Forget Where You Put Your Car Keys? Meditation Can Help With That

So there's a study cited in the New York Times, saying that meditation helps the brain by improving memory. I'm all for that, especially in these days of information overload. We're inundated by news, tweets, Facebooks, text messages, and blog posts. It's enough to make some people turn off and tune out so they can get away from it all for awhile.

The study found that people who meditated for about a half hour a day (I know: Where do you find that kind of time?) had a higher amount of gray matter in their hippocampus. That's the part of the brain that, among other things, helps us remember things like the contents of the grocery list, the names of our immediate family members, and who's the leader of the country in which we're currently living. (Notice I didn't include the phone numbers of anybody we know: No one remembers those anymore because you can just press a button on your cell phone.)

But maybe, just maybe, if we meditate for just this short time during a day, we can remember things like that, so we're not doing silly things like tying string round one finger and then forgetting what the string represents. (Actually, I'm not sure that people do that sort of thing anymore, either. They probably just write an electronic note to themselves on their cell phone.)

Actually, the other problem with this meditation business is that you have to have a quiet place. You're probably not going to be productive at focusing on deep breathing and deep silence if your family, friends, or roommates have Jersey Shore or American Idol blaring next door. So that's a challenge as well — finding a place where you can zone out, removing the sounds of the outside world so you can focus inward. That's why you see some people seated on the lawn at 5:30 in the morning. The lawn mowers aren't going that early, and neither are most people.

I'm willing to try it, though. I'd love to be able to remember lots of things — as well as forget others. That's the last benefit of meditation: being able to focus on the things that are really important in your life.

This Hotel Is Rubbish -- No, Really

It takes a village to build a hotel, does it? Apparently, for that's how much recycled junk has been used to construct a new hotel in Madrid.

Now, your average-sized village wouldn't take too long to generate 12 tons of junk (and that's how much it took), but you get the idea.

Actually, what is the idea? The hotel is the brainchild of H.A. Shult, a German sculptor and performance artist known for his rubbish-inspired exhibits. So maybe this is just another of his stunts. (Among other noteworthy events, he once hired a pilot to crash a small plane into the garbage dump on Staten Island.)

Still, this is a hotel we're talking about. The doors are already open. You can certainly go in, although you can't stay the night — the five double rooms are already booked. And, apparently, the hotel won't be taking reservations after the four days for which those rooms are already booked.

So it's an object lesson: The world is full of rubbish, and we are living in it (and by it he means rubbish, not the world — unless he means that the world is rubbish, in which case it is the thing that it is. — got it?).

Actually, this guy should be commended because he says that the real purpose of his hotel stunt is to call attention to the giant mountain of rubbish floating in the world's oceans and routinely washing up onto the world's beaches. Now that's something we all need to address.

Check out the video here.

Sherlock Holmes to Return, Officially

Surely Guy Ritchie can make some sort of claim for this.

The director perhaps more famously known as Madonna's ex was in charge of the 2010 big-budget film version of the story of England's most famous detective and his doctor sidekick. Robert Downey, Jr., and Jude Law were Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson in the film, which made oodles of money despite some really harsh reviews. (A sequel is in the works.)

That was by no means the most original incarnation of the famous resident of 221B Baker Street, although the rough-and-tumble, lock-picking, street fighter performance that Downey turned in reminded me much more of the character that leaps off the pages of the four Holmes novels and 56 Holmes short stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle than did the likes of Basil Rathbone or Jeremy Brett (as amazing as the latter was).

But anyway, on to the latest announcement. The estate of Conan Doyle has given its consent for a new Sherlock Holmes novel to be written. This is big news in the realm of Holmesiana because the last novel written by Conan Doyle himself, The Valley of Fear, hit the newsstands and bookstore shelves in 1915.

