3 OF THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS TO REMEMBER WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE GIVING UP IN LIFE

Depression is something we all experience at some point in our life.  If you are reading this, chances are you are either depressed, were depressed, will be depressed, or you know someone who is.  It’s a part of the ebb and flow of life and evolution just as much as happiness is.  It’s kind of the elephant in the room for a lot of people, and I know that talking about depression is something a lot of people feel uncomfortable and sensitive about.

I’m not speaking about something that is currently outside of me that I am looking back on.  As someone who is currently experiencing depression in their life, I want to share some insights that have arisen to me to help others who are in a similar situation to me.

First off, don’t be ashamed that you are suffering, and don’t beat yourself up for not being able to get over your depression.  Honestly.  It’s not un-spiritual to admit to yourself that you are depressed or feel like giving up in life. It’s actually more spiritually mature to be completely honest with yourself and face your demons without running from them.  Let’s take a look at some things that can really shift your perspective during times of depression:

 1) Your pain is just a process

Your pain and suffering is not permanent.  When you say “I am depressed”, you are asserting that depression is something that belongs to you and is a part of who and what you are.  Try saying “I feel depressed” instead of “I AM depressed”.

One recognizes your experience as a temporary feeling that has the ability to leave, the other ties you to the feeling through identification.  You are not ‘depressed’.  Catch yourself whenever you say that, and correct yourself until it becomes a habit to say “I feel” instead of “I am”.  You simply feel depressed, and all feelings come and go.

Your pain is here to serve you by showing you some aspect of yourself that needs improvement.  It’s an opportunity to live life from a place of higher consciousness.  It’s something that you are witnessing and something that is serving a purpose in your life in some way, and will continue to as long as it remains in your life.

I promise you that if you are reading this right now and are suffering from depression, there will be a time in your life where you look back with gratitude that you were blessed with the opportunity to experience depression.

2) Each moment is an opportunity to improve your situation

Every single present moment is a chance to improve your situation.  It’s also a chance to slip further into depression and unconsciousness.  There are only two possible outcomes that can arise out of this present moment:  You can either feel better and improve your situation, or you can feel worse and delay your healing process.

Each moment is a decision between working towards healing or staying where you are.  You can either take 10 deep breaths to slow down your mind and stabilize your nervous system, or you can allow your mind to drag you, your feelings, and your attention all over the place.

You can go deep in feel fully, or you can stay shallow and dwell on the surface.  You can either meditate, or watch Netflix all afternoon.  The choice is yours.

And if you are dealing with depression that is related to self-hate, it is a lot harder to hate yourself when deep down you know you are taking all of the steps you can to better yourself as a person each day.  What is this moment showing you about yourself and the nature of the human experience?  And what moment are you going to choose for yourself next?

3) You always deserve more love, not less

No matter what you did or didn’t do in your past, how many people you let down, how many times you have failed at creating the life you want, how many crimes you have committed, how long you have been stuck in depression, and how many people you have hurt around you, you always deserve more love, not less.  Right now, where you are, you deserve more love from yourself and from the people around you, not less.

Being open to receiving love from self, God, and others and being closed off to it is ultimately the difference between healing and remaining in a state of self-loathing.  You deserve to feel love and happiness.  It doesn’t matter how valid your mind feels it is in claiming that it doesn’t deserve to receive love, you are always worth due to the fact that you are a person who is trying.

And if you feel like you are not trying, then that is even more reason to be worthy of love because there must be some distortion preventing you from trying.  A huge weight was lifted off my shoulders when I heard someone tell me that I always deserved more love, not less, regardless of how I felt about myself or what I did.

When you are experiencing depression, it is helpful to get into the habit of misidentifying with your depression by stopping the association of the ‘I am” with “depressed”. Depressed is not who you are, it is just a form in your energy field at this time in your life.  Each moment you experience from hear on out is a chance to feel better about yourself and take steps towards your healing, and you always deserve to give yourself more love.

