Clipmarks | rvnurse2b's Comments

The Mirror Neuron Revolution: Explaining What Makes Humans Social

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:29:47 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: The interview at the source

Marco Iacoboni, a neuroscientist at the University of California at Los Angeles, is best known for his work on mirror neurons, a small circuit of cells in the premotor cortex and inferior parietal cortex. What makes these cells so interesting is that they are activated both when we perform a certain action—such as smiling or reaching for a cup—and when we observe someone else performing that same action. In other words, they collapse the distinction between seeing and doing. In recent years, Iacoboni has shown that mirror neurons may be an important element of social cognition and that defects in the mirror neuron system may underlie a variety of mental disorders, such as autism. His new book, Mirroring People: The Science of How We Connect to Others, explores these possibilities at length. Mind Matters editor Jonah Lehrer chats with Iacoboni about his research.

Tags: neuroscience, mirror neuron, brain, autism

Watermelon May Have Viagra-effect

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:11:55 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: In watermelons, these include lycopene, beta carotene and the rising star among its phyto-nutrients – citrulline – whose beneficial functions are now being unraveled. Among them is the ability to relax blood vessels, much like Viagra does.
Scientists know that when watermelon is consumed, citrulline is converted to arginine through certain enzymes. Arginine is an amino acid that works wonders on the heart and circulation system and maintains a good immune system, Patil said.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

A cold slice of watermelon has long been a Fourth of July holiday staple. But according to recent studies, the juicy fruit may be better suited for Valentine’s Day. That’s because scientists say watermelon has ingredients that deliver Viagra-like effects to the body’s blood vessels and may even increase libido.

“The more we study watermelons, the more we realize just how amazing a fruit it is in providing natural enhancers to the human body,” said Dr. Bhimu Patil, director of Texas A&M’s Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center in College Station.

“We’ve always known that watermelon is good for you, but the list of its very important healthful benefits grows longer with each study.”

Beneficial ingredients in watermelon and other fruits and vegetables are known as phyto-nutrients, naturally occurring compounds that are bioactive, or able to react with the human body to trigger healthy reactions, Patil said.

Tags: watermelon, fruit, health, viagra

Abstinence is the answer

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:51:32 GMT

clipped by: sillysam
clipper's remarks: These girls need more parental involvement, not less. These young girls know how to have babies, so further sex ed isn’t needed. They want to have babies, so contraception is beside the point. The problem is that they think that they are ready to have babies, and they aren’t.

Clip Source: article.nationalreview.com

Officials had reason to be frustrated. Gloucester high had a school-based health clinic; they had contracted with the local Title X family planning clinic to provide comprehensive sex-ed classes; they even offered an elaborate program of free day care in a converted classroom to help mothers stay in school. They did everything by the book, and the spike in pregnancies occurred anyway. Why?

Former classmate Amanda Ireland may have the answer. According to Time: “Ireland, 18, gave birth her freshman year and says some of her now pregnant schoolmates regularly approached her in the hall, remarking how lucky she was to have a baby. ‘They’re so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally,’ Ireland says.”

While the poor women we interviewed saw marriage as a luxury, something they aspired to but feared they might never achieve, they judged children to be a necessity, an absolutely essential part of a young woman’s life, the chief source of identity and meaning.

My aim is to get a boyfriend

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:02:56 GMT

clipped by: Tri-City Psychology

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

My name is Jess Lee and I am 17 years old. I live in Liverpool with my mum, dad and sisters.

I am different from my family because I have a rare condition called Apert Syndrome.

I realised that if you look different, you will be treated as an outsider

Jess Lee

My eyes were widely spaced and protruding, my nose and mouth were unusually small - rather cute I like to think. My fingers were also fused together. They looked like little mittens.

When I was younger I didn't realise I looked different.

I first became aware that I was not the same as everyone else on my way to senior school one day.

They turned away and then from nowhere turned back and shouted: "Her fingers, her fingers!"

Only two words but they cut deep! What's more, no one on the bus stood up for me, so when I got to school I was very upset.

I realised that if you look different, you will be treated as an outsider

And so last year, I decided to completely transform the way I look - not because I needed to but because I wanted to.

Tags: apert syndrome

10 Things You Didn't Know About You

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 10:24:19 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Details on site.

Clip Source: www.livescience.com

Your Stomach Secretes Corrosive Acid

Body Position Affects Your Memory

Bones Break (Down) to Balance Minerals

Much of a Meal is Food For Thought

Thousands of Eggs Unused by Ovaries

Puberty Reshapes Brain Structure, Makes for Missed Curfews

Cell Hairs Move Mucus

Big Brains Cause Cramped Mouths

The World Laughs with You

Your Skin Has Four Colors

Tags: human

Richard Dawkins: Why There Almost Certainly Is No God

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 13:54:09 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

