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runlai_jiang

What Is Synesthesia? Definition and Types - 0 views

  • The term "synesthesia" comes from the Greek words syn, which means "together", and aisthesis, which means "sensation." Synesthesia is a perception in which stimulating one sensory or cognitive pathway  causes experiences in another sense or cognitive pathway. In other words, a sense or concept is connected to a different sense or concept, such as hearing a color or tasting a word. The connection between pathways is involuntary and consistent over time, rather than conscious or arbitrary.
  • Types of SynesthesiaThere are many different types of synesthesia, but they may be categorized as falling into one of two groups: associative synesthesia and projective synesthesia. An associate feels a connection between a stimulus and a sense, w
  • There are at least 80 known types of synesthesia, but some are more common than others: Chromesthesia: In this common form of synesthesia, sounds and colors are associated with each other. For example, the musical note "D" may correspond to seeing the color green.Grapheme-color synesthesia: This is a common form of synesthesia characterized by seeing graphemes (letter or numerals) shaded with a color. Synesthetes don't associate the same colors for a grapheme as each other, although the letter "A" does appear to be red to many individuals. Persons who experience grapheme-color synesthesia sometimes report seeing impossible colors when red and green or blue and yellow graphemes appear next to each other in a word or number. Number form: A number form is a mental shape or map of numbers resulting from seeing or thinking about numbers.Lexical-gustatory synesthesia: This a rare type of synesthesia in which hearing a word results in tasting a flavor. For example, a person's name might taste like chocolate.Mirror-touch synesthesia: While rare, mirror-touch synesthesia is noteworthy because it can be disruptive to a synesthete's life. In this form of synesthesia, an individual feels the same sensation in response to a stimulus as another person. For example, seeing a person being tapped on the shoulder would cause the synesthete to feel a tap on
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  • How Synesthesia WorksScientists have yet to make a definitive determination of the mechanism of synesthesia. It may be due to increased cross-talk between specialized regions of the brain. Another possible mechanism is that inhibition in a neural pathway is reduced in synesthetes, allowing multi-sensory processing of stimuli. Some researchers believe synesthesia is based on the way the brain extracts and assigns the meaning of a stimulus (ideasthesia).
  • Who Has Synesthesia?Julia Simner, a psychologist studying synesthesia at of the University of Edinburgh, estimates at least 4% of the population has synesthesia and that over 1% of people have grapheme-color synesthesia (colored numbers and letters). More women have synesthesia than men. Some research suggests the incidenc
  • Can You Develop Synesthesia?There are documented cases of non-synesthetes developing synesthesia. Specifically, head trauma, stroke, brain tumors, and temporal lobe epilepsy may produce synesthesia. Temporary synesthesia may result from exposure to the psychedelic drugs mescaline or LSD, from sensory deprivation, or from meditation.
knudsenlu

Will the Quantum Nature of Gravity Finally Be Measured? - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • In 1935, when both quantum mechanics and Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity were young, a little-known Soviet physicist named Matvei Bronstein, just 28 himself, made the first detailed study of the problem of reconciling the two in a quantum theory of gravity. This “possible theory of the world as a whole,” as Bronstein called it, would supplant Einstein’s classical description of gravity, which casts it as curves in the space-time continuum, and rewrite it in the same quantum language as the rest of physics.
  • His words were prophetic. Eighty-three years later, physicists are still trying to understand how space-time curvature emerges on macroscopic scales from a more fundamental, presumably quantum picture of gravity; it’s arguably the deepest question in physics.
  • The search for the full theory of quantum gravity has been stymied by the fact that gravity’s quantum properties never seem to manifest in actual experience. Physicists never get to see how Einstein’s description of the smooth space-time continuum, or Bronstein’s quantum approximation of it when it’s weakly curved, goes wrong.
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  • Not only that, but the universe appears to be governed by a kind of cosmic censorship: Regions of extreme gravity—where space-time curves so sharply that Einstein’s equations malfunction and the true, quantum nature of gravity and space-time must be revealed—always hide behind the horizons of black holes.
  • Dyson, who helped develop quantum electrodynamics (the theory of interactions between matter and light) and is professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where he overlapped with Einstein, disagrees with the argument that quantum gravity is needed to describe the unreachable interiors of black holes. And he wonders whether detecting the hypothetical graviton might be impossible, even in principle. In that case, he argues, quantum gravity is metaphysical, rather than physics.
  • The ability to detect the “grin” of quantum gravity would seem to refute Dyson’s argument. It would also kill the gravitational decoherence theory, by showing that gravity and space-time do maintain quantum superpositions.
  • If gravity is a quantum interaction, then the answer is: It depends. Each component of the blue diamond’s superposition will experience a stronger or weaker gravitational attraction to the red diamond, depending on whether the latter is in the branch of its superposition that’s closer or farther away. And the gravity felt by each component of the red diamond’s superposition similarly depends on where the blue diamond is.
runlai_jiang