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Inspiration for you

"Every religion, at its core, is based on the idea that our world is a magical and mystical place, that each of us is on a spiritual journey, that all life is sacred, and that our entire Universe is a mystical creation..."

If you can solve your problem,
then what is the need of worrying?
If you cannot solve it, then
what is the use of worrying?

The childish work for their own benefit,
The Buddhas work for the benefit of others.
Just look at the difference between them.

Whoever wishes to quickly afford protection
To both himself and others
Should practice that holy secret:
The exchanging of self for others.

~ Shantideva ~


"All the visible Universe is the Buddha; so are all sounds; hold fast to one principle and all the others are Identical. On seeing one thing, you see ALL. On perceiving any individual's mind, you are perceiving ALL Mind. Obtain a glimpse of one way and ALL ways are embraced in your vision, for there is nowhere at all which is devoid of the Way.


When your glance falls upon a grain of dust, what you see is identical with all the vast world systems with their great rivers and mighty hills. To gaze upon a drop of water is to behold the nature of all the waters of the Universe. Only come to know the nature of your own Mind, in which there is no self and no other, and you will in fact be a Buddha."

~Huang Po~

When fear-based thinking dominates a society the innate wisdom and compassion of artists, poets, teachers, musicians, women, children, elders and animals is often treated as inferior and unimportant.. Jesus understood this, as did the Buddha, Lao Tsu, Gandhi, Helen Keller, Albert Einstein, Mother Theresa, the Dalai Lama, John Lennon, Martin Luther King, Jr. and countless others down through the ages..."

3 signs you're already being deceived by the enemy

"Beware lest you be deceived. For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am He,' and 'The time has drawn near.' Therefore do not go after them." – Jesus, Luke 21:8

The Lord Jesus warns us to take care of ourselves so that we won't be deceived. A great deception is coming, or has already come, to try and deceive the people of God. Are you deceived? I pray we won't be.

Deception versus Truth

The Lord Jesus did say that of all the things the deceiver will do, he will introduce himself as "He" and try to impersonate the very Lord of lords and King of kings who has defeated him. And just like any fakes, there are telltale signs that we can check to find if he has already deceived us.

Would you like to know if you've been deceived by the enemy? Here are three sure signs.

1. What you believe in goes against the truth of God's Word
A great many Christians nowadays are easily deceived without knowing it. Some of them read their Bibles, go to church on Sundays, and yet fail to live the life that God wants us to live: a life obedient to His Word.

James 1:22 reminds us, "Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves."
When we hear God's Word but don't do what it says, it simply shows that we don't believe what it says. We merely hear it. Perhaps, we could even project an image of holiness, but deep in our hearts and minds we don't accept the Word of God.

God will never go against His Word. If what we believe in is not founded in or goes against the very Word of God, what we are believing in is a lie.

2. We easily believe anything that comes our way
When we tend to easily believe whatever comes our way, we will be easily deceived. The world – of course, Satan – offers all sorts of meaningless words and empty "knowledge," disguising them as "wisdom." No, wisdom only comes from the fear of the Lord God (see Proverbs 9:10).

We are told to be vigilant, not believing everything we hear. 1 John 4:1-3 tells us,

"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and is already in the world."

3. You're going with the wrong company
OK, you might say that you're in the truth and are not deceived, but look at the people you're spending time with. 1 Corinthians 15:33 tells us, "Do not be deceived: 'Bad company ruins good morals."

Who we go with says something about the state of our heart.

Dear friends, think about it. If your circle of friends consists of people who don't love God, why have fellowship with them if you confess to love God (see 2 Corinthians 6:14-18)? Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to say that you won't spend time with your unsaved friends, but if you spend more time with them instead of those who love God and pursue Him, ask yourself why.

While we must be willing to reach out to the unsaved and the lost so that we could bring Christ's love to them, we must be careful not to allow their wrong beliefs to influence us.

"Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night." (Psalm 1:1-2)

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The Wisdom of Trees, Way of Nature

“Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life. Every path leads homeward..” ~Hermann Hesse

“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent.

You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them.