Opinion
Richard Dawkins: Why There Almost Certainly Is No God

America, founded in secularism as a beacon of eighteenth century enlightenment, is becoming the victim of religious politics, a circumstance that would have horrified the Founding Fathers. The political ascendancy today values embryonic cells over adult people. It obsesses about gay marriage, ahead of genuinely important issues that actually make a difference to the world. It gains crucial electoral support from a religious constituency whose grip on reality is so tenuous that they expect to be 'raptured' up to heaven, leaving their clothes as empty as their minds. More extreme specimens actually long for a world war, which they identify as the 'Armageddon' that is to presage the Second Coming. Sam Harris, in his new short book, Letter to a Christian Nation, hits the bull's-eye as usual:

placed by a ball of fire, some significant percentage of the American population would see a silver-lining in the subsequent mushroom cloud, as it would suggest to them that the best thing that is ever going to happen was about to happen: the return of Christ . . .Imagine the consequences if any significant component of the U.S. government actually believed that the world was about to end and that its ending would be glorious. The fact that nearly half of the American population apparently believes this, purely on the basis of religious dogma, should be considered a moral and ¬intellectual emergency. Does Bush check the Rapture Index daily, as Reagan did his stars? We don't know, but would anyone be surprised?

Tags: science, religion, dogma, god

Top 10 Reasons Gay Marriage Should Be Illegal

Tue, 14 Nov 2006 04:47:34 GMT

clipped by: OhBlaDi

Clip Source: stopgeek.com

Top 10 Reasons Gay Marriage Should Be Illegal

12 Nov, 2006 General, -Funneh

Top Ten Reasons to Make Gay Marriage Illegal

01) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

02) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

03) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

04) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all like many of the principles on which this great country was founded; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

05) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of marriages like Britney Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

06) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.

07) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

08) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.

09) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans. .

Tags: politics, idiots, gay marriage

USA has 5% of world pop., 25% of world's prisoners

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 03:47:49 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Even China, with 4X the population, has far fewer.
Do we want to be the nation that locks up more people than China?

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations’

The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.

Indeed, the United States leads the world in producing prisoners, a reflection of a relatively recent and now entirely distinctive American approach to crime and punishment. Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.

Criminologists and legal scholars in other industrialized nations say they are mystified and appalled by the number and length of American prison sentences.

The United States has, for instance, 2.3 million criminals behind bars

China, which is four times more populous than the United States, is a distant second, with 1.6 million

United States

has 751 people in prison or jail for every 100,000

England’s rate is 151; Germany’s is 88

Tags: prison, justice, legal, news

Leave it to the BBC to break such a story

Wed, 28 May 2008 17:10:20 GMT

clipped by: DrCat2013
clipper's remarks: At least it isn't just the US peace keepers committing horrible crimes against the ppl... But if the UN is committing the crimes, who is going to find justice for the victims?

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Abuse victims suffer in silence

Twelve-year-old Elizabeth - not her real name - was walking in fields with her brother, following an aunt who had gone ahead to work on the family's plot of land near the town of Man in north-western Ivory Coast, when they were approached by "les casques bleues", as UN peacekeepers are known.

She said: "They grabbed me and threw me to the ground and they forced themselves on me... I tried to escape but there were 10 of them and I could do nothing... I was terrified.

Her village elders say they tried to take the case to UN officials at the camp nearby. But Domade Jean-Baptiste, one of the village chiefs, said they were made to wait for ages and then sent away.

Elizabeth's brutal rape is one of an unknown number of sexual assaults carried out by peacekeepers and aid workers, the very people who are brought in to post-conflict areas around the world to protect the vulnerable.

Tags: crime, un, abuse, conflict areas

Young Me + Now Me

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 09:09:48 GMT

clipped by: coconutshell
clipper's remarks: I think this is a great idea. I wonder if my mum has any blackmailable photos of me. Hmm.

I think the blankie in the last one is the same blankie. Lucky.

Clip Source: colorwar2008.com

Tags: photos, people, now, children, young

"Are the Gospels Myth?"

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 03:12:05 GMT

clipped by: Efrain Alvarado

Clip Source: insightscoop.typepad.com

January 11, 49 B.C. is one of the most famous dates in the history of ancient Rome, even of the ancient world. On that date Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River, committing himself and his followers to civil war. Few, if any, historians doubt that the event happened. On the other hand, numerous skeptics claim that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are myth and have no basis in historical fact. Yet, as historian Paul Merkley pointed out two decades ago in his article, "The Gospels as Historical Testimony," far less historical evidence exists for the crossing of the Rubicon than does for the events depicted in the Gospels:

Merkley observed that those skeptics who either scoff at the historical reliability of the Gospels or reject them outright as "myth" do so without much, if any, regard for the nature of history in general and the contents of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in particular.

Read the entire article...

Tags: gospel, bible, scriptures, catholic, christianity

Is Mathematics Discovered or Invented?

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:30:27 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

For centuries people have debated whether – like scientific truths – mathematics is discoverable, or if it is simply invented by the minds of our great mathematicians. But two questions are raised, one for each side of the coin. For those who believe these mathematical truths are purely discoverable, where, exactly, are you looking? And for those on the other side of the court, why cannot a mathematician simply announce to the world that he has invented 2 + 2 to equal 5.

