Medical Meditation: Say Om Before Surgery

In my work as a cardiovascular surgeon, I use the most sophisticated tools of modern medicine to separate patients from their diseased hearts and replace these organs with healthy ones. While my training was in the science of the Western world, I also rely heavily on an ancient Eastern technique–meditation–to help my patients prepare for surgery and to steer them gently toward recovery.

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NASA’s Next Mission: Mars, Titan or Comet?

You can think of NASA’s Discovery program as a sort of outer-space American Idol: every few years the agency invites scientists to propose unmanned planetary missions. The projects have to address some sort of fundamental science question, and they have to be relatively cheap to pull off — say, half a billion dollars or so

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Religion: Jerry Falwell Spreads the Word

Six miles high, flying through the midnight sky in his white, Israeli-made jet, the inexhaustible Reverend Jerry Falwell was on his way to Boston, scheduled to appear the following morning on a television show. During the trip, however, an urgent telephone message arrived: there was a suicide emergency at Falwell’s center for alcoholics in Lynchburg, Va

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Undeterred by Japan, Earthquake-Prone Indonesia Pursues Nuclear Power

Rising alarm at the spread of radiation throughout Japan’s water supply has not deterred one of its major trading partners from going ahead with its nuclear ambitions. Indonesia’s National Nuclear Energy Agency, also known as Batan, announced on Monday that it had narrowed down the list of bidders for a feasibility study it plans to conduct for two nuclear reactors.

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Ahmadinejad: Iran ready for nuclear cooperation

Iran’s hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad struck a rare conciliatory note Thursday, saying that the Islamic republic was ready for nuclear cooperation with Western powers. “We welcome the exchange of fuel, technical cooperation and construction of power plants and reactors and we are prepared to cooperate (in those areas),” he said.

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