But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”

“Now and again, it is necessary to seclude yourself among deep mountains and hidden valleys to restore your link to the source of life. Breathe out and let yourself soar to the ends of the universe; breathe in and bring the cosmos back inside…”
~Morehei Ueshiba

“There’s nothing to prove, nothing to figure out, nothing to get, nothing to understand.
When we finally stop explaining to ourselves, we may discover that in silence,
complete understanding is already there.”
~Steve Hagen~

 “The world is not a problem to be solved, it is a living being to which we belong. The world is part of our own self and we are a part of its suffering wholeness. Until we go to the root of our image of separateness, there can be no healing. And the deepest part of our separateness from creation lies in our forgetfulness of its sacred nature, which is also our own sacred nature.”
~Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Empty yourself of everything. Let the mind become still. The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return. They grow and flourish and then return to the Source. Returning to the Source is stillness, which is the way of nature.
~Lao Tsu
Tao Te Ching, Verse 16

“In the woods, we return to reason and faith… Standing on the bare ground – my head
bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space – all mean egotism vanishes.
I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents
of the Universal Being circulate through me…”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, 1836

 “Be as simple as you can be; you will be astonished to see
how uncomplicated and happy your life can become.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda ~

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5 Bible Verses To Help You When You're Facing Intense Trials

Trials are a normal part of the Christian life. The truth is that like Job, we may face unwanted events in our lives whether we do good or not. These events are simply meant to show our true colours, strengthen our resolve to trust in God, and to allow us to see Him more clearly.

As such, trials are painful but effective means to reveal our flaws, correct us, mould us, and polish us so that we could be a vessel of honour fit for our heavenly Master's use.

Are you going through an intense trial right now? Or perhaps you've gone through a trial but until now you can't make any sense out of it?

Here are some Bible verses to help you face the trials and appreciate God's plan for your life.

Trials prepare us for God's purpose – 2 Timothy 2:20-21

 In a wealthy home some utensils are made of gold and silver, and some are made of wood and clay. The expensive utensils are used for special occasions, and the cheap ones are for everyday use. If you keep yourself pure, you will be a special utensil for honourable use. Your life will be clean, and you will be ready for the Master to use you for every good work." (NLT)

God uses trials to refine us – Malachi 3:2-3

"But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner's fire and like launderers' soap. He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness." (NKJV)

Trials help us see God – Job 42:1-7

"Then Job answered the Lord and said, "I know that You can do everything, and that no thought can be withheld from You. 'Who is he who hides counsel without knowledge?' Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me which I did not know. 'Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to Me.' I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." (MEV)

The entrance to God's kingdom is laid with trials – Acts 14:21-22

"And when they had preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, 'We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.'" (NKJV)

Trial is inevitable, but Christ has already overcome it for us – John 16:33

"I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer. I have overcome the world." (MEV)

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No Matter What’s Happening In Your Life Right Now, You Must Read This Short Story

It was one seemingly ordinary day when I decided to QUIT… All of a sudden I made a decision to quit my job, my relationship and finally my spirituality. I just wanted to quit my life.

But before that, I went to the wood to have one last talk with God.

I started: “God, can you give me one good reason not to quit?”

His answer really surprised me: “Look around”, He said. “Do you see the fern and the bamboo?”

I replied: “Yes. When I planted the fern and the bamboo seeds, I took very good care of them. I gave them light. I gave them water. The fern quickly grew from the earth.

Its brilliant green covered the floor.Yet nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo. In the second year the Fern grew more vibrant and plentiful.

But still, nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo.

He said: “In year three there was still nothing from the bamboo seed.But I would not quit. In year four, again, there was nothing from the bamboo seed. I would not quit.”

“Then in the fifth year a tiny sprout emerged from the earth. Compared to the fern it was seemingly small and insignificant…But just 6 months later the bamboo rose to over 100 feet tall.

It had spent the five years growing roots. Those roots made it strong and gave it what it needed to survive.I would not give any of my creations a challenge it could not handle.”

