Let'sMakeTheWorldBetterStartingFromOurselves

Hey,it's mobile

2008-06-19T17:59:00.001+08:00

Just set up the email setting for mobile blogging. Hope it works.

Unwired. Done mobile.

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after all this time

2008-06-19T14:27:00.000+08:00

Phew....
It's been so long that i posted here. What has happened after all this time? A lot, that's for sure.

I work now for a living. My own living. Now, I'm in Kalimantan, or Borneo for most foreigners say. My brother has married, and my sister's waiting for her result in passing the university enterance test. Hope she's ok. My mom & father? Alhamdulillah, they're fine.

How are you? Hope you're fine too.

Well, let's write!

Dolphins' big brains evolved in spurts

2004-10-30T12:28:00.000+08:00

18:53 29 October 04

NewScientist.com news service

Dolphins have evolved surprisingly big brains over the last 47 million years, according to the largest fossil study ever done on the animals. The growth - which occurred in two spurts - may shed light on how humans became so brainy.
Dolphins are famously bright, performing mental feats few other animals can, such as recognising themselves in mirrors. That intelligence is probably due to their exceptionally large brains - some dolphin species boast brain-to-body mass ratios second only to humans. But how they evolved such big brains has been a mystery.
Now, a trio of researchers led by biologist Lori Marino at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, US, has tracked how dolphins evolved their big brains using the fossil record. After four years of scouring museum collections, the team turned up 66 fossilised skulls of dolphin ancestors - adding to only five studied previously.
They probed the specimens' brain sizes with computed tomography (CT) scans and estimated the animals' body masses by analysing the size of bones around the base of the skulls.
They studied the fossilised skulls - dating back 47 million years - along with 144 modern specimens, and found each creature’s encephalisation quotient (EQ). This measurement relates a specimen's brain mass to that of an average animal of similar size, so if an animal's EQ is less than 1, it has a smaller than average brain, while if it is greater than 1, it has a relatively large one. Humans are the brainiest of all creatures, with an EQ of 7.

Tips to Benefit Optimally from Ramadan

2004-10-28T12:21:00.001+08:00

Ramadan is the most blessed month in the Islamic calendar. It is primarily a spiritual training course intended to help us cultivate essential virtues and skills in order to lead a meaningful life. Most often we live at a very superficial level of our existence, forgetting our true essence and identity as human beings. In other words, we become totally preoccupied with the physical and material dimensions, forgetting the spiritual core of our personalities. Ramadan, therefore, comes to remind us of who we truly are and how we can discipline ourselves in such a way that we are fully awake to our full spiritual potential. In order to benefit from the blessed month of Ramadan and its spiritual regimen, I suggest that we focus on the following:

1. Welcome Ramadan with great fervor and spirit and expect to come out of it fully transformed in body, mind, and soul.

2. Perform all of the acts of worship while being fully awake to their inner dimensions and meanings. Most often we allow ourselves to go through these rituals as mere mechanical chores with the result that we gain virtually no benefit from them either spiritually or morally.

3. Let your fasting be a fasting of body, mind, and soul. As Imam Ghazali, said the vast majority of people fast only for namesake. For while staying away from food, drink, and sexual gratifications, their minds, eyes, ears, tongue, and other faculties feast on haram (unlawful matters). Therefore, in order to gain any true benefit from our fasts, we need to impose a total self-restraint upon all our faculties and stay away from all sinful and idle thoughts, words, and actions, and nurture the thought and remembrance of Allah.

4. Ramadan is not merely a month of fasting. It is rather a season to cultivate all sorts of virtues and good habits. It is the perfect opportunity to break free of all negative habits that have been holding us back from achieving the true happiness and perfection that is ours as a birthright. So seize the opportunity and focus on achieving real goals to make it a true life-changing and life-enhancing experience.

5. Ramadan is the month of empathy and generosity. In fact, one of the main purposes of fasting is to instill in us empathy for the poor and the less deprived. By exposing us to compulsory hunger, we are given a practical lesson in hunger and thirst and thus we become better motivated to empathize with the poor. Hence we are ordered to practice the optimum level of charity in the month of Ramadan.

6. Ramadan is the time to familiarize ourselves with the Qur’an, the true source of guidance, illumination, healing, and mercy—Allah’s perfect gift to humanity. We can only do justice to the Book when we go beyond merely chanting and memorizing it to reflecting and meditating upon the Revealed Word and respond to it in true spirit by acting upon its teachings.

7. One of the main purposes of all of the acts of worship in Islam is to cultivate in us a true sense of community and spirit of fellow humanity. Therefore, it is imperative that our compassionate words and acts be extended not only towards ourselves but also towards all of Allah’s creation.

Excerpted, with slight modifications, from: www.muslims.ca

Tiny new species of human unearthed

2004-10-28T12:11:00.000+08:00

The remains of a tiny and hitherto unknown species of human that lived as recently as 13,000 years ago have been discovered on an Indonesian island.
The discovery has been heralded as the most important palaeoanthropological find for 50 years, and has radically altered the accepted picture of human evolution.
The skull and bones of one adult female, and fragments from up to six other specimens, were found in the Liang Bua limestone caves on Flores Island, which lies at the eastern tip of Java.
The female skeleton, known as LB1 - or by the nickname "Ebu" - has been assigned to a new species within the genus Homo - Homo floresiensis. Examination of the remains shows members of the species stood just 1 metre tall and had a brain no bigger than a grapefruit.
A handful of stone tools from the same period were also found in the caves, along with the bones and teeth of several dwarf stegodons, an ancestor of the modern elephant. Other animal remains, including rats, bats and fish, show signs that they were cooked around the time H. floresiensis inhabited in the caves.

My Opening Speech

2004-10-28T11:46:00.000+08:00

Assalamu'alakum Wr.Wb.

First of all, let me introduce myself. My name is Fajar Pahlawan. And, this is my blog. With this, i'm trying to know web much more. And with that, i can learn and know more. And with that, i can share those any knowledge to all of you. Let's hope that they are useful. By that, i hope me and you can be a better person. And together, we can make this world better. Too unrealistic? Well, maybe yes, maybe not. And, hopefully, i can meet other people and friends!

Wass. Wr.Wb.