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POPSTen cognitive distortions that mess you up David Burns is a pioneer in popularizing the cognitive-behavioral approach to mood therapy developed by Aaron Beck. As someone who has struggled on and off with crippling depression my whole life, I have found this list of "cognitive distortions" pretty useful in reframing certain elements of my thinking.
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POPSThe Mathematical Lives of Plants The seeds of a sunflower, the spines of a cactus, and the bracts of a pine cone all grow in whirling spiral patterns. Remarkable for their complexity and beauty, they also show consistent mathematical patterns that scientists have been striving to understand. ... Scientists have puzzled over this pattern of plant growth for hundreds of years. Why would plants prefer the golden angle to any other? And how can plants possibly "know" anything about Fibonacci numbers? For the first time, scientists have found convincing biochemical mechanisms responsible for the interlocking spiral growth patterns seen in many plants. (The Romanesco broccoli plant is a striking example.) The video of the experiment with magnetized liquid iron droplets demonstrates how the geometry of such growth could occur in nature.
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POPSdepression and dreaming link very interesting article, these are just quick snippets. even if you have never been seriously down it's good to know. stay preventative people!! :)
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POPSMind Reading Is Now Possible "The more detailed the thought is, the more different these patterns get, because different people have different associations for an object or idea," says Haynes. "We're much closer to this than we were two years ago, but still far from a universal mind-reading machine." How far? The CMU group is determining the brain patterns that encode abstract ideas (honesty, democracy), words and sentences, a big step toward a mind-reading dictionary.
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POPSClipmarks encourages censorship? I thought I might share some tidbits I have learned about censorship here on Clipmarks. Many of know (or maybe not) that you can 'block' comments by other clip users on your clipmarks. While this may be a tool, it appears it only supports those who would mis-use it. Anyone with an opposing opinion can be silenced if the clipper doesnt want others to see anyones comments but those they agree with. I'm ashamed of Clipmarks for allowing this 'tool' to be so easily misused, without any administrative or moderator based decision. So much for the open exchange of free thought and viewpoints.
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POPSFascist America in 10 Easy Steps As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such a twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air-however slight-lest we become unwilling victims of the darkness. ~Justice William O. Douglas~
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POPSTwenty science fiction novels that may change your life Cryptonomicon (2000), by Neal Stephenson The Mount (2002), by Carol Emschwiller Perdido Street Station (2002), by China Mieville Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003), by Cory Doctorow Pattern Recognition (2003), by William Gibson Newton's Wake (2004), by Ken MacLeod Glasshouse (2006), by Charles Stross
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POPSOrganic Bees NOT Dying Does size matter? Have we just pushed bees too far? Have they simply just reached their biological breaking point, further aggravated by external stresses?
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POPSHeart shaped dog Wow, that's going to be one sought-after little puppy! He already looks a little tired, lol.
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POPSSongs From The Sea: Deciphering Dolphin Language With Picture Words Dr. Horace Dobbs, a leading authority on dolphin-assisted therapy, has joined the team as consultant. "I have long held the belief that the dolphin brain, comparable in size with our own, has specialized in processing auditory data in much the same way that the human brain has specialized in processing visual data. Nature tends not to evolve brain mass without a need, so we must ask ourselves what dolphins do with all that brain capacity. The answer appears to lie in the development of brain systems that require huge auditory processing power. There is growing evidence that dolphins can take a sonic 'snap shot' of an object and send it to other dolphins, using sound as the transmission medium. We an therefore hypothesize that the dolphin's primary method of communication is picture based. Thus, the picture-based imaging method, employed by Reid and Kassewitz, seems entirely plausible."
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POPSZebra's Stripes, Butterfly's Wings: How Do Biological Patterns Emerge? Previous work identified a specific signal necessary for getting these fly egg cells to move; the problem is that this signal is “graded.” Like drops of ink spreading out on wet paper, this signal travels in between surrounding cells, gradually fading away as it moves outwards. But clear lines are required for pattern formation — there is no grey area between a zebra’s black and white stripes, between heart and liver cells and, in this case, between migrating cells and those that stay put. How are graded signals converted to a clear move or stay signal? By examining flies containing mutations in different genes, the researchers discovered that one gene in particular, called apontic, is important for converting a graded signal.