After that, He asked me: “Did you know, my child, that all this time you have been struggling, you have actually been growing roots. I would not quit on the bamboo.I will never quit on you.”

“Don’t compare yourself to others.” He added. ”The bamboo had a different Purpose than the fern. Yet they both make the forest beautiful.” God said to me: “Your time will come”

“You will rise high”.

I asked: “How high should I rise?”

“How high will the bamboo rise?” He also asked.

I was confused: “As high as it can?”

”Yes.” He said, “Give Me glory by rising as high as you can.”

After this conversation I left the forest and I wrote this amazing story. I really hope that these words can help you to see that God will never give up on you.

You should Never, Never, Never, Give up.

Don’t tell the Lord how big the problem is, tell the problem how Great the Lord is!

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'Do Not Fear:' 10 Bible Verses About Confidence

Courage can be hard to find. In a world of constant competition and comparison, it can be easy to become nervous, afraid and want to run away from it all. The Bible is full of people wrestling with this human weakness, our own struggle to get up and be confident. Can confidence be found within oneself, or must it be sought elsewhere? Scripture is constantly encouraging God's people to have confidence, not because they are great, but because their maker is. Here are 10 Bible verses about confidence.
1. 2 Chronicles 32:8
'With him is only the arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles.' And the people gained confidence from what Hezekiah the king of Judah said.
2. Psalm 71:5
For you have been my hope, Sovereign Lord, my confidence since my youth.

3. Job 4:5-6
But now trouble comes to you, and you are discouraged;
it strikes you, and you are dismayed.
Should not your piety be your confidence
and your blameless ways your hope?
4. Nehemiah 6:15-16
So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in 52 days.
When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realised that this work had been done with the help of our God.
5. Hebrews 4:16
Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
6. Hebrews 10:35-36; 39
So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised...we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.
7. 2 Corinthians 3:3-5
You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
Such confidence we have through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.
8. 1 John 5:14
This is the confidence which we have before him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.
9. Isaiah 41:10
Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
10. Philippians 1:6
For I am confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

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The brain: a radical rethink is needed to understand it

Understanding the human brain is arguably the greatest challenge of modern science. The leading approach for most of the past 200 years has been to link its functions to different brain regions or even individual neurons (brain cells). But recent research increasingly suggests that we may be taking completely the wrong path if we are to ever understand the human mind.


The idea that the brain is made up of numerous regions that perform specific tasks is known as “modularity”. And, at first glance, it has been successful. For example, it can provide an explanation for how we recognise faces by activating a chain of specific brain regions in the occipital and temporal lobes. Bodies, however, are processed by a different set of brain regions. And scientists believe that yet other areas – memory regions – help combine these perceptual stimuli to create holistic representations of people. The activity of certain brain areas has also been linked to specific conditions and diseases.

The reason this approach has been so popular is partly due to technologies which are giving us unprecedented insight into the brain. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which tracks changes in blood flow in the brain, allows scientists to see brain areas light up in response to activities – helping them map functions. Meanwhile, Optogenetics, a technique that uses genetic modification of neurons so that their electrical activity can be controlled with light pulses – can help us to explore their specific contribution to brain function.

FMRI scan during working memory tasks. John Graner/wikipedia

While both approaches generate fascinating results, it is not clear whether they will ever provide a meaningful understanding of the brain. A neuroscientist who finds a correlation between a neuron or brain region and a specific but in principle arbitrary physical parameter, such as pain, will be tempted to draw the conclusion that this neuron or this part of the brain controls pain. This is ironic because, even in the neuroscientist, the brain’s inherent function is to find correlations – in whatever task it performs.

But what if we instead considered the possibility that all brain functions are distributed across the brain and that all parts of the brain contribute to all functions? If that is the case, correlations found so far may be a perfect trap of the intellect. We then have to solve the problem of how the region or the neuron type with the specific function interacts with other parts of the brain to generate meaningful, integrated behaviour. So far, there is no general solution to this problem – just hypotheses in specific cases, such as for recognising people.

