Clipmarks | kmcolo's clips

Ten Habits of Highly Effective Brains

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 21:16:59 GMT

let's review some good lifestyle options we can follow to maintain, and improve, our vibrant brains.

Learn what is the "It" in "Use It or Lose It"

Take care of your nutrition. Did you know that the brain only weighs 2% of body mass but consumes over 20% of the oxygen and nutrients we intake?

Things that exercise your body can also help sharpen your brain: physical exercise enhances neurogenesis.

Practice positive, future-oriented thoughts until they become your default mindset

Thrive on Learning and Mental Challenges

Aim high. Once you graduate from college, keep learning

Explore, travel. Adapting to new locations forces you to pay more attention to your environment

Make your own decisions, and mistakes. And learn from them

Develop and maintain stimulating friendships. We are "social animals", and need social interaction. Which, by the way, is why 'Baby Einstein' has been shown not to be the panacea for children development.

Laugh. Often. Especially to cognitively complex humor

Tags: prepare, technique, tip, brain, organization, improvement, highly effective, habits

The Last Hero of Tiananmen

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 23:38:24 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo
clipper's remarks:

After I left his apartment, though, I decided it was unfair to expect the elderly doctor to continue standing up to the party. He had already achieved more than most and paid a price for it. I doubted the government would ever let him visit his daughter and grandson, but how could anyone expect him to give up that hope?There was only so much one man could do, and only so much a nation could ask of him.

Clip Source: www.pekingduck.org

Philip Pan, for years my favorite correspondent in Beijing (he left a few months ago), has written a devastating article about a letter written by a doctor who saw with his own eyes the victims of the massacre on the streets of Beijing n June 4, 1989 and described in detail the carnage he witnessed in the emergency room that night.

When I last visited him, he turned up the volume on his television set because he believed his apartment might be bugged, and he whispered that he was trying to avoid provoking the government. He said he still wanted to visit his daughter and grandson in California, and he believed that, if he behaved, the authorities would give him permission to go. As I listened to him speak, I couldn’t help but feel a pang of disappointment. The state had been unable to break Jiang, but it had succeeded in silencing him.

Tags: china, governance, dictatorship

Tips from Thomas Edison on Living Optimistically

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 09:26:32 GMT

clipped by: Djiezes
clipper's remarks:

Dr. Martin Seligman, the director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Center, and author of Learned Optimism, has studied optimists and pessimists for 25 years. His research has found:

Optimists

* Less depression than pessimists
* Better results than pessimists in most areas of life
* Longer lifespan
* Healthier than pessimists
* Better than pessimists at work and in school
* More friends and better social lives

Pessimists

* More depression than optimists
* Inertia rather than activity in the face of setbacks
* Feels bad subjectively–blue, down worried, anxious
* Poor physical health
* Self-fulfilling; pessimists don’t persist in the face of challenges and thus fail more frequently, even when success is attainable
* Even when pessimists turn out to be right, they still feel worse than deluded optimists

Clip Source: lifedev.net

Brighten up your life: 3 Tips from Thomas Edison on Living Optimistically

Clip Source: lifedev.net

1) There is no such thing as a failure- there are only unexpected outcomes which will provide valuable guidance for future work

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. -Thomas Edison

2) Decide with full commitment to accomplish something

Nearly every man who develops an idea works it up to the point when it looks impossible, and gets discouraged. That’s not the place to become discouraged. Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. -Thomas Edison

3) Look on the bright side of everything

Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit. -Napoleon Hill

Tags: thomas edison, edison, tips, list, optimism, happiness, howto

Neuroscience: Rewiring the brain after stroke

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:57:43 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: www.nature.com

The brain can recover so well from a stroke that initially paralysed limbs can be moved again. Scientists have discovered how this happens at the level of individual neurons.

Timothy Murphy and Ian Winship of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver induced stroke in adult mice and used an in vivo imaging technique called two-photon microscopy to monitor the activity of individual neurons close to the site of damage.

In the first month — when paralysis is usually at its worst — they found that some neurons ditched their speciality for one particular limb and began processing information from multiple limbs. During the following month, as the affected brain region reorganized itself more permanently, those neurons re-specialized to a new single limb.