Since Conan Doyle famously "killed off" Sherlock Holmes (in "The Final Problem") and even more famously brought him back (in "The Empty House"), interest in new stories featuring the amazingly intelligent detective have appeared far and wide, in language after language. However, no book, short story, TV show, comic book, film, or any other medium has had imprimatur from those associated with the person who knew him best — Conan Doyle himself.

That has now changed. The approved author is Anthony Horowitz, perhaps most famous for writing a series of stories about Alex Rider, a teenage spy, and for the TV show Foyle's War. Tellingly, he has also written for TV's Agatha Christie Mysteries.

No further details on the new book have been released — other than the fact that the planned released date is in September 2011. We'll just have to wait to discover the title and the plot. Revenge of the Giant Rat of Sumatra, anyone?

Starbucks: No Words to Describe the New Bigger Offering

You had to know it was coming, what with McDonald's getting all "We can outdo you folks from Seattle any day with our low-price designer coffee menu items." Still, that's a lot of coffee.

Starbucks will be offering a massive 31-ounce coffee drink size known as Trenta. Yep, say it fives times fast.

Trenta indeed. This is no ordinary 24-ounce Venti we're talking about. No, this is a guaranteed-to-send-you-to-the-bathroom-more-quickly effort by the venerable Seattle coffee company to reassert itself on top of the bean mountain, as it were. That's a cold drink, though, as in iced coffee or iced tea (all the more quickly to need the bathroom will thee be). Hot drink? Why would they do that? Would anyone really order a 32-ounce hot drink?

Well, why not? That's probably the mantra behind this latest size explosion anyway. Americans in 14 states will be able to procure one of these liquid behemoths. In fact, if you live in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, or Texas, you can get yours right away. Californians have to wait until February 1. The rest of the country will have to wait even more. Some things are worth waiting for, eh? We'll see. It's not exactly a Big Gulp, but it's getting there.

There's also the matter of the logo, which is conspicuously lacking things like words. Starbucks says it wants to diversify; fair enough, but why remove the company name as well?

Change in Horoscope: It's in the Stars

I'm quite excited, actually, and I'd like to share this excitement with you.

OK, here's some info up front: I trust science more than I trust pseudoscience. For starters, the prefix pseudo suggests something bogus to me for some reason. Is it science or isn't it? As examples of this I list astronomy and astrology. The former is science; the latter is pseudoscience. We can prove that the planets revolve around the Sun. We cannot prove that the alignment of stars at someone's birth influences that person's destiny, life, or preference of television shows.

Now that that disclaimer is out of the way, we can move on to the latest news, which is that my horoscope has changed.

Yep, I used to be a Gemini (birthday toward the end of May). Now, I'm a Taurus (birthday still toward the end of May).

Just like that.

No warning or anything, although I did begin to wonder at times when the events in my life didn't quite match what the horoscope said would happen. Was I born under the wrong sign? Did I choose the wrong family or friends? Was I following the wrong sports teams? How about my career, love life, choice in reading material?

See, all this time I've thought I was a Gemini, so I've been of two minds about a lot of things. "Yes, I can see your point. However, I can see your point." Remind you of Tevye? "You are also right."

But now, I'm a bull. Apparently, I have been all along and just didn't know it. (This scenario is just begging for a nurture-versus-nature comment, but I'm not going to go there, mostly because I can't be of two minds about it.)

So, Taurus. What am I now? Well, a survey of sources lists these as traits for Taurus:

• affectionate
• practical
• patient
• stubborn
• careful with money.

That's great. I'll get to work on that right away, while being practical and patient. That's cool. I can do that. And I won't be too stubborn about it. After all, I'll be having to live with just one opinion on the matter.

Check this out for the work setting: "These folks handle tasks steadily and confidently, rarely complaining or getting into a tizzy about minor setbacks. Employers love the Taurus individual, because they are dependable, work hard, stay late if necessary, and never complain."

Wow, I should have been a Taurus more often in the past. Maybe I was. Maybe that explains why I have occasionally dropped some china that my spouse, friend, or family really didn't want to see broken.