The problem can be illustrated by a recent study which found that the psychedelic drug LSD can disrupt the modular organisation that can explain vision. What’s more, the level of disorganisation is linked with the severity of the the “breakdown of the self” that people commonly experience when taking the drug. The study found that the drug affected the way that several brain regions were communicating with the rest of the brain, increasing their level of connectivity. So if we ever want to understand what our sense of self really is, we need to understand the underlying connectivity between brain regions as part of a complex network.

A way forward?

Some researchers now believe the brain and its diseases in general can only be understood as an interplay between tremendous numbers of neurons distributed across the central nervous system. The function of any one neuron is dependent on the functions of all the thousands of neurons it is connected to. These, in turn, are dependent on those of others. The same region or the same neuron may be used across a huge number of contexts, but have different specific functions depending on the context.

It may indeed be a tiny perturbation of these interplays between neurons that, through avalanche effects in the networks, causes conditions like depression or Parkinson’s disease. Either way, we need to understand the mechanisms of the networks in order to understand the causes and symptoms of these diseases. Without the full picture, we are not likely to be able to successfully cure these and many other conditions.

Map of neural connections. Thomas Schultz/wikimedia, CC BY-SA

In particular, neuroscience needs to start investigating how network configurations arise from the brain’s lifelong attempts to make sense of the world. We also need to get a clear picture of how the cortex, brainstem and cerebellum interact together with the muscles and the tens of thousands of optical and mechanical sensors of our bodies to create one, integrated picture.

Connecting back to the physical reality is the only way to understand how information is represented in the brain. One of the reasons we have a nervous system in the first place is that the evolution of mobility required a controlling system. Cognitive, mental functions – and even thoughts – can be regarded as mechanisms that evolved in order to better plan for the consequences of movement and actions.

So the way forward for neuroscience may be to focus more on general neural recordings (with optogenetics or fMRI) – without aiming to hold each neuron or brain region responsible for any particular function. This could be fed into theoretical network research, which has the potential to account for a variety of observations and provide an integrated functional explanation. In fact, such a theory should help us design experiments, rather than only the other way around.

Major hurdles

It won’t be easy though. Current technologies are expensive – there are major financial resources as well as national and international prestige invested in them. Another obstacle is that the human mind tends to prefer simpler solutions over complex explanations, even if the former can have limited power to explain findings.

The entire relationship between neuroscience and the pharmaceutical industry is also built on the modular model. Typical strategies when it comes to common neurological and psychiatric diseases are to identify one type of receptor in the brain that can be targeted with drugs to solve the whole problem.

For example, SSRIs – which block absorption of serotonin in the brain so that more is freely available – are currently used to treat a number of different mental health problems, including depression. But they don’t work for many patients and there may be a placebo effect involved when they do.

Similarly, epilepsy is today widely seen as a single disease and is treated with anticonvulsant drugs, which work by dampening the activity of all neurons. Such drugs don’t work for everyone either. Indeed, it could be that any minute perturbation of the circuits in the brain – arising from one of thousands of different triggers unique to each patient – could push the brain into an epileptic state.
In this way, neuroscience is gradually losing compass on its purported path towards understanding the brain. It’s absolutely crucial that we get it right. Not only could it be the key to understanding some of the biggest mysteries known to science – such as consciousness – it could also help treat a huge range of debilitating and costly health problems.

Henrik Jörntell, Senior Lecturer in Neuroscience, Lund University
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Fears for blue tang fish spike in the wake of Finding Dory

Cinemas around the world are now showing Finding Dory, the long awaited sequel to Disney and Pixar’s 2003 Finding Nemo. The film takes up the story of Dory, a much loved character from the first film, who embarks on a quest to be reunited with her family. We follow the animated blue tang as she leaps and flip flops from one watery environment to the next, apparently happy to be transported in a beaker of drinking water, a mop bucket or through connecting pipes in a public aquarium.

Along the way, Dory – who suffers from short term memory loss – manages to regain some of the lost memories of her past life with assistance from Nemo, his father Marlin and an octopus named Hank.

