Authorities in Colorado Springs, Colorado released a footage of a family's dog accidentally turning on the kitchen stove and accidentally starting a home fire.

Miguel Farias: Since mindfulness it’s something you can practice at home for free, it often sounds like the perfect tonic for stress and mental health issues. Mindfulness is a type of Buddhist-based meditation in which you focus on being aware of what you’re sensing, thinking and feeling in the present moment. The first recorded evidence for this, found in India, is over 1,500 years old. The Dharmatrāta Meditation Scripture, written by a community of Buddhists, describes various practices and includes reports of symptoms of depression and anxiety that can occur after meditation. It also details cognitive anomalies associated with episodes of psychosis, dissociation and depersonalisation (when people feel the world is “unreal”). In the past eight years there has been a surge of scientific research in this area. These studies show that adverse effects are not rare. A 2022 study, using a sample of 953 people in the US who meditated regularly, showed that over 10% of participants experienced adverse effects which had a significant negative impact on their everyday life and lasted for at least one month. According to a review of over 40 years of research that was published in 2020, the most common adverse effects are anxiety and depression. These are followed by psychotic or delusional symptoms, dissociation or depersonalisation, and fear or terror. Research also found that adverse effects can happen to people without previous mental health problems, to those who have only had a moderate exposure to meditation and they can lead to long-lasting symptoms. Meditating can come with its own problems. The western world has also had evidence about these adverse affects for a long time. In 1976, Arnold Lazarus, a key figure in the cognitive-behavioural science movement, said that meditation, when used indiscriminately, could induce “serious psychiatric problems such as depression, agitation, and even schizophrenic decompensation”. There is evidence that mindfulness can benefit people’s wellbeing. The problem is that mindfulness coaches, videos, apps and books rarely warn people about the potential adverse effects. Professor of management and ordained Buddhist teacher Ronald Purser wrote in his 2023 book McMindfulness that mindfulness has become a kind of “capitalist spirituality”. In the US alone, meditation is worth US$2.2 billion (£1.7 billion). And the senior figures in the mindfulness industry should be aware of the problems with meditation. Jon Kabat-Zinn, a key figure behind the mindfulness movement, admitted in a 2017 interview with the Guardian that “90% of the research [into the positive impacts] is subpar”. In his foreword to the 2015 UK Mindfulness All-Party Parliamentary Report, Jon Kabat-Zinn suggests that mindfulness meditation can eventually transform “who we are as human beings and individual citizens, as communities and societies, as nations, and as a species”. This religious-like enthusiasm for the power of mindfulness to change not only individual people but the course of humanity is common among advocates. Even many atheists and agnostics who practice mindfulness believe that this practice has the power to increase peace and compassion in the world. Media discussion of mindfulness has also been somewhat imbalanced. In 2015, my book with clinical psychologist Catherine Wikholm, Buddha Pill, included a chapter summarising the research on meditation adverse effects. It was widely disseminated by the media, including a New Scientist article, and a BBC Radio 4 documentary. But there was little media coverage in 2022 of the most expensive study in the history of meditation science (over US$8 million funded by research charity the Wellcome Trust). The study tested more than 8,000 children (aged 11-14) across 84 schools in the UK from 2016 to 2018. Its results showed that mindfulness failed to improve the mental wellbeing of children compared to a control group, and may even have had detrimental effects on those who were at risk of mental health problems. Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique to train attention and awareness and detach from reflexive, “discursive thinking,” achieving a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state, while not judging the meditation process itself. Ethical implications Is it ethical to sell mindfulness apps, teach people meditation classes, or even use mindfulness in clinical practice without mentioning its adverse effects? Given the evidence of how varied and common these effects are, the answer should be no. However, many meditation and mindfulness instructors believe that these practices can only do good and don’t know about the potential for adverse effects. The most common account I hear from people who have suffered adverse meditation effects is that the teachers don’t believe them. They’re usually told to just keep meditating and it will go away. Research about how to safely practice meditation has only recently begun, which means there isn’t yet clear advice to give people. There is a wider problem in that meditation deals with unusual states of consciousness and we don’t have psychological theories of mind to help us understand these states. But there are resources people can use to learn about these adverse effects. These include websites produced by meditators who experienced serious adverse effects and academic handbooks with dedicated sections to this topic. In the US there is a clinical service dedicated to people who have experienced acute and long term problems, led by a mindfulness researcher. For now, if meditation is to be used as a wellbeing or therapeutic tool, the public needs to be informed about its potential for harm. Miguel Farias, Associate Professor in Experimental Psychology, Coventry University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The post Meditation can be harmful – and can even make mental health problems worse appeared first on Anomalien.com.

