s quadriceps, recalled Chris Sundberg, a co-lead of the study on Mazzenga and the director of the Integrative Muscle Physiology and Energetics Laboratory at Marquette University. Under a microscope, Mazzenga’s muscle proved to be a mosaic of both the expected and extraordinary. Her fast-twitch muscle fibres, which are associated with speed, resembled those of a healthy 70-year-old. The truly fantastic thing came next. Mazzenga’s slow-twitch muscle fibres, which are associated with endurance activities, looked like those of a 20-year-old, as did the blood flow and nerve pathways to her muscles.

Mazzenga’s advice for other older athletes: Know your limits. Meet with your doctor first to ensure you are fit to run. Then, stay consistent and run multiple times a week. By studying elite older athletes, researchers can learn more about what’s possible as we age, said Sundberg.

 

  

  https://leadership.ng/92-year-old-sprinters-muscles-baffle-scientists-esemble-those-in-their-20s/

92-year-Old Sprinter’s Muscles Baffle Scientists, Resemble Those In Their 20s

Dr. Dean Ornish Tribute to Swami Satchidananda, July 2014

Swami Satchidananda, the founder of Integral Yoga,® is one of the most revered Yoga masters of our time. 

Regarded by many as an apostle of peace, Swami Satchidananda serves as an example of the teachings of Yoga and its goal of Self-realization. 

 His teachings included Hatha Yoga, Yoga philosophy, and interfaith ideas.

Dr. Dean Ornish Tribute to Swami Satchidananda, July 2014

Swami Satchidananda

In honor of the 100th birth anniversary of Sri Swami Satchidananda, Dr. Dean Ornish offers a tribute to his mentor and talks about his role in the development of his groundbreaking medical research and program.

https://youtu.be/vQWY136twrE

5 Ways To Improve Your Breathing with James Nestor

 

5 Ways To Improve Your Breathing with James Nestor

https://youtu.be/f6yAY1oZUOA

James Nestor believes we're all breathing wrong. Here he breaks down 5 ways to transform your breathing, from increasing your lung capacity to stopping breathing through your mouth.

Order your copy of his book Breath here: https://amzn.to/34EElbw

There is nothing more essential to our health and wellbeing than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat 25,000 times a day.

Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences.

In Breath, journalist James Nestor travels the world to discover the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. Modern research is showing us that making even slight adjustments to the way we inhale and exhale can: - jump-start athletic performance - rejuvenate internal organs - halt snoring, allergies, asthma and autoimmune disease, and even straighten scoliotic spines None of this should be possible, and yet it is.

Drawing on thousands of years of ancient wisdom and cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry and human physiology, Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head. You will never breathe the same again. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe to the Penguin channel: http://po.st/SubscribePenguinYouTube

Follow us here: Twitter | http://www.twitter.com/penguinukbooks

Website | http://www.penguin.co.uk

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Facebook | http://www.facebook.com/penguinbooks

Drinking Alcohol is bad for your health

 

If you have three or more alcoholic drinks in a week, you’re putting your health at risk, according to a new report from the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and Addiction. Now the CCSA is proposing an update to Canada's low-risk drinking guidelines. https://tgam.ca/3cMKuqy

In Defense of Food | Michael Pollan | Talks at Google

In Defense of Food | Michael Pollan

https://youtu.be/I-t-7lTw6mA

Michael Pollan visits Google's Mountain View, CA, headquarters to discuss his book, "In Defense of Food." This talk took place on March 4, 2008, as part of the Authors@Google series.

Consciousness and psychedelics | Peter Sjostedt-H | TEDxTruro

 

https://youtu.be/tV8PSevhd_M

 

Philosopher of mind Peter Sjöstedt-H discusses the hidden impact psychedelics have had on philosophy and asks if such extreme, altered modes of mind could help give us answers to some of the big questions facing the philosophers and scientists of today. 

Peter is an Anglo-Scandinavian philosopher of mind and author. 

He lives in West Cornwall and is engaged in his PhD with the University of Exeter, where he also teaches philosophy modules and writing skills. 

Peter is the inspiration behind the inhuman philosopher Marvel Superhero, Karnak. 

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx 

VEGAN SPEECH

 

https://youtu.be/Z3u7hXpOm58

Vegetarian fights back against vegan

 

https://youtu.be/Qhz4l53hNtU

https://www.youtube.com/c/EarthlingEdChannel

Dr Gabor Maté

 

Gabor Maté’s book: In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts

https://youtu.be/0uRGiP8l6P8

CREDIT: Speaker: Dr Gabor Maté Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsRF... Website: https://drgabormate.com/

Is Coffee Healthy with James Hoffman and Professor Tim Spector

Is Coffee Healthy with James Hoffman and Professor Tim Spector

https://youtu.be/XO-7irGCaTA

Coffee’s earliest consumption dates back millennia when the tribesmen of Ethiopia used its ground-up berries to help aid concentration during prayer. Arriving in Europe in the 17th century, Coffee quickly began to replace beer and wine as a favourite breakfast drink. In the 20th century, coffee was blamed for high blood pressure and heart attacks, and more recently linked to a rising epidemic of poor sleep. None of this has prevented coffee’s relentless rise. Over 2 billion cups of the stuff are drunk each day.

