Abhijit Banerjee's portfolio

For those of you who have joined Copperstrings recently, and even those not so recently,  I thought it might be useful to recycle some of the interesting journals which have been written earlier in the year. All these journals were well appreciated and extensively read and are still being read.   Many topics are timeless, and can be discussed again and again. I am bringing these journals back to the spotlight so that newcomers and others who may have missed them,  have a chance to read and share their experiences.   I begin with  Graeme Dinnen’s exhaustive journal Roundworm, Tapeworm, Hookworm & Threadworm - reproducing prodigiously inside you  as it may surprise you to  know that even by today’s improved hygiene standards, yo...

Once you say YES to the 100-Day Challenge there are many life changing messages for living a life of excellence and displaying exceptionally high standards. The word "rich" comes from the root word for "reach".   You are rich when you reach out and expand any dimension of your life, which is accomplished by expanding your comfort zone.   The following provides a nine-point plan for getting rich-right now.   This is one of many life changing messages you will receive once you say "YES", I'm Ready for the Challenge!   The first type of reaching out is a personal one.   You become richer when you reach beyond your intellectual abilities by reading great books, listening to stimulating messages, challenge convent...

The 100-Day Challenge, a global community of like-minded people dedicated to a common purpose-creating lives ofexcellence and finishing the year strong, is live A full membership for the entire 100 Day Challenge. A Massive Action Plan (MAP) that serves as your blueprint for the next 100 days. 100 Daily Lessons with built in call to action exercises. 100 Daily mp3 messages that will compel you to act with a strong sense of urgency. 100 Daily Videos that deliver world-class training and fuel your motivation. Daily coaching insights and practical tips on performance improvement. A suite of goal setting tools to be implemented each day of the challenge. A weekly After Action Review (AAR) exercise that will help to make cou...

September 23rd is an important date because it marks the final 100- day countdown of the year. Take this challenge to boost your personal development. It is an important time to set ourselves a target to change our lives for the better. Face the year 2010 as a new being. Use the remaining 100 days of the year to refocus and start again.   Man has the innate capacity to outgrow and master all his imperfections and darkness, and he should develop this and grow into a creative, constructive and conscious higher being. As each individual grows, the society grows.   Copperstrings community collaboration   While the 100-Day Challenge: Finish Fast > Finish Strong  is a professionally structured programme, the Copperstrin...

The Divine Mother plays a prominent role in Eastern religions, especially Hinduism. In his essay, The Mother, Sri Aurobindo says “the Mother is one but she comes before us with differing aspects.” There are four major aspects of the Mother Divine. Maheshwari, Mahakali, Mahasaraswati, and Mahalakshmi. These different aspects of the transcendental Mother have different qualities and perform different functions.      In this journal  I reproduce the section on  the power of Mahalakshmi as "there is no aspect of the Divine Shakti more attractive to the heart of the embodied beings. Maheshwari can appear too calm and great and distant for the littleness of earthly nature to approach or contain her, Mahakali too swift and formidabl...

White-nose syndrome (WNS) is continuing to spread across bat populations in the Northeastern United States. First documented in eastern New York in 2006, an estimated 500,000 bats of more than six different species (including the endangered Indiana bat) have died from the disease. WNS has been found in New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia, and the US Fish & Wildlife Service expects this list of states to increase over time. Researchers have no idea what caused the disease, but they suspect it is spread by bat to bat contact, with a possibility of person to bat contamination. Bats afflicted by WNS lose a substantial amount of their body fat and die of star...

Frequent bathing, deodorants, detergents, antiperspirants can often produce results totally  opposite of what was intended. This can wash away, distort or hide our natural pheromones – the survival-of-the-species hormones used by almost all living creatures, including mankind, to attract the opposite sex.  Pheromones are natural air-borne chemical hormones the body produces to attract the opposite sex. You can't see them or smell them, yet they can be powerful enough to instantly draw another person like a magnet. There’s an organ just inside the nasal cavity called the vomeronasal organ (VNO). It appears that the sole function of the VNO is to detect trace amounts of pheromones, and in turn, stimulates the limbic region of the brai...

Swine flu, the potentially-deadly virus which originated in Mexico, has now been confirmed in seven countries, although only in Mexico has the condition proved fatal. There, more than 150 deaths are thought to have been caused by swine flu.   The United States has announced 44 mild infections, while three people have the virus in New Zealand and six in Canada. There have been two confirmed cases in Spain and one in Israel, and fifteen other countries have said they are investigating possible infections. Six people were being tested in Ireland. The WHO has raised its swine flu alert level to phase four on a scale that goes up to six, meaning the virus is now being passed between humans. According to the WHO website the followi...

With progress in stem-cell  research the day may not be far when a single individual could be both mother and father to a child. And if the samples of their stem cells are stored in advance, the individual need not be living at the time of the birth of the child.   It hasn’t happened yet, but stem cell research shows enormous possibilities. The possibility has been put forward in a paper published in the journal Cell Stem Cell by the University of Alberta's Tim Caulfield and his colleagues.   Wouldn’t be a clone   A child created with egg and sperm derived from one person wouldn’t be a clone - or genetically identical to the parent - because of the mixing and matching in the chromosomes that takes place when egg and spe...

Increased psychological and financial distress on families resulting from the economic crisis, has brought about a sharp rise in child abuse cases in the US, according to reports from across the country.   The reports show that the parents in many of these situations are in financial difficulty, having recently lost a job, or unable to pay for their family’s daily expenses; some have had to cut medical treatment for their children. Under these circumstances,  many parents are taking out their frustrations on their kids.   According to the Child Welfare Information Gateway,   children who are being raised by single parents are statistically more likely to be victims of child abuse than children raised in dual-parent homes. ...