Western Science Blogs

Alchemy is a medieval chemical science that was interested in transforming base metals into gold and other precious metals.  Is it science, magic or art? I think it’s all three. Isaac Newton wrote over a million words of alchemical notes over his lifetime  during his study of gravity and laws of motion.  In terms of art, both alchemists and artists are fascinated by the mystery of transformation using different modalities and mediums.  Alchemy has also been a science that has been shrouded in magic and secrecy based on its pursuit of transformation.  Alchemists regarded their dreams and visions tor guidance in perfecting their art and recorded their information using mysterious symbols instead of words.  These symbols were then used as powerful tools for changing states of consciousness. The idea of non-action is explained in the Tao Te Ching.  It is through a genuine path of effortless doing or action without action that we can achi...

Albert Einstein discovered that subatomic particles are actually vibrational waves that are the fundamental building blocks of matter.  If we are made up of these waves of energy, can we distinguish between good or bad vibrations?  We have all had the experience of being in a physical space where we felt a negative vibe about the place.  What about being at a concert and feeling a sense of euphoria when listening to the music?  There is certainly a distinction we can feel between something that has a good energy compared to the heaviness of something with a bad energy. Consider a time when you were feeling sick.  There is a quality of very low energy within the body.  Even your mind seems to be working slowly as it feels depressed and stuck like quick sand.  Other times when you were feeling joyous about a happy event in your life, the energy level in your body seemed to be overflowing and plentiful.  Your body felt light and buoyant!  ...

There have been many improvements in our understanding of cancer.  However, we still have not figured out the exact causes of cancer.  Although we understand the basic mechanism in which the disease operates, there are many pieces of the puzzle that need to be solved.  Some scientists think that cancer may be caused by a specific cocktail of environmental factors, genetics and cell mutations in combination with an individual's unique makeup. The increase in sophisticated treatments includes immunotherapy which focuses on harnessing the immune system from within to fight the disease.  Chemoimmunotherapy attaches chemotherapy drugs to antibodies that are specific for cancer cells.  The antibody then delivers the drug directly to cancer cells without harming the normal cells, reducing the toxicity of chemotherapy.  As the survival rate for cancer patients continues to grow in the next decade, we are still clutching on to the hope for a miracle cure. ...

Living systems are composed of things that exhibit characteristics of life such as growth, movement, reproduction and response to stimuli.  Energy is required by living systems to grow and maintain homeostasis.  Examples of living systems include animals, plants and humans.  Non living systems do not have the capacity to adapt to their environment and are made of non living materials.   The key criteria that make up a living system are pattern of organization, structure and life process.  All three criteria are interdependent and inseparable parts of the phenomenon of life.  Furthermore, to find out whether a particular system Is alive, all we need to do is find out whether it’s pattern of organization is that of an autopoetic network.

Organized chaos can be described as the process of gaining desirable outcomes through a state of disorder.  This might reveal a hidden natural order that governs all living things, even when the environment seems chaotic.  If we think of the principles of yin and yang, we see that there is always an element of both within each other.  Therefore, chaos resides in order and order resides within chaos.  Organized chaos provides an environment for unpredictability and ultimately, creativity.  The lack of a system of rigid order results in numerous creative possibilities and outcomes.  Chaos can be seen as an environment of freedom that provides a breeding ground for systems of natural order to arise A fractal system is a complex, non-linear interactive system which has the ability to adapt to a changing environment.  Such systems are characterized by the potential for self organization, existing in a non-equilibrium environment.  Chan...

Avogadro's mole is simply a unit of measurement.  The concept of a mole as an amount of material allows you to relate the weight of the material to the number of molecules in that weight.  The mole also allows the equal combination of molecules belonging to two compounds.  The use of the mole in chemistry is usually in reference to a large number of things such as atoms and allows scientists to measure and observe these amounts in a quantitative way.

E=mc2 affects me in many ways.  The equation comes into play every time I'm doing something, whether it's eating, walking, breathing or driving a car.  In other words, the effects of E=mc2 are revealed whenever energy is consumed in any kind of activity.  The thing that blows me away is that energy and mass are interchangeable in Einstein's equation. Therefore, everything can be considered energy and what we perceive as solid objects or mass is actually a false perception.  Mass is actually energy in a lower vibrational rate. “Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.”                                                                          ...