Tags: brain, health, stroke, science, neuroscience

Social diversity promotes the emergence of cooperation in public goods games

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:10:09 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: www.nature.com

Humans often cooperate in public goods games^1,^2,³ and situations ranging from family issues to global warming^4,⁵. However, evolutionary game theory predicts^4,⁶ that the temptation to forgo the public good mostly wins over collective cooperative action, and this is often also seen in economic experiments⁷. Here we show how social diversity provides an escape from this apparent paradox.

Our results may help to explain the emergence of cooperation in the absence of mechanisms based on individual reputation and punishment^10,^11,¹². Combining social diversity with reputation and punishment will provide instrumental clues on the self-organization of social communities and their economical implications.

Tags: science, behavior, cooperation, society, economics, social, diversity, social networks

Genetic Determinants of Self Identity and Social Recognition in Bacteria

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:47:19 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo
clipper's remarks: The understanding of self and other and social recognition in ... bacteria!

Clip Source: www.sciencemag.org

The bacterium Proteus mirabilis is capable of movement on solidsurfaces by a type of motility called swarming. Boundaries formbetween swarming colonies of different P. mirabilis strainsbut not between colonies of a single strain. A fundamental requirementfor boundary formation is the ability to discriminate betweenself and nonself. We have isolated mutants that form boundarieswith their parent. The mutations map within a six-gene locusthat we term ids for identification of self. Five of the genesin the ids locus are required for recognition of the parentstrain as self. Three of the ids genes are interchangeable betweenstrains, and two encode specific molecular identifiers.

Tags: bacteria, science, genetics, identity, social

Tesla: The Lost Wizard Video

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 21:29:10 GMT

clipped by: adamc
clipper's remarks: The man who invented the 21st century will soon get his due. As the web puts this type of information at our fingertips, I have faith that more and more people will be exposed to the brilliance of Tesla.

Clip Source: video.google.com

[Video]

Ecology: Competing keeps bees busy

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:59:55 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: www.nature.com

Bumblebees are pollinator generalists, flying to more flower species than most other insects, but a new study suggests that this behaviour depends on competition.

Colin Fontaine and his colleagues at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris recorded the foraging behaviour of individual common bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) in an experimental garden where five flowering plant species were available. The researchers varied the number of bees present during the experiment and found that when few bees were present, they visited fewer species of plant.

Pollinator numbers are known to be falling in many regions owing to human disturbance. Worryingly, the resulting reduced competition could lead bumblebees to eschew some plant species.

Tags: science, ecology, bees, bumblebees, pollinators

International law should govern release of GM mosquitoes

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:20:35 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo
clipper's remarks: This brings up an interesting point - what is the role of the nation state as the world "internationalizes"? What good are EPA regulations when we breath polluted air from China? What good are European regulations on CO2 when the U.S. wont regulate? How does the U.S. compete in stem cell research when it has restrictions on funding? The nation state is no longer the venue for prevention of things like cloning, bacterial engineering, genetic selection, GM foods, etc. We may restrict cloning in the States, but then cloning moves to Mexico or China.

Clip Source: www.nature.com

Your News story 'Sterile mosquitoes near take-off' (Nature 453, 435; 2008) discusses the likely release of genetically engineered mosquitoes to help contain dengue fever. It demonstrates just how close we are to a radically new set of strategies for managing a whole range of diseases and wildlife using genetically modified organisms (GMOs). But after assessing the risks and benefits, nations may reach different conclusions about their use. And that's quite a problem, considering that genetically modified bugs won't recognize national borders.

Nations have a right to decide the technological risks to which they expose themselves. The factors in decision-making here will not be only the simple ones of uncontested science — this is politics, and appropriately so. The potential for conflict over self-dispersing GMOs demands the attention of international law.

Tags: science, society, international, globalization

Arsenic and Paddy Rice: A Neglected Cancer Risk?