"But wait," you say. "How do we know about this monumental shift in the night sky's hold on our imaginations?"

Simple math, really. Seems a Minnesota astronomer has come forward with some pretty fancy calculations that prove that Earth has shifted on its axis enough during the past 3,000 years to have moved us ever so slightly away from the zodiacal starts in the sky — enough to move astronomical "jurisdictions" by as much as a month.

The new "windows" are these:

Capricorn: Jan. 20-Feb. 16

Aquarius: Feb. 16-March 11

Pisces: March 11-April 18

Aries: April 18-May 13

Taurus: May 13-June 21

Gemini: June 21-July 20

Cancer: July 20-Aug. 10

Leo: Aug. 10-Sept. 16

Virgo: Sept. 16-Oct. 30

Libra: Oct. 30-Nov. 23

Scorpio: Nov. 23-Nov. 29

Ophiuchus: Nov. 29-Dec. 17

Sagittarius: Dec. 17-Jan. 20

Where did we get the zodiac in the first place? Well, most historians and scientists place that one at the feet of the ancient Babylonians, who knew a thing or two about math, science, and fighting wars. They had this thing about the number 13, though: they liked it — so much so that they included a 13th zodiac sign, Ophicuhus, in their ancient descriptions of the night sky's relation to their lives. However, when they were passing their teachings on to future generations, they left out that 13th one, for the symmetry of the thing. (It helps with the math, too: Have you ever tried dividing 365 by 13? It just doesn't work.) The constellation is still there; it's just the lost tribe now.

So there you go — new zodiac dates. Learn them. Love them. Deal with them. I've started already.

One last question, though: Shouldn't someone have foreseen this?

What's Behind the Mona Lisa? Reality

Well, this Mona Lisa business continues. This update has nothing to do with Dan Brown.

Just last year, an art historian announced that he had discovered the numbers 7 and 2 written on the bridge in the background of Leonardo's most famous painting. That announcement would have certainly sent many conspiracy theorists scurrying for their codebooks, convinced of the enormity of importance of two numbers signifying … what?

Now, another art historian has taken that one step further and connected the two numbers to an existing bridge. (What? No secret society? Well, it depends on how you look at it — perhaps.)

Carla Glori, the most recent art historian, has announced her conclusion that the 7 and 2 are part of a year — 1472, to be exact. Glori is convinced that the bridge in the background of the painting is actually the bridge in Bobbio, Piacenza, which was nearly destroyed by flooding in — you guessed it, 1472.

So Leonardo incorporated a real bridge into the background of a portrait that he painted inside, during a number of sittings. But hey, he might have gone outside in between sittings (maybe even leaving his subject sitting patiently in the studio) and added the landscape. After all, he wouldn't have wanted the background to be blank. And that background probably wasn't pasted in there in a day, either.

You'd think as well that the numbers 1 and 4 would be still hidden among the brushstrokes. We have not, as of yet, heard of such a discovery, nor do experts agree on who exactly is smiling that enigmatic smile in the painting. Is is Lisa del Giocondo? Is it Leonardo's imagining of himself in female form? Who knows? Many people care.

Music Gives Your Brain a Natural High

Who needs heavy drugs when you can listen to music?

That's one conclusion that could be drawn from a reading of a recent study written up in Nature Neuroscience. The study found that listening to music — specifically experiencing the anticipation of hearing music that a person really likes — can make that person's dopamine emissions go off the charts and really do scientific things like fill your striatum with good vibrations internally while processing the music you're hearing externally, not to mention flooding the limbic system with oh-so-positive emotions — the result being that the person feels really, really good, without ingesting anything other than oxygen.

The study also found that dopamine levels rose for up to 15 seconds before the specific point of maximum emission, so it was the before and the during. (Makes you wonder whether there was a bit of post-emission depression during the after.) And the researchers found that dopamine levels rose in one part of the striatum before and another part of the striatum during — nothing like sharing the wealth of experience.