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POPS'Torturer's Dicks got Hard with New Ideas'. She didn't have a Dick!
On December 2, Detainee 063 was in an isolated, plywood interrogation booth at Camp X-Ray. He was bolted to the floor and secured to a chair, his hands and legs cuffed. He had been held in isolation since August 8, nearly four months earlier. He was dehydrated and in need of regular hook-ups to an intravenous drip. His feet were swollen. He was urinating on himself. The pattern was always the same: 20-hour interrogation sessions, followed by four hours of sleep. Sleep deprivation appears as a central theme, along with stress positions and constant humiliation, including sexual humiliation. These techniques were supplemented by the use of water, regular bouts of dehydration, the use of IV tubes, loud noise, nudity, female contact, pin-ups. An interrogator even tied a leash to him, led him around the room and forced him to perform a series of dog tricks. He was forced to wear a woman's bra and a thong was placed on his head. Author Philippe Sands is a UK Queen's Council
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POPSWhy you should go with your gut feeling To uncover this ability, Pessiglione and colleague Chris Frith, of University College London, tested 20 volunteers with a simple game based on winning and losing small amounts of money. On a computer screen, the volunteers watched an animated abstract pattern which for a couple of tenths of a second included one of three symbols part way through. Unbeknownst to the subjects, the symbols indicated whether they would lose or gain £1 or break even if they accepted the gamble. Surprisingly, subjects got better at predicting whether they would win or not, eventually plateauing at slightly above chance, strong evidence that volunteers do not consciously notice the symbols but are affected by them nonetheless.
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POPSMath Behind Ancient Islamic Tile Patterns Decoded When Peter J. Lu traveled to Uzbekistan, he had no idea of the mathematical journey that he was about to embark on as well. See the full research article as published in Science . It's a wonderful example of original, multidisciplinary academic research bridging history and mathematics that happens to force us to re-think the sophistication of ancient geometrical knowledge. When Lu looked at photographs of Islamic buildings, he found that he could break the patterns on their surfaces up into the same shapes, even though the shapes often weren't immediately visible. "I couldn't sleep for days," he said. "I skipped Christmas break to work on it."
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POPSRare 'Ghost-like' White Stag Spotted They are closely identified with unicorns and their appearance is said to herald some profound change in the lives of those who encounter them. Can this clip be considered an encounter? :)
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POPSWhy the Brain Follows the Rules
Not surprisingly, the threat of punishment made people act more fairly. In the “punishment threat condition” people split the money close to equally. However, when Person B had no recourse, the people given the money acted very differently and gave away, on average, less than 10 percent of the money. When the researchers looked at the brain activity of people playing this simple game, they found a consistent pattern. One region in the frontal lobes, the orbitofrontal cortex, seemed to be responsible for evaluating the potential for punishment. In other words, it figured out whether or not violating the social norm would get us in trouble. A second brain region, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, was responsible for inhibiting the natural tendency to keep most of the money (this would be the greedy thing to do) if this action might lead to future punishment. Interestingly, these brain areas only were activated when the threat of punishment came from a real person, and not a compute
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POPSA Loved One "As the outrage over his gruesome death settled in, so did testimonials about the disheveled homeless man with a Buddha-like frame known in the neighborhood as "John," "Mr. John" or "Grimley." People spoke about his piercing blue eyes and his kind, quiet manner. The owners of the local convenience store spoke about how conscientious he was. "He never paid a penny less," said Anjana Bhowmick, owner of Bengal Liquor store "I feel that it has been a great comfort to myself and my brothers and sisters to know that he was not alone, unnoticed, untouched by other humans -- because that is what we had imagined," McGraham-Paisley said in an e-mail to The Times."
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POPSLife after oil: time to get ready James Kunstler's trademark pessimism, which, sadly, is probably right on the money. According to the Dept. of Energy, world energy demand now exceeds supply; get ready for a rough ride down the other side of the peak.
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