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POPSLearn Out Loud This site is fabulous and one of my favourites. When you get tired, why not just lean back and let someone else do the reading for a change. LOTS of stuff here, to make you smarter. Go rummage through the titles. Tons of stuff for FREE and all downloadable. :) I clipped just a few titles at the end (until I ran out of characters) to show you what sort of stuff they offer. Enjoy! .:)
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POPSWhy The Loudest are Often the Most Wrong This classic paper by Kruger and Dunning, Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments , examines the psychological reasons for the unfortunately common correlation between ignorance and confidence. We argue that when people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, like Mr. Wheeler, they are left with the mistaken impression that they are doing just fine. As Miller (1993) perceptively observed in the quote that opens this article, and as Charles Darwin (1871) sagely noted over a century ago, "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." ( PDF here .)
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POPSThe 10 Greatest Books of All Time Each individual top 10 list is like its own steeplechase through the international canon. List at the end of the clip, though I find Lev Grossman's intro more interesting.
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POPSPotential Alzheimer's, Parkinson's Cure Found In Century-old Drug Also impressed is one of Dr. Atamna's co-authors, Bruce Ames, PhD, a senior scientist at Children's and world-renowned expert in nutrition and aging. "What we potentially have is a wonder drug." said Dr. Ames. "To find that such a common and inexpensive drug can be used to increase and prolong the quality of life by treating such serious diseases is truly exciting." Dr. Atamna's research is the first to show that low concentrations of the drug have the ability to slow cellular aging in cultured cells in the laboratory and in live mice. He believes methylene blue has the potential to become another commonplace low-cost treatment like aspirin, prescribed as a blood thinner for people with heart disorders.
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POPSThe Downside of Optimism in comparison, extreme optimists: * Work significantly fewer hours * Hold a higher proportion of individual stocks in their portfolios * Are more likely to be day traders * Save less money * Are less likely to pay off their credit card balances on a regular basis * Are more likely to smoke “The differences between optimists and extreme optimists are remarkable and suggest that over-optimism, like overconfidence, may in fact lead to behaviors that are unwise,” Puri said.
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POPSMirror-touch people who feel a touch on their own body when seeing another person being touched
Because of the study's small size -- the researchers tested just ten synesthetes, though in a sense the number is incredible, as only one such case was previously documented -- the findings are primarily important in terms of physiology. Mirror system activity was observed in the lone earlier synesthete, and the current findings back up the association between the feelings and the system: if the same system was responsible for the sensation, it would ostensibly be difficult to distinguish between real and mirror touches. The researchers also noted that mirror synesthetes had higher levels of empathy than a control group in the study, though connecting such findings to a general empathic mechanism requires, at this stage in the research, a leap of faith. But it's probably not too soon to say, as one of the study's authors did, that "This may be an exaggeration of a brain mechanism that we all possess to some degree."
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POPSGait may be associated with orgasmic ability
There are several plausible explanations for the results shown by this study. One possibility is that a woman's anatomical features may predispose her to greater or lesser tendency to experience vaginal orgasm. According to Brody, "Blocked pelvic muscles, which might be associated with psychosexual impairments, could both impair vaginal orgasmic response and gait." In addition, vaginally orgasmic women may feel more confident about their sexuality, which might be reflected in their gait. "Such confidence might also be related to the relationship(s) that a woman has had, given the finding that specifically penile-vaginal orgasm is associated with indices of better relationship quality," the authors state. Research has linked vaginal orgasm to better mental health. The study provides some support for assumptions of a link between muscle blocks and sexual function, according to the authors. They conclude that it may lend credibility to the idea of incorporating training in movement, br
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POPSOlder Brain May Be Wiser “For the young people, it’s as if the distraction never happened,” said an author of the review, Lynn Hasher, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and a senior scientist at the Rotman Research Institute. “But for older adults, because they’ve retained all this extra data, they’re now suddenly the better problem solvers. They can transfer the information they’ve soaked up from one situation to another.”
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POPSWhat do you know? Not as much as you think "Our results indicate that if a comparison is made relative to an expert, consumers' beliefs regarding their knowledge are more consistent with their actual knowledge than if a comparison had been made relative to an average
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POPSSocial Interactions Can Alter Gene Expression In Brain, And Vice Versa A critical insight came in 1992, in a study of songbirds led by David Clayton. He and his colleagues found that expression of a specific gene increases in the forebrain of a zebra finch or canary just after it hears a new song from a male of the same species. This gene, egr1, codes for a protein that itself regulates the expression of other genes.
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POPSI Never Heard of Anybody Getting a Dual Ph.D. dulios recently mentioned to me that conservatives were talking about me on their threads, accusing me of lying about my education and experience. I'd say first, Google me. But, addressing it only once, this clip should be proof enough.
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