Now, the study volunteers listened to a wide range of music, but all of that music was instrumental. So, we can't say for certain whether dopamine levels spike during the nth listening to Enter Sandman, Your Cheatin' Heart, or Rock Around the Clock.

However, two pieces of music that the volunteers did listen to were Claire de Lune, by Debussy, and the 2nd movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. (Personally, my dopamine levels spike during that entire 2nd movement of the Ninth, and it has nothing to do with A Clockwork Orange.)

So there's the answer, next time you're feeling a bit down. Just listen to your favorite bit of music again and prepare to let the dopamine flood in.

Cut the K-9 Program? No way? Why Not?

It's always the animals that get the most sympathy.

People go on holiday and leave their pets behind. People leave their dogs in a hot car, windows up, for much too long. Yes, those are mistakes that pet-owners should not make. But those pet-owners don't get people throwing money at them to make them stop misbehaving.

Such is the case with a recent cost-cutting program in Pennsylvania. See, the police officials in Jefferson Hills, near Pittsburgh, had a funding problem. They didn't have anymore money, so they needed to trim the budget a bit. They didn't want to lay off police officers or scrimp on their uniforms, computers, or weapons. No, what they did was cut the canine program.

Residents of Jefferson Hills responded by banding together and raising money, in an attempt to bring back the dog. It's just one dog, see, and his name is Fritz. Fritz and his handler rode together in a patrol car. Among other activities, they visited schools and talked to students about abstaining from doing drugs.

That's all well and good, but the canine program had an annual pricetag of $7,000. That's not much in the grand scheme of things, but the handler who traveled with Fritz was paid as much as $30,000 extra for his efforts. So the total savings was $37,000.

Undeterred, a convenience store on-the-spot created a "Fritz Bone," a picture of — you guessed it — a dog bone. People have so far bought about 600 of the Fritz Bones, which cost one dollar each. There's $600. Where will the extra tens of thousands of dollars come from?

Would these people have been so up in arms if the cost-cutting measures had included fewer police or fewer guns? Certainly not. Yet cut the canine program and a grass-roots fundraising operation springs up.

What's so special about Fritz? Yes, it's important to teach kids about the dangers of doing drugs. Yes, it's important for laws to be enforced and officers to be protected and human rights not to be violated. All of that can be done by people.

The Panda Cow: Why Have We Bothered?

Have we already gone too far with our genetic engineering?

Sure, it's all well and good to try to make sure that people don't die of dread diseases, but I think I have to draw the line at the panda cow.

Yep, it's a cow that looks like a panda (not the other way round — that would be worse). It was born in the wilds of northern Colorado, to a farmer who makes a living rearing tiny animals. The farmer counts mini cattle and a smallish kangaroo among his possessions — along with Ben.

Ben is the cow — a Lowline Angus, to be precise — and Ben was genetically engineered. Check out the photo. Little Ben really does look like a panda, with the white stripe round his lower body and his white face punctuated by black hair round the eyes.

Why do this? Well, the farmer isn't after fame and fortune, really, although he would gladly take the estimated $30,000 that such a cow would bring in, if someone was keen enough to buy such a thing.

I guess we can take comfort that, according to research scientists, only 24 such animals exist in the world. That's probably a good number. A total of 24,000 might be a bit much, as certainly 240,000 would be. The novelty would wear off, for a start. Then there's the confusion of teaching children what cows look like and what pandas look like. Usually, there's a difference. (It's sort of the same with fire engines nowadays — many of those are no longer fire engine red but are a sort of lime green.)

I feel fairly certain that the farmer would take the money if it were offered to him. But why are scientists doing this sort of thing? This kind of genetic engineering seems to have no obvious external benefit; any internal benefits are no evident or are being kept very quiet. Is it for the same reason that people climb Mount Everest: "Because it was there"? If that is the case, then that's not good enough.

Pandas are bears. Cows are not. Enough said.