So, is coffee a guilty treat as many of us suspect? Or is it a health drink feeding your good gut bacteria? In this episode, Jonathan speaks with James Hoffmann and Tim Spector to find out. They discuss how coffee affects your gut bacteria, your hormones and your heart, whether decaffeinated coffee is healthy, and discover some of coffee’s most surprising side effects – which could come in handy if you find yourself in the jungle. James Hoffmann is a leading coffee expert and author of the World Atlas of Coffee and co-founder & chairman of the Square Mile Coffee Roasters. Tim Spector is a co-founder at ZOE and one of the top 100 most cited scientists in the world. If you want to uncover the right foods for your body, head to joinzoe.com/podcast and get 10% off your personalized nutrition program. Timecodes: 00:00 - Intro 00:09 - Topic introduction 01:51 - Quickfire questions 04:48 - What is coffee and why are we willing to spend money on it? 05:18 - Views on coffee 09:12 - Health properties of coffee 11:49 - How is coffee made? 16:19 - Quantities of caffeine in beverages 18:11 - How important is fermentation for coffee flavor? 19:22 - What does the fermentation stage look like? 22:19 - Fiber & coffee 27:14 - Effects of coffee 28:25 - How much is too much coffee? 30:26 - What time is the best to drink coffee? 35:07 - What is decaf and is it safe? 38:59 - Does James drink decaf? 39:47 - Is decaf as healthy as caffeinated coffee? 41:16 - Does coffee quality matter? 42:31 - James' coffee preference 44:02 - Health side effects of coffee 46:45 - Is it healthy to mix coffee with milk? 49:33 - James' opinion on coffee with milk 51:35 - Summary 53:58 - Instagram question: Does coffee dehydrate you? 54:21 - Goodbyes 54:38 - Outro Episode transcripts are available here: https://joinzoe.com/learn/category/nu... Follow James: https://www.instagram.com/jimseven/ Follow Tim: https://twitter.com/timspector Follow ZOE on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zoe/ This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions.

Lunch, Not Landfill: Longevity Diet Tips From The Blue Zones

Eating To Break 100: Longevity Diet Tips From The Blue Zones

npr.org

The centenarians living in Blue Zones aren't drinking Ensure or eating chocolate ice cream. Instead, many are drinking wine, and all are eating beans. But living to 100 isn't just about diet.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2015/04/11/398325030/eating-to-break-100-longevity-diet-tips-from-the-blue-zones


Want to live to be 100? 

It's tempting to think that with enough omega-3s, kale and blueberries, you could eat your way there.
But one of the key takeaways from a new book on how to eat and live like "the world's healthiest people" is that longevity is not just about food.

The people who live in the Blue Zones — five regions in Europe, Latin America, Asia and the U.S. researchers have identified as having the highest concentrations of centenarians in the world — they move their bodies a lot. 

They have social circles that reinforce healthy behaviors. 

They take time to de-stress. 

They're part of communities, often religious ones.

And they're committed to their families.

Eat Plants And Prosper: For Longevity, Go Easy On The Meat, Study Says

Nuts For Longevity: Daily Handful Is Linked To Longer Life


But what they put in their mouths, how much and when is worth a close look, too. And that's why Dan Buettner, a National Geographic explorer and author who struck out on a quest in 2000 to find the lifestyle secrets to longevity, has written a follow up to his original book on the subject, The Blue Zones. The new book, called The Blue Zones Solution, is aimed at Americans, and is mostly about eating.


Why should we pay attention to what the people in the relatively isolated Blue Zone communities eat? Because, as Buettner writes, their more traditional diets harken back to an era before we Americans were inundated with greasy fast food and sugar. And to qualify as a Blue Zone, these communities also have to be largely free of afflictions like heart disease, obesity, cancer and diabetes. So clearly they're doing something right.

Gianluca Colla/Courtesy of Blue Zones

David McLain/Courtesy of Blue Zones

Gianluca Colla/Courtesy of Blue Zones

Gianluca Colla/Courtesy of Blue Zones

Gianluca Colla/Courtesy of Blue Zones

Gianluca Colla/Courtesy of Blue Zones

David McLain/Courtesy of Blue Zones



You can get the backstory in this excerpt of the original book, which was published in 2008. But in a nutshell, Buettner in 2004 rounded up a bunch of anthropologists, demographers, epidemiologists and other researchers to travel around the world to study communities with surprisingly high percentages of centenarians. He and the scientists interviewed hundreds of people who'd made it to age 100 about how they lived, then did a lot of number crunching to figure out what they had in common.

For Mind And Body: Study Finds Mediterranean Diet Boosts Both


A year after that book was published, the team announced they'd narrowed it down to five places that met all their criteria. They gave them official Blue Zone status: Ikaria, Greece; Okinawa, Japan; Ogliastra Region, Sardinia; Loma Linda, Calif.; and Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica.