Many scientists believe that time travel is impossible. Others believe that unknown physics may allow it. Debate on this issue has persisted for many years. The authors of an article published on the preprint server arXiv, which has not been peer-reviewed, decided to look for traces of time travelers on the Internet. In June 2009, the famous physicist Stephen Hawking, while at the University of Cambridge, decided to conduct an experiment. The scientist came up with the idea of ​​sending invitations to a party that had already taken place. The essence of the experiment was that if time travel were possible, then people who received invitations would come to the party, although they could not know about it in advance. Alas, none of the people Hawking invited showed up. Perhaps the time travelers simply did not want to be in the company of the famous physicist, or perhaps time travel is simply impossible. Stephen Hawking But a group of physicists decided to conduct their own experiment to find potential time travelers. To do this, scientists decided to search the Internet for information about significant events that appeared even before these events took place. According to scientists, only those who can travel in time can write a kind of prediction about a particular event that will take place in the future. The authors of the article suggested that even if people arrived from the future (and scientists decided that they certainly could not create a time machine in the past), they might accidentally leave some information on social networks during a certain period of time when some significant events were already known to scientists but had not yet occurred. Physicists actively viewed messages on various social networks and also monitored trending queries on Google. But no references to known events before they happened were found. The scientists also posted on various social networks a call for potential time travelers to send them an email. The essence of the experiment was that the email address was indicated later than the message itself with a call for correspondence. That is, the person from the future should have already known the email address at the time the message appeared. And again, no one wrote anything to the physicists. Yes, time travel is indeed a real thing. But it’s not quite what you’ve probably seen in the movies. Scientists believe that perhaps people from the future do not want to be known, and therefore do not leave revealing information traces. But there may be other reasons. “Even time travelers who want to advertise their presence may do so ineffectively,” the team writes in their paper, “those who want to hide their presence might make a revealing mistake, and those indifferent might or might not leave traceable Internet content.” The authors of the paper write that it may be physically impossible for time travelers to leave any lasting remnants of their time in the past, including even social media posts. Or maybe we physically cannot find such information, as this would violate some still unknown law of physics. “First, it may be physically impossible for time travelers to leave any lasting remnants of their stay in the past, including even non-corporeal informational remnants on the Internet,” they explained. “Next, it may be physically impossible for us to find such information as that would violate some yet-unknown law of physics, possibly similar to the Chronology Protection Conjecture. Furthermore, time travelers may not want to be found, and may be good at covering their tracks.” The post Searching for Time Travelers: Experiments and Findings by Physicists appeared first on Anomalien.com.

