Download E-books The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge PDF

By Jeremy Narby

This event in technological know-how and mind's eye, which the Medical Tribune acknowledged may possibly bring in "a Copernican revolution for the lifestyles sciences," leads the reader via unexplored jungles and uncharted elements of brain to the guts of knowledge.In a first-person narrative of medical discovery that opens new views on biology, anthropology, and the boundaries of rationalism, The Cosmic Serpent unearths how startlingly varied the realm round us seems to be once we open our minds to it.

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The caduceus shaped via the cup and the serpent turned the reliable image of French pharmacies in simple terms in 1942 (see Burnand 1991, p. 7). The pharmacists with whom I talked consistently acknowledged that the serpent used to be associated with their occupation “because of the venom”—for which pharmacies have antidotes. 17 Métraux (1967, pp. 191, eighty five, eighty three, 95). 18 there are numerous diversified translations of Heraclitus’s fragmented paintings. I depend normally on Kahn (1979). The fragment that I quote is: “The lord whose oracle is in Delphi neither broadcasts nor conceals, yet offers an indication” (p. 43). town of Delphi used to be initially known as Pytho. The oracle in Delphi first belonged to the earth goddess Gaia and used to be defended by way of her baby, the serpent Python. Later, Apollo slew Python and appropriated the oracle. 19 See Eliade (1964, pp. 96ff. ) at the mystery language of shamans. Why has there now not been extra curiosity during this language of spirits, that's pronounced world wide? i think that one of many purposes is that the majority anthropologists don't believe that spirits particularly exist, so that they can't take them heavily. As Colchester (1982) writes in his learn of the cosmovision of the Sanema within the Venezuelan Amazon: “We can purely designate this non secular realm a ‘metaphoric’ one, simply because we don't think in its truth. Our powerful realizing of Sanema phenomenology founders in this loss of trust” (p. 131). regrettably, Colchester’s honesty isn't really regular. 20 The six fees are from Townsley (1993, pp. 459-460, 453, 465). Townsley isn't the basically anthropologist to record the lifestyles of a hugely metaphoric shamanic language. Siskind (1973, p. 31), in regards to the songs of Sharanahua ayahuasqueros, writes: “These songs are sung in an esoteric kind of language, obscure, and packed with metaphors. ” See additionally Colchester (1982, p. 142) at the “poetic licence” utilized by Sanema shamans of their songs, and Chaumeil (1993, p. 415) at the “archaic language that's incomprehensible to such a lot” and that is utilized by Yagua ayahuasqueros. 21 The double helix wraps round itself thoroughly each 10 base pairs. As there are 6 billion base pairs in a human telephone, the latter’s DNA wraps round itself nearly six hundred million instances. 22 The estimate of ninety seven percentage of non-coding passages within the human genome is the main frequent—see, for instance, Nowak (1994, p. 608) or Flam (1994, p. 1320); yet Calladine and Drew (1992) think about that only one percentage of the human genome codes for the development of proteins (p. 14), and Blocker and Salem (1994) write: “Currently, it truly is as a rule thought of that in basic terms 10% of the human genome, at such a lot, codes for proteins; . . . No particular functionality has but been came across for the remainder ninety% of our DNA, and it's not even definite that one can be chanced on: it will possibly be mere ‘scrap’” (p. 127). relating to palindromes, Frank-Kamenetskii (1993) writes: “Palindromes are often encountered in DNA texts. for the reason that DNA contains strands (i. e. , as though they have been parallel texts), its palindromes should be of 2 varieties.

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