Clipmarks | Mohir's 'mind' clips

Think Yourself Healthy by Appreciating the Exercise You Already Do

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:47:48 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: To illustrate with just one of the outcomes they measured, the average weight of those in the intervention group reduced from 145.5 lbs to 143.72 lbs. Over the same period the control group showed no significant change. For those of you working metric-style that's 66.14 kg down to 65.33 kg.

That's like dropping a bag of sugar. In four weeks. With no additional exercise.

Clip Source: www.spring.org.uk

How strong do you think the link is between mind and body?

For example, is it possible to think yourself fitter without doing any additional exercise, but by simply better appreciating how much exercise you already do? A recent experiment by Alia Crum and Professor Ellen Langer of Harvard University suggests the incredible answer is yes.

Dr Ben Goldacre

describes the study which was carried out on hotel attendants who were informed how much exercise they were already doing as a regular part of their job. Here's Ben's conclusion:

"...amazingly, despite no change in actual exercise levels, in the intervention group, simply being told about the value of what they were already doing caused a significant change for the better on every single one of the objective health measures recorded: weight, body fat, body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio and blood pressure."

Tags: psycology, body, mind

Computer model of bees probes the hive mind

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 20:46:55 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: Thenius believes the foragers may be picking up clues about the quality of sources from their interactions with receivers. If some foragers have found a bountiful new source, the receivers have more work to do, so average unloading times across all foragers increase. This delay might suggest the existence of a better nectar source than the one a given forager has been visiting. Similarly, receivers are sometimes already half-full from another bee's nectar when a new forager arrives, so a forager needs to unload to more than one receiver. If this occurs more frequently, it may also suggest that a richer nectar source has been found.
To test this hypothesis, Thenius's team built a computer simulation of a hive containing 5000 independent virtual bees. Each forager started out visiting one of two different flower patches, but would switch destinations if it had to wait too long to be unloaded or was being serviced by too many receivers.

Clip Source: www.newscientist.com

GIVEN a choice between two different flower beds, how can honeybees hunting for nectar be sure they've chosen the best patch? A new computer model may provide the answer, as well as insights into the workings of a "hive mind" that could be used to guide swarms of robots.

Within a bee colony, two different types of bee handle nectar: foragers go out to collect it from flowers, and receivers unload it from the foragers and store it in honeycomb. The forager then leaves the hive to hunt for more.

Different foragers from a single hive visit more than one separate source of nectar - so how can an individual forager be sure it's going to the best one? While bees can communicate with each other using complicated waggle dances, "these only show where a source is - not how good it is", says Ronald Thenius of the University of Graz in Austria.

Tags: bees, computers, hive, mind

Encephalon #50 Edition: Brain & Mind Research

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:38:10 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: and much more....

Clip Source: www.sharpbrains.com

Welcome to Encephalon´s 50th edition, where you will find another superb collection of blog posts on all things Brain and Mind.

Clip Source: www.sharpbrains.com

Enjoy these contributions:

Science & Technology

Mind Hacks reports that Facebook ate my psychiatrist. We can learn about the benefits of social networking sites like Facebook,

Dungeons And Dragons - Or Mazes And Monsters?: PodBlack Cat offers a thought-provoking review of the therapy (including self-therapy) applications of role-playing games

Uses of Deep Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS): Brain Stimulant explores emerging and potential future applications of this non-invasive intervention. Weight loss? Alzheimer´s? Schizophrenia? Depression?. Check it out to read respective developments.

Research

The function of a Fearful Expression

Clip Source: www.sharpbrains.com

Oh Happiness.

Improve Memory with Sleep, Practice, and Testing:

Tags: brain, mind, research, science, technology

Mechanism Behind Mind-body Connection Discovered

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:47:25 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: The study reveals how stress makes people more susceptible to illness. The findings also suggest a potential drug target for preventing damage to the immune systems of persons who are under long-term stress, such as caregivers to chronically ill family members, as well as astronauts, soldiers, air traffic controllers and people who drive long daily commutes.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Immune cells (stained blue) end in protective caps called telomeres (stained yellow) that are shorter in the elderly -- and in persons suffering chronic stress. A new UCLA study suggests cortisol is the culprit behind premature aging of the immune system in stressed-out people.

Every cell contains a tiny clock called a telomere, which shortens each time the cell divides. Short telomeres are linked to a range of human diseases, including HIV, osteoporosis, heart disease and aging. Previous studies show that an enzyme within the cell, called telomerase, keeps immune cells young by preserving their telomere length and ability to continue dividing.

UCLA scientists found that the stress hormone cortisol suppresses immune cells' ability to activate their telomerase. This may explain why the cells of persons under chronic stress have shorter telomeres.

