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Showing posts from March, 2013

World Poetry Day 2013

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THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE (William Butler Yeats - 1865-1939) I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:  Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,And evening full of the linnet's wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart's core.   Read more poems for peace from the UNESCO website. Check out the UNESCO World Poetry Day website.

UNESCO and the science of mind.

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I have been involved in a discussion  on the UNESCO's Friends group on Linked In of the biology of mind and the need for an international venue for discussion of the policy implications of the emerging science and its technological repercussions. Scientists have been illuminating the incredible plasticity of the brain. That plasticity is not that the different organs within the skull migrate physically. Scientists now know that the number of neurons in the brain peaks during early childhood and then some die not to be replaced; they also have shown that there remain stem cells in the brain and new neurons are created long into adult life. Still it is believed that most of the changes are in the connections among neurons and the ability of neurons to excite or inhibit the actions of other neurons. The biology of mind seems to be an emerging discipline. Imaging techniques, electrical recording techniques and molecular biology are combining to produce rates of scientific knowledge pro...

Christiane Amanpour, CNN, on Gender Equality

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Christiane Amanpour underscores the need for gender equality in all aspects of society and specifically in and through media: "From all my experience working in the field for over 20 years now I see more and more women in the field as journalists... What I see is that this is making a big change in the way stories are covered. Women do not report only on women... They report on what now is almost exclusively the human factor when it comes to war, crisis, disaster or even opportunities, hope and challenges... Women still have to face very difficult threats, very difficult situations of abuse, very difficult situations of intimidation and out and out being banned from taking part in the field of journalism. It is still a difficult world... Those of you women around the world who are determined, and no matter what profession you choose, who are determined to make it and battle the odds and make sure that you never hear the word NO, that I think is the hope and the optimism and the o...