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11 Ways to Build an Extraordinary Life

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:16:30 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Have a vision for your future...

How can you build the life you want? The answer to that question is different for each of us. But it’s critical that you answer it, because in the answer you will find purpose and meaning. Many of us look for happiness in things, but happiness doesn’t come from things, it comes from how we relate to ourselves and our world.

Be True to Yourself

Have a Vision for Your Future

Avoid Debt

Save

Continue Your Education

Take Responsibility for Change

Learn from Mistakes -

Build Quality Relationships/Discard Destructive Ones

Love: Look for a partner who is on a similar journey as yours, who has similar goals and values, and build on your relationship by giving your love and encouragement

Friendship: Look for people with similar values, who give as much as they take, with which you can share interests and hobbies.

Do the Right Thing Even When it is Unpopular

Honor Your Commitments - Do not make commitments lightly

Be Charitable

Tags: life, extraordinary

Addicted to Grief?

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:07:53 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: When time doesn't heal, the brain's reward system may be playing a role

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Losing a loved one is always painful, but for most people time eventually heals the wounds. For about 10 to 20 percent of the bereaved, however, accepting and getting over a loss remains extremely difficult, even years later. Now researchers have come a step closer to elucidating the neurobiological underpinnings of this condition called complicated grief (CG). A new functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, published online in May in the journal NeuroImage, shows that in CG patients reminders of the deceased activate a brain area associated with reward processing, pleasure and addiction.

While in the scanner, the women saw pictures and words that reminded them of their loved one. Brain networks associated with social pain became activated in all women, but in the CG patients reminders of the deceased also excited the nucleus accumbens, a forebrain area most commonly associated with reward.

Tags: grief, mind, healing, time, brain

Mars Express Photos of Echus Chasma

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 05:20:09 GMT

clipped by: einbar

Clip Source: www.wcbs880.com

one of the largest water source regions on Mars, is pictured from ESA's Mars Express.

Clip Source: www.wcbs880.com

In this handout image supplied by the European Space Agency (ESA) on July 16, 2008,

Clip Source: www.wcbs880.com

The dark material shows a network of light-coloured, incised valleys that look similar to drainage networks known on Earth.

Clip Source: www.wcbs880.com

It is still debated whether the valleys originate from precipitation, groundwater springs or liquid or magma flows on the surface.

Clip Source: www.wcbs880.com

The data was acquired on September 25, 2005

Clip Source: www.wcbs880.com

Future Human: The Evolution of Immediate Emotion

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:23:56 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Humans, apparently, are still in the early stages of evolving extended response mechanisms. But it seems likely that by the time we portion more of our brain to long-term dangers, there will be few grizzly bears around to worry about, and a whole lotta global warming.

Clip Source: www.popsci.com

Why a grizzly gets you shivering—but not global warming

In my Science Confirms the Obvious post today, I discussed the first psychological proof (so say the authors) that humans can indeed experience emotions without immediately knowing why. We do this, they say, because we evolved that way. True, scientists love that explanation, but here it’s quite intriguing.

“After all, you are likely to live longer if you immediately stop moving at the sight of a growling grizzly bear,”

“and do not need full awareness for such a response to be instigated.” Given the flood of unexpected stimuli we face moment to moment, quick reactions make sense for survival.

You, that bear, and other animals experience emotions such as fear, anger, or disgust. But only a few species are aware of their emotions. This ability helps humans judge and respond to the behavior of others in order to navigate social situations and, ultimately, grease the wheels of complex society.

Tags: future, human, evolution, immediate emotion

The Anonymity Experiment

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:19:06 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: "Technology is way ahead of our ability as a society to think about the consequences.”

Clip Source: www.popsci.com

During a week of attempting to cloak every aspect of daily life, our correspondent found that in an information age, leaving no trace is nearly impossible

In 2006, David Holtzman decided to do an experiment. Holtzman, a security consultant and former intelligence analyst, was working on a book about privacy, and he wanted to see how much he could find out about himself from sources available to any tenacious stalker. So he did background checks. He pulled his credit file. He looked at Amazon.com transactions and his credit-card and telephone bills. He got his DNA analyzed and kept a log of all the people he called and e-mailed, along with the Web sites he visited. When he put the information together, he was able to discover so much about himself—from detailed financial information to the fact that he was circumcised—that his publisher, concerned about his privacy, didn’t let him include it all in the book.

I’m no intelligence analyst, but stories like Holtzman’s freak me out

Tags: anonymity, experiment, information age

Graphene - Strongest Material Ever Tested

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:39:57 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: www.technologyreview.com

Materials scientists have been singing graphene's praises since it was first isolated in 2005.

The one-atom-thick sheets of carbon conduct electrons better than silicon and have been made into fast, low-power transistors.

Now, for the first time, researchers have measured the intrinsic strength of graphene, and they've confirmed it to be the strongest material ever tested.

The finding provides good evidence that graphene transistors could take the heat in future ultrafast microprocessors.

Hone compares his test to stretching a piece of plastic wrap over the top of a coffee cup, and measuring the force that it takes to puncture it with a pencil. If he could get a large enough piece of the material to lay over the top of a coffee cup, he says, graphene would be strong enough to support the weight of a car balanced atop the pencil.

Clip Source: www.technologyreview.com

Graphene is the basic building block of several other three-dimensional nanostructures made up of carbon, including nanotubes and buckyballs

Tags: materials, physics

All on the mind - The Future of Cognitive Enhancers

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:15:00 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: This is a short article in the current issue of the Economist. Another sign that cognitive enhancers are gaining public interest and legitimacy.

Clip Source: www.economist.com

FOR thousands of years, people have sought substances that they hoped would boost their mental powers and their stamina.

Leaves, roots and fruit have been chewed, brewed and smoked in a quest to expand the mind.

That search continues today, with the difference only that the shamans work in pharmaceutical laboratories rather than forests.

Such drugs are known as cognition enhancers.

They work on the neural processes that underlie such mental activities as attention, perception, learning, memory, language, planning and decision-making, usually by altering the balance of the chemical neurotransmitters involved in these processes.

a large number of such brain-affecting drugs are likely to emerge over the next few decades.

Provigil and Ritalin really do enhance cognition in healthy people.

It also improves people's performance in tests of their ability to plan.

Mind-expansion may soon, therefore, become big business.

Prepare for drugs that will improve memory, concentration and learning

Tags: brain, cognition, gognitive enhancement