Tags: mind, body, health, stress

Unintelligent Design

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:14:29 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: At this point, 30 years after the Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman and his late collaborator Amos Tversky started documenting a rash of fallacies in human reasoning, the idea that the human mind would be "perfect in His image" is as outdated (and narcissistic) as the idea that the solar system would revolve around the planet earth.
The only theory that can really make sense of these needless imperfections is Darwin's theory of natural selection, which holds that humans (and all other life forms) evolve through a blind process known as descent-with-modification, in which new life forms represent random modifications of earlier life forms -- with no central overseer to guide the process. Such a random process can, over time, lead populations of creatures to become more adapted to their environment, but it is also vulnerable to getting stuck, in the sort of good-enough-but-not-perfect solutions that mathematicians call local maxima.

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Lost amid all the recent discussions of intelligent design -- including Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's decision this past Friday to sign a bill that allows teachers in his state to "supplement" classes on evolution with talk of creationism -- is one simple basic fact. The human species isn't intelligently designed.

When you get right down to it, from an engineering perspective, the design of the human mind (and for the matter the human body) is a bit of mess.

Take, for instance, human memory, and the trouble we often have in remembering even the most basic facts -- where did we put our keys? Where did we park our car? Because our brains so often blur our memories together. Human eyewitness testimony is often no match for even a low-rent survelllance camera, and memory can fail even in life-or-death circumstances. (6% of all skydiving fatalities, for instance, are from divers that forgot to pull their ripcords),

Tags: evolution, creationism, intelligent design

the defense mechanism of “Undoing”

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:15:51 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: www.ponderabout.com

Defense Mechanisms are psychological processes
that protect the conscious mind from threatening
impulses, thoughts and feelings

they do so by denying or distorting reality, and
they are largely unconscious

defense mechanisms are normal and, if used in
moderation, they can be helpful -

helpful in that they can give us time to recognize
our discomfort, identify its source and find ways
to consciously deal with it

however, the extensive and prolonged use of
defense mechanisms can be problematic in that
underlying difficulties remain, energy is wasted
and stress builds

Sigmund Freud first used “defense” as a psycho-
analytic term in 1894; and it was his daughter,
Anna Freud, who refined and expanded his theories
in the 1930s

the defense mechanism referred to as undoing
is an unconscious attempt to take back, nullify or
“un-do” a thought or action that had resulted in
guilt or anxiety

Tags: psychology, defense mechanism, mind

Firefox 3 Vulnerabilities Could Affect Over 14 Million Computers

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 23:27:13 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: In conclusion, having in mind that over 14 millions downloads of Mozilla Firefox 3.0 have been performed, users' computers are in potential danger until the security patches are released to fix the existing vulnerabilities.

Clip Source: news.softpedia.com

Since the new release of popular web browser Mozilla Firefox 3.0, over 14 million downloads have been registered by the counter posted on the Spread Firefox website. But just in a few hours (about five) after the Mozilla Firefox 3.0 was made available to the public, security flaws have been reported.

In response to this security report, Mozilla Security Blog posted, "This issue is currently under investigation. To protect our users, the details of the issue will remain closed until a patch is made available. There is no public exploit, the details are private, and so the current risk to users".

If other security reports are taken into account, like the one found on SecurityFocus website which deals with an unspecified buffer overflow vulnerability (boundary condition error), the new security improvements from Firefox 3.0 are not powerful enough for present pishing and malware threats.

Tags: firefox, security, malware, spyware

Of Two Minds, One Consciousness

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:47:28 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: But perhaps even more profound, he explains how, even though split-brain patients have isolated hemispheres, they experience a unified consciousness—that is, feel as though they are of one mind.

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Studies of split-brain patients provide insight into how we form thoughts?specifically how the left brain will create its own narrative based on information it never received.

We know from neuroscientists that the right brain deals with the immediate moment—the facts and details—whereas the left brain attempts to interpret those facts, events, observations.

Most intriguing is how the left brain, in its need to interpret, will make up stories even without any information.

Michael Gazzaniga of the University of California, Santa Barbara, affected the mood of a split-brain patient. He influenced their right brain with a stimulus to laugh, and then asked why they were cracking up.

The speech center, located in the left brain (which never received the humorous stimuli), had no idea why the patient was laughing—but still, came up with an explanation: "You guys are so funny!"

Tags: mind, brain, consciousness

Top 10 mind mapping tools

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:08:35 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: en.onsoftware.com

Mind maps - also known as concept maps - are visual diagrams used to represent ideas and tasks relating to a given topic. They come in especially handy when you need to generate and manage ideas for a work project, because having a visual representation of all available concepts helps you organize the necessary workflow in a more optimized way.

Check out this list with the best mind mapping software apps out there.

MindManager - capture ideas from several sources and create mind maps with them

MindGenius - easy, intuitive mindmapping tool for everyone

FreeMind - a mind map tool based on Java

MindPad - create colorful, complete mind maps

Visual Mind - mind map tool with a flexible graphic interface

NovaMind - conduct brainstorming sessions and create mindmaps with their outcome

CMapTools - free mindmapping tool with exporting capabilities

Cayra - an open-source mind map program with basic functionalities

ConceptDrawMindmap - professional tool to create concept maps

Mindomo

Tags: software, mind, mind maos

How to Unleash Your Creativity

Thu, 29 May 2008 12:51:11 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: This clip is only the intro,
and interesting read,
please see at source.