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:42:18 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: www.sciencemag.org

Does the food that sustains half of humanity also increase the risk of cancer for some? That question arises from three sets of findings that report elevated arsenic levels in rice and products such as rice bran and rice crackers.

Tags: food, health, diet, cancer, rice

Free Market?

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 02:28:26 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo
clipper's remarks: Where are the defenders of the "free market "crying foul over government interference?

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Bush Offers Plan to Save Fannie, Freddie

Tags: government, economy, politics

Puffy? Diddy? 'It's Not a Serious Thing'

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 04:31:39 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo
clipper's remarks: An interesting interview. I bet you didn't know that P. Diddy was helping his grandmother sew clothes when he was a teen.

The story between the lines is of a mother with middle class aspirations.

Clip Source: www.npr.org

Fresh Air from WHYY, June 17, 2008 - While his nicknames may be ever-changing, Sean Combs himself is immediately recognizable as one of the richest and most influential people in hip-hop.

Combs talks to Terry Gross about his almost obsessive rehearsal process for that show, about losing his father — an associate of reputed druglord Frank Lucas — in a shooting when Combs was 3 years old, and about the influence his mother and grandmother have had on his life and career.

Tags: podcast, fresh air, music, hip hop, people

Insights into the Pathogenesis of Autism

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:43:37 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: www.sciencemag.org

GENETICS:
Insights into the Pathogenesis of Autism

James S. Sutcliffe

Genetic analysis of inbred families reveals genes associated with susceptibility to autism.

Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232-8548, USA. E-mail: james.s.sutcliffe@vanderbilt.edu

Tags: genetics, science, autism

Ten Tips for Effective File Management

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:13:52 GMT

clipped by: Sheroug

Clip Source: greatdocuments.net

The following is a short list of ideas that you can put to work to make sure you organize your files effectively

Separate images and text files

Do not mix project files

Use a good zip program to e-mail your large files

Name your files with meaningful names

Delete of all temporary files that Windows creates

Run a good defrag program every two months or so

Create a meaningful directory structure

If you’re on a network, copy your files to a network drive

If you’re computing alone, copy your files onto a flash drive

Know your file extensions

Model Prediction: Arctic Ocean Sea Ice Cover 2008

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:52:35 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo
clipper's remarks: Cool to see improved models to the point that some are willing to predict sea ice extent for the end of summer. That said the author does a good job with the caveats.

Clip Source: esciencenews.com

The ice cover in the Arctic Ocean at the end of summer 2008 will lie, with almost 100 per cent probability, below that of the year 2005 – the year with the second lowest sea ice extent ever measured. Chances of an equally low value as in the extreme conditions of the year 2007 lie around eight per cent.

Different from long-term prognoses, the researchers' forecasts can quickly be checked by reality. This is all right by Rüdiger Gerdes and his team. "It is a first test, and all participating researchers are eager to know how their prognosis has fared at the end of the summer. In the end, this small competition serves the optimisation of our models, so that we are able to improve our predictions concerning short-term seasonal fluctuations. It has to be added, however, that even perfect models would not be able to rule out a component of chance regarding the atmosphere. These forecasts will always be about probability, and not exact prognoses."

Tags: climate, sea ice, arctic

Clipmarks | kmcolo's clips

Ten Habits of Highly Effective Brains

The Last Hero of Tiananmen

Tips from Thomas Edison on Living Optimistically

Brighten up your life: 3 Tips from Thomas Edison on Living Optimistically

Neuroscience: Rewiring the brain after stroke

Social diversity promotes the emergence of cooperation in public goods games

Genetic Determinants of Self Identity and Social Recognition in Bacteria

Tesla: The Lost Wizard Video

Ecology: Competing keeps bees busy

International law should govern release of GM mosquitoes

Arsenic and Paddy Rice: A Neglected Cancer Risk?

Free Market?

Puffy? Diddy? 'It's Not a Serious Thing'

Insights into the Pathogenesis of Autism

GENETICS:Insights into the Pathogenesis of Autism

Ten Tips for Effective File Management

Model Prediction: Arctic Ocean Sea Ice Cover 2008

GENETICS:
Insights into the Pathogenesis of Autism