In the new book, which was released April 7, Buettner distills the researchers' findings on what all the Blue Zones share when it comes to their diet.

Here's taste:

Stop eating when your stomach is 80 percent full to avoid weight gain.

Eat the smallest meal of the day in the late afternoon or evening.

Eat mostly plants, especially beans.

And eat meat rarely, in small portions of 3 to 4 ounces.

Blue Zoners eat portions this size just five times a month, on average.

Drink alcohol moderately and regularly, i.e. 1-2 glasses a day.


The book also features "top longevity foods" from each Blue Zone, some of which we found pretty intriguing.



For recipes from the Blue Zones with the ingredients above, check out the web site. And for more photos from the Blue Zones, head to National Geographic.

Today is World Obesity Day.

Today is #WorldObesityDay.

Worldwide obesity has nearly tripled since 1975.

Most of the World's population live in countries where overweight & obesity kills more people than underweight.

OBESITY IS PREVENTABLE and TREATABLE.

http://bit.ly/387Ssm3

Researchers find a western-style diet can impair brain function

Researchers find a western-style diet can impair brain function
After a week on a high fat, high added sugar diet, volunteers scored worse on memory tests

Volunteers were given a western-style diet featuring generous amounts of Belgian waffles. Photograph: jopstock/Getty Images


Consuming a western diet for as little as one week can subtly impair brain function and encourage slim and otherwise healthy young people to overeat, scientists claim.

Researchers found that after seven days on a high fat, high added sugar diet, volunteers in their 20s scored worse on memory tests and found junk food more desirable immediately after they had finished a meal.

The finding suggests that a western diet makes it harder for people to regulate their appetite, and points to disruption in a brain region called the hippocampus as the possible cause.

“After a week on a western-style diet, palatable food such as snacks and chocolate becomes more desirable when you are full,” said Richard Stevenson, a professor of psychology at Macquarie University in Sydney. “This will make it harder to resist, leading you to eat more, which in turn generates more damage to the hippocampus and a vicious cycle of overeating.”


Previous work in animals has shown that junk food impairs the hippocampus, a brain region involved in memory and appetite control. It is unclear why, but one idea is that the hippocampus normally blocks or weakens memories about food when we are full, so looking at a cake does not flood the mind with memories of how nice cake can be. “When the hippocampus functions less efficiently, you do get this flood of memories, and so food is more appealing,” Stevenson said.

To investigate how the western diet affects humans, the scientists recruited 110 lean and healthy students, aged 20 to 23, who generally ate a good diet. Half were randomly assigned to a control group who ate their normal diet for a week. The other half were put on a high energy western-style diet, which featured a generous intake of Belgian waffles and fast food.

At the start and end of the week, the volunteers ate breakfast in the lab. Before and after the meal, they completed word memory tests and scored a range of high-sugar foods, such as Coco Pops, Frosties and Froot Loops, accordi

ng to how much they wanted and then liked the foods on eating them.




“The more desirable people find the palatable food when full, following the western-style diet, the more impaired they were on the test of hippocampal function,” Stevenson said. The finding suggests that disruption of the hippocampus may underpin both, he added.




Stevenson believes that in time governments will come under pressure to impose restrictions on processed food, much as they did to deter smoking. “Demonstrating that processed foods can lead to subtle cognitive impairments that affect appetite and serve to promote overeating in otherwise healthy young people should be a worrying finding for everyone,” he said. The work is published in Royal Society Open Science.




In the longer term, eating a western-style diet contributes to obesity and diabetes, both of which have been linked to declines in brain performance and the risk of developing dementia. “The new thinking here is the realisation that a western-style diet may be generating initial and fairly subtle cognitive impairments, that undermine the control of appetite which gradually opens the way for all of these other effects down the track,” Stevenson said.




Rachel Batterham, professor of obesity, diabetes and endocrinology at University College London, who was not involved in the study, said it was one of the first to investigate whether the western diet impairs memory and appetite control in humans.




“Understanding the impact of a western diet on brain function is a matter of urgency given the current food climate,” she said. “This research has provided data to support detrimental effects on both memory and appetite control after just one week of an energy-dense diet and may suggest a link between poor diet and impairment of the hippocampus, a key memory and appetite-associated brain region. The mechanisms at work remain to be elucidated and will require further research with the application of more sophisticated neuroimaging methods.”






Ian Sample
@iansample

Guardian Science editor | Author of Massive, shortlisted Royal Society Science Book Prize.

theguardian.com/profile/iansam…

https://twitter.com/iansample
Food for thought: the smart way to better brain health



https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/feb/19/researchers-find-a-western-style-diet-can-impair-brain-function

Researchers find a western-style diet can impair brain function

 https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/feb/19/researchers-find-a-western-style-diet-can-impair-brain-function?CMP=share_btn_tw

  

"The destination of life is this eternal moment." 

     — Alan Watts