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Experts discuss tips and tricks to let loose your inner ingenuity

In a discussion with Scientific American Mind executive editor Mariette DiChristina, three noted experts on creativity, each with a very different perspective and background, reveal powerful ways to unleash your creative self.

John Houtz is a psychologist and professor at Fordham University. His most recent book is The Educational Psychology of Creativity (Hamptom Press, 2002).

Julia Cameron is an award-winning poet, playwright and filmmaker. Her book The Artist's Way (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 2002) has sold more than three million copies worldwide. Her latest book is The Writing Diet.

Robert Epstein is a visiting scholar at the University of California, San Diego. Contributing editors for Scientific American Mind and former editor in chief of Psychology Today, Epstein has written several books on creativity, including The Big Book of Creativity Games (McGraw-Hill, 2000).

Tags: mind, creativity

The InnerSpace Foundation

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:09:00 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: A founding philosophy of The InnerSpace Foundation is that the shortest and most efficient path to solving humanity's most serious problems--including providing complete and lasting cures for the most diseased and disabled--is through widespread improvement of memory and mind, rather than through the best efforts of people who are well-meaning but of naturally limited abilities.

Clip Source: www.innerspacefoundation.org

About

The InnerSpace Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and supporting neuroengineering approaches for the enhancement of memory and learning--biomedical goals that have the potential to greatly improve the lives of all people, not just a small fraction suffering from a specific malady. People are experiencing an unprecedented information explosion and the naturally evolved mind is drowning in a sea of information. This extreme and debilitating imbalance will only worsen with time. The founders of the InnerSpace Foundation do not believe there is a scientific basis for arbitrary distinctions between ability, inability, and disability; obvious and serious memory and cognitive inabilities plague people across the board, irrespective of education or best efforts at self-improvement, and these inabilities worsen as we age.

Tags: memory, innerspace foundation, learning, neuroengineering

The Orgasmic Mind: The Neurological Roots of Sexual Pleasure

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 15:08:35 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Achieving sexual climax requires a complex conspiracy of sensory and psychological signals—and the eventual silencing of critical brain areas

Sexual desire and orgasm are subject to various influences on the brain and nervous system, which controls the sex glands and genitals.

The ingredients of desire may differ for men and women, but researchers have revealed some surprising similarities. For example, visual stimuli spur sexual stirrings in women, as they do in men.

Achieving orgasm, brain imaging studies show, involves more than heightened arousal. It requires a release of inhibitions engineered by shutdown of the brain’s center of vigilance in both sexes and a widespread neural power failure in females.

Tags: sex, neuroscience, behavior

Beware words that prompt mental images

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 15:18:35 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: www.newscientist.com

SOME words really do conjure up mental images, and that can drive you to distraction - literally.

Zachary Estes at the University of Warwick, UK, and his team asked students to identify a target letter appearing briefly at the top or bottom of a computer screen. Just before the letter appeared, some saw the word "hat" in the centre of the screen. Those students were slower and less accurate at identifying the target letter if it then appeared at the top of the screen

Estes thinks the brain associates "hat" with the "up" position, and conjures up a mental picture of a hat high on the screen. This distracts you from identifying a letter occupying the same space. "It's like putting two pictures on top of each other - it's difficult to see either of them clearly," he says.

Tags: words, mind

Cantor’s Mathematics of Infinity

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 20:16:47 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: www.ponderabout.com

Cantor’s Mathematics of Infinity

from the time of Galileo, mathematicians regarded
infinity as an amorphous concept that was beyond
the understanding of the finite human mind

consequently, it was a curiosity that was outside the
boundaries of mathematics; and it remained so until
the time of German mathematician Georg Cantor
(1845 -1918)

Cantor, now regarded as one of the mathematics’s
greatest and most original thinkers, saw no reason
to avoid tackling the infinite

[Video]

the above video is from “Dangerous Knowledge”,
a BBC documentary on paradigm shifting break-
throughs

Tags: cantor, mathematics, infinity

Could quantum effects explain consciousness?

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 16:06:16 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: www.newscientist.com

Could quantum effects explain consciousness?

With its triumphant descriptions of a range of subatomic phenomena, quantum mechanics is one of the most successful scientific theories of all time. Now it holds out the tantalising prospect of explaining one of the great mysteries in biology: the nature of consciousness. It may even explain why dreams are dream-like.

Enlarge image

Is it a vase or two faces?

These hopes stem from a quantum model of consciousness developed by Efstratios Manousakis of Florida State University, Tallahassee. It is inspired by the "image flips" the brain makes when faced with an ambiguous image such as the one to the right, which can look like either a vase or two faces. Psychologists have long been fascinated by the fact that the brain cannot consciously perceive both versions simultaneously.

Tags: quantum, physics, consciousness, mind, brain