In the run-up to the film’s opening in America, Finding Dory attracted media attention when questions were raised by conservationists, marine biologists and animal advocates about the potential for the film to trigger a craze for blue tang fish. The majority of marine aquarium species are still taken from the wild and, in the case of blue tang, the process of capture is harmful to both the fish and to coral reefs.

Finding Nemo led to a rapid growth in the trade of clownfish as pets which, in turn, contributed to the decline of wild populations. Reports suggested that the pet industry was expecting a similar growth in sales of blue tang and pet products following the release of Finding Dory.

Nemo making a reappearance. ©2016 Disney•Pixar

Green entertainment

One response to concerns about the impacts of wild capture has been to initiate research into captive breeding programmes. For example, until very recently it was not thought possible to breed blue tang in captivity. But in late July 2016, an announcement from Rising Tide Conservation and University of Florida revealed that for the first time, blue tang had been successfully reared in captivity for 52 days. The press release noted that the six-year project to find an alternative to taking fish from the wild had backing from the SeaWorld-Busch Gardens Conservation Fund.

Many will recall that SeaWorld’s profits and public image were irreparably damaged by the 2013 documentary film Blackfish; a story about an orca named Tilikum. SeaWorld’s investment in the Rising Tide initiative and involvement in the captive breeding of blue tang may be playing a role in the company’s efforts to rebrand itself as a conservation organisation rather than an entertainment corporation and theme park.

In this respect it is some years behind Disney, the company responsible for Finding Dory, under its subsidiary brand Pixar. Disney’s moves to reorient the brand’s green credentials involved the creation of DisneyNature in 2008, a semi-autonomous film unit dedicated to producing nature documentaries, which are usually slated for release on Earth Day, and a revised corporate sustainability strategy.
Disney’s efforts have been branded by some in the press as greenwashing. My own analysis of the release strategy of DisneyNature films is in accordance with this: the tensions between the company’s commitment to what it calls “environmentality”, its green rebranding and its drive for profits are untenable.

Blue tangfastic. ©2016 Disney Pixar

For example, under pressure to address concerns about the impact of Finding Dory on blue tang, Disney Pixar released a downloadable guide to pet fish ownership. The guide is, however, difficult to find and the message that blue tang are not suited to life as a pet is completely overshadowed by the Disney marketing for the film and associated merchandise.

‘Baby Dory’

Indeed, the messages reaching the public about blue tang are worrying. Media coverage of the breakthrough in raising this fish in captivity, even referring to them as “baby Dory”, celebrates the technological solution that will allow consumers to purchase a sustainable Dory. Consumer fears that they are contributing to destruction of blue tang populations and coral reef areas are appeased by the message that it’s business as usual in the pet trade when entertainment, science and commerce work together.

The fact that many blue tang had to die in the process of developing a captive bred fish, that blue tang are still unsuitable as pets, that once in captivity and even under good conditions their lifespans are shortened, and that far from being the cute memory-challenged character we see onscreen, blue tang have spines on their tails designed to inflict injuries on would-be attackers – all this is lost in the celebratory communication that sustainable Dorys are on their way.

While we have yet to see if Finding Dory will have an impact on the trade in blue tang, the question over what degree of responsibility media companies should take for their representations of animals and their involvement in the promotion of animals as entertainment and pets remains. It has been surprisingly easy for media companies to continue to hide behind a thin veneer of greenwashing.
Claire Molloy, Professor of Film, Television and Digital Media, Edge Hill University
This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Your brain is unique – here's how it could be used as the ultimate security password

Palaniappan Ramaswamy, University of Kent
Biometrics – technology that can recognise individuals based on physical and behavioural traits such as their faces, voices or fingerprints – are becoming increasingly important to combat financial fraud and security threats. This is because traditional approaches, such as those based on PIN numbers or passwords, are proving too easily compromised. For example, Barclays has introduced TouchID, whereby customers can log onto internet banking using fingerprint scanners on mobile phones.