The drip, drip, drip of developments from the $1 billion defamation suit against CNN has been steady. In addition to reporting on CNN attempting to block host Jake Tapper from being deposed as part of the proceedings, NewsBusters has exclusively obtained an unredacted partial transcript from the deposition of CNN correspondent Alex Marquardt connected to the case. NewsBusters has also obtained an interesting video of one of the members of CNN's internally lauded editorial members making eyebrow-raising remarks about preventing defamation suits. In their motion for a partial summary judgment last month, plaintiff, security contractor, and Navy veteran Zachary Young and his legal team included a partial transcript of CNN chief national security correspondent Alex Marquardt’s deposition testimony where he seemingly admitted there was no evidence of criminality on behalf of Young, despite claiming there was in his allegedly defamatory report on The Lead with Jake Tapper. As NewsBusters previously reported, a key factor in the case was CNN’s allegation that Young was part of a “black market” and “exploited” people trying to get out of Afghanistan. The definition of “black market” and criminal activity became a contested topic in an appeal hearing in April regarding punitive damages. Judge L. Clayton Roberts pressed CNN’s attorney, Charles D. Tobin on the use of the word: [W]hen they were talking about Mr. Young, they had his picture on the thing and there was a chyron that says he was involved in a black market. And, you know, I've looked in a couple of dictionaries –  three or four – and the first definition for black market in all the dictionaries is criminal activity. And you know, if you are accusing someone of criminal activity and they're not involved in a crime, that's usually defamation per se. Correct? In response, Tobin seemingly admitted that what CNN reported could be seen as defamatory: “Under the law where we would be looking at the defamatory meaning, perhaps it would be.” Now, obtained deposition testimony from Marquardt showed that his investigation didn’t turn up any evidence of criminal activity from Young: Q: Did your reporting ever discover anything illegal that was going on with regards to the evacuation process? A. No, it didn't. *** Q. Did you think Mr. Young was committing a crime? Let me ask it that way. A. I don't know. And we -- I don't know and we didn’t report that. I don't know. Q. I'm not saying you did. I'm just asking the question. So – A. No. As far as I knew he was -- he was charging -- sorry to interrupt. As far as I knew, he was simply asking for large amounts of money to get Afghans out of the country. *** Q. You found no evidence of Mr. Young committing a crime, correct? A. No.     Marquardt’s deposition answers provided more context for the internal CNN e-mails and messages expressing skepticism for his reporting before it went to air. “Digital decided not to publish a digital version from Alex. They told me it was bc we could not answer the question is this a scam,” one message read. “It’s not clear to me if everyone is being ripped off or if some people pay up and get out. And that’s pretty crucial! . . . If he doesn’t know the answer to that fundamental question I’d say we really need to pause this until we find out,” read another. In a statement to NewsBusters, Joe Delich, one of Young’s lawyers decried that Marquardt got a promotion amid their suit. “CNN’s internal messages are indicative of a cowboy culture that cares more about clicks than accountability. In fact, CNN promoted the primary reporter on the story after this lawsuit was filed, indicating this kind of journalism is not only tolerated at CNN—it’s rewarded,” he said. Given these details, it’s a wonder how the story got out the door, especially since CNN lauds its internal editorial oversight board known as Triad, which is made up of editorial, legal, and standards and practices professionals. NewsBusters also obtained a now-deleted YouTube video of one of the members of Triad speaking to some journalism students at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications about their work.     The video features Triad member Drew Shenkman speaking with then-professor and director Frank LoMonte’s students via Zoom during the pandemic (LoMonte is now senior counsel for CNN). Shenkman explained how CNN trained their journalists to bring them stories that “allege wrongdoing” and “are obviously defamatory”: So, there's five of us, we split everything up. We don't look at every single script or every single story that goes out. We look for things that allege wrongdoing, things that are sensitive or controversial or things that are obviously defamatory.  And it's typically a push-to-us model. So, the journalists are trained and we train them and saying, you know, hey, this needs legal review because it's alleging someone of murder or this needs legal review because we're saying the president of the United States did something bad. And so then they push that to us for the legal review.  Ironically, LoMonte compared defamation lawyers like himself to trauma surgeons and Shenkman to a primary care physician who prevents illness to begin with. “So, pretty much,” Shenkman agreed. “If I see a story and we get sued and we lose, right, then I haven't done my job.” CNN, Alex Marquardt, and CNN attorney Deanna K. Shullman did not respond to NewsBusters’ requests for comment. NewsBusters obtained the unredacted transcript of Marquardt’s deposition on July 1, 2024 from the Bay County, Florida Clerk’s Office website (the download file pictured). As of publication, the filing for the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment was no longer available for download or request on the website.

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