If you’re looking for a side to join, then maybe the Platonic theory is your cup of tea. The Classical Greek philosopher Plato was of the view that math was discoverable, and that it is what underlies the very structure of our universe.

“The abstract realm in which a mathematician works is by dint of prolonged intimacy more concrete to him than the chair he happens to sit on,”

Mazur describes the Platonic view as “a full-fledged theistic position.”

Tags: math, invention?, discovery?, plato

Math proves bigotry is illogical

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 02:21:36 GMT

clipped by: zizzy

Clip Source: www.freep.com

July 22, 2007

BY DAVID CRUMM

FREE PRESS RELIGION WRITER

Games are an ancient form of global diplomacy, but Cass Tech High School calculus teacher Maurice El-Amin leads Detroit teenagers into a sophisticated niche of the gaming world that depends on brains not brawn.

In each of the last six years, he's shattered stereotypes by coaching his students successfully through regional competitions across Michigan and then a national tournament in Georgia. Facing tough teams from suburban and private schools, his teams have proved that Detroit teens are among the sharpest in the country.

One of the half-dozen logic games they play is called Wff 'n Proof, and, for the last six years, one of El-Amin's students has won the $6,000 annual scholarship that goes to a top U.S. competitor.

"We've broken a lot of stereotypes over the years," El-Amin said as he met with team members at the school for practice rounds. The games are played on tables with dozens of colorful cubes bearing numbers and symbols.

Tags: math, bigotry, educaion, gaming, scholarship

Finding A husband

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 20:53:14 GMT

clipped by: carrerinyes
clipper's remarks: gender bias charges, the stores owner opens a New Wives store just across the street.

The 1st first floor has wives that love sex.

The 2nd floor has wives that love sex and have money.

The 3rd,4th, 5th and 6th floors have never been visited

Clip Source: www.smilespedia.com

Finding a husband

So, a woman goes to the Husband Store to find a husband.

The 1st floor sign on the door reads:

Floor 1: These men have jobs.
The 2nd floor sign reads:

Floor 2: These men have Jobs and Love Kids.

The 3rd floor sign reads:

Floor 3: These men have Jobs, Love Kids and are extremely good looking.
Wow, she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.

She goes to the 4th floor and the sign reads:

Floor 4: These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking and help with Housework.
Oh, mercy me! she exclaims, I can hardly stand it!
Still, she goes to the 5th floor and sign reads:

Floor 5: These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Gorgeous, help with Housework and Have a Strong Romantic Streak.
She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the 6th floor and the sign reads:

Floor 6: You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor.
There are no men on this floor.
This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please.
Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store.

To avoid

A Game worthwhile playing !

Sat, 10 May 2008 12:25:49 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: As a serious gamer I am certainly going to devote some time to this one. The idea is brilliant. Collaborative computing may bring breakthroughs that are decades away otherwise.
If you pop this at least give the game a try

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Gamers have devoted countless years of collective brainpower to rescuing princesses or protecting the planet against alien invasions. This week researchers at the University of Washington will try to harness those finely honed skills to make medical discoveries, perhaps even finding a cure for HIV.

A new game, named Foldit, turns protein folding into a competitive sport. Introductory levels teach the rules, which are the same laws of physics by which protein strands curl and twist into three-dimensional shapes -- key for biological mysteries ranging from Alzheimer's to vaccines.

After about 20 minutes of training, people feel like they're playing a video game but are actually mouse-clicking in the name of medical science. The free program is at http://fold.it/.

High-scoring players will be credited in scientific publications the way that top Rosetta@home contributors already are credited for their computer time.

Tags: medicine, computer games, collaborative computing

Clipmarks | rvnurse2b's Comments

The Mirror Neuron Revolution: Explaining What Makes Humans Social

Watermelon May Have Viagra-effect

Abstinence is the answer

My aim is to get a boyfriend

10 Things You Didn't Know About You

Your Stomach Secretes Corrosive Acid

Body Position Affects Your Memory

Bones Break (Down) to Balance Minerals

Much of a Meal is Food For Thought

Thousands of Eggs Unused by Ovaries

Puberty Reshapes Brain Structure, Makes for Missed Curfews

Cell Hairs Move Mucus

Big Brains Cause Cramped Mouths

The World Laughs with You

Your Skin Has Four Colors

Richard Dawkins: Why There Almost Certainly Is No God

Opinion Richard Dawkins: Why There Almost Certainly Is No God

Top 10 Reasons Gay Marriage Should Be Illegal

Top 10 Reasons Gay Marriage Should Be Illegal

USA has 5% of world pop., 25% of world's prisoners

Leave it to the BBC to break such a story

Abuse victims suffer in silence

Young Me + Now Me

"Are the Gospels Myth?"

Is Mathematics Discovered or Invented?

Math proves bigotry is illogical

Finding A husband

Finding a husband

A Game worthwhile playing !

Opinion
Richard Dawkins: Why There Almost Certainly Is No God