However, this is not foolproof either – it is possible to forge such biometrics. Fingers can after all be chopped off and placed by impostors to gain fraudulent access. It has also been shown that prints lifted from glass using cellophane tape can be used with gelatine to create fake prints. So there is a real need to come up with more advanced biometrics that are difficult or impossible to forge. And a promising alternative is the brain.

Emerging biometric technology based on the electrical activity of the brain have indeed shown potential to be fraud resistant. Over the years, a number of research studies have found that “brainprints” (readings of how the brain reacts to certain words or tasks) are unique to individuals as each person’s brain is wired to think differently. In fact, the brain can be used to identify someone from a pool of 102 users with more than 98% accuracy at the moment, which is very close to that of fingerprints (99.8% accuracy).

More recently, this has been confirmed by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which measures brain activity by tracking changes in blood flow. A study using fMRI data from the Human Connectome Project was able to recognise individuals with up to 99% accuracy when performing certain mental tasks such as relaxing, listening to a story, computing maths, looking at emotional faces or imagining moving parts of their body.

Fingerprints are commonly used. Barclays

However, the cost and difficulty of using fMRI (you have to lie very still in the scanner for a fairly long time) means it is clearly not practical for everyday biometric authentication. For that reason, researchers have instead looked at electroencephalography (EEG), which uses electrodes to track and record brain-wave patterns. But this is also cumbersome – who would be willing to wear a cap of gel-based electrodes just to log in to their computer? Hence, the technology has remained in the realm of science fiction for some time.

Promising alternatives

Recently, technological advances in recording EEG from the ear using electrodes placed on the surface of standard earphones have provided a solution – no gel needed. It is not easy though – EEG is very “noisy” since the brain is always actively processing different information. But advanced signal-processing approaches have recently been able to reduce the noisy components, albeit this typically requires powerful computing. This is, however, becoming less of a problem now that mobile-phone processing power is growing rapidly – it should in theory be possible to perform all the required processing on a smart phone.

So why aren’t brainprints everywhere already? One downside is that it can’t be used by twins – they have near-identical EEG patterns. But the main problem is the lack of stability of brainprints over time.

It seems that it is not enough to just have an EEG done once – occasional re-enrolment (say, monthly) is necessary. This is because the brain connections exhibit plastic behaviour (they change with experience) and thought processes in the brain change over time. However, in ongoing work at the University of Kent, we have shown that specific tones (which can be played using earphones) can be used to minimise these changes. It is not yet clear exactly how these tones affect the brain but we speculate that they may allow the brain to calm down, allowing more focused activity.

Two-factor authentication is now a norm for many banking transactions, for example using a password and an additional code sent to the phone. Soon, banks in New York may have to comply with multi-factor authentication protocol proposed by the New York State Department of Financial Services, whereby at least three authentication mechanisms are used for enhanced security by personnel accessing internal systems with privileged access or to support functions including remote access.

While fingerprints and voice recognition are possibilities, thought-based biometric technology is more apt to be used as an add-on to meet this new cybersecurity regulation. The brain biometric template could even be updated for a different mental activity should there be a security breach on the stored template (unlike a fingerprint biometric which remains for life and cannot be replaced once compromised).

Brainprints can also be used to generate passwords that can replace conventional alphanumeric passwords or PINs in ATM machines to withdraw cash. For example, rather than keying in the PIN, one would connect earphones and be shown a series of PIN numbers on the ATM screen. Brain patterns would change when the correct PIN number showed up – activating the transaction. By doing so, one does not have to worry about others looking over the shoulder to steal the PIN. Moreover, under coerced situations, brainprints will not work due to the stress – making them even more fraud resistant.

Given that it is difficult to copy another person’s exact thought process, the technology is certainly advantageous. Considering the advancement in the technology, we will likely see uptake of biometric applications based on brainprints soon – especially as part of multi-factor system for enhanced authentication. So don’t be surprised to see EEG earphones appearing in your post from the bank shortly.

Palaniappan Ramaswamy, Reader in Signal Analysis, University of Kent
This article was originally published on The Conversation.