You Asked About CES 2018. We Answered. - The New York Times - 0 views

  • You Asked About CES 2018. We Answered. By BRIAN X. CHEN At the International Consumer Electronics Show this week in Las Vegas, thousands of tech companies showcased some of the hottest new innovations: artificial intelligence, self-driving car tech, the smart home, voice-controlled accessories, fifth-generation cellular connectivity and more.Curious about the new products and how they will affect your personal technology? Readers asked Brian X. Chen, our lead consumer technology writer who is attending the trade show, their questions about wireless, TV and the Internet of Things. 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  • At the International Consumer Electronics Show this week in Las Vegas, thousands of tech companies showcased some of the hottest new innovations: artificial intelligence, self-driving car tech, the smart home, voice-controlled accessories, fifth-generation cellular connectivity and more.
  • Curious about the new products and how they will affect your personal technology? Readers asked Brian X. Chen, our lead consumer technology writer who attended the trade show, their questions about wireless, TV and the Internet of Things. (In addition,
katherineharron

Four ways the Mars 2020 rover will pave the way for a manned mission - CNN - 0 views

  • When NASA's Mars 2020 rover lands on the Red Planet in February 2021, it will touch down in Jezero Crater, the site of a lake that existed 3.5 billion years ago. The next generation rover will build on the goals of previous robotic explorers by collecting the first samples of Mars, which would be returned to Earth at a later date.
  • "We're very much thinking about how Mars could be inhabited, how humans could come to Mars and make use of the resources that we have there in the Martian environment today," said Stack. "We send our robotic scouts first to learn about these other places, hopefully for us to prepare the way for us to go ourselves."
  • "Combining an understanding of the composition of the rocks, but also the very fine detail that we see in the rocks and the textures, can make a powerful case for ancient signs of life," Stack said. "We know that ancient Mars was habitable. But we haven't yet been able to show that we have signs, real signs, of ancient life yet. And with our instrument suite, we think we can make real advances towards that on the surface.
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  • "This is a huge endeavor for the human species, and it'll take cooperation from more than just our own space program," Stack said. "Once the resources are there, we can develop the technology. It's getting the buy-in from international partners and from our own space administration and government to really make this happen."
  • No matter the mission, sticking the landing is key for future success. The 2020 rover will land on Mars using the new Terrain Relative Navigation system, which allows the lander to avoid any large hazards in the landing zone.
  • Astronauts exploring Mars will need oxygen, but carting enough to sustain them on a spacecraft isn't viable. The Mars 2020 rover will carry MOXIE on board, or the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment.
  • Speaking of "The Martian," the events of the book and its film adaptation are set in motion when a surprise, devastating dust storm impacts astronauts on the Red Planet. Understanding the weather and environment on Mars will be crucial for determining the conditions astronauts will face.
  • For the first time, a surface mission will include a ground-penetrating radar instrument called RIMFAX, or Radar Imager for Mars' Subsurface Experiment. It will be able to peek beneath the surface and study Martian geology, looking for rock, ice and boulder layers. Scientists hope that RIMFAX will help them understand the geologic history of Jezero Crater, according to David Paige, principal investigator for the experiment at the University of California, Los Angeles.
katherineharron

A cold Neptune and two super-Earths are among newly found exoplanets around nearby star... - 0 views

  • Five exoplanets and eight planet candidates have been found around nearby stars, including a "cold Neptune" and two super-Earths that are potentially habitable, according to a new study. The two super-Earths, GJ180d and GJ229Ac, were found around small red dwarf stars that are 19 and 40 light-years away from our sun, while the cold Neptune was found around a similar star that's 29.5 light-years away.
  • "GJ 433 d is the nearest, widest and coldest Neptune-like planet ever detected," said Fabo Feng, lead study author and astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science. A multitude of exoplanets, especially terrestrial planets like Earth, have been found around red dwarf stars. They're smaller and cooler than our sun, and they're the most common star in our galaxy. Exoplanets tend to orbit closer to these stars and still be within the star's habitable zone, or the perfect distance for the planet to be temperate and potentially host liquid water on their surfaces.
  • Meanwhile, the other super-Earth, GJ229Ac, is the nearest temperate super-Earth in a system where the host star is also orbited by a brown dwarf. Brown dwarfs are known as failed stars that can't sustain the hydrogen fusion needed to power them
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  • "We eventually want to build a map of all of the planets orbiting the nearest stars to our own solar system, especially those that are potentially habitable," said Jeffrey Crane, study co-author and astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science.
Javier E

Law professor Kim Wehle's latest book is 'How To Think Like a Lawyer - and Why' : NPR - 0 views

  • a five-step process she calls the BICAT method - BICAT.
  • KIM WEHLE: B is to break a problem down into smaller pieces
  • I is to identify our values. A lot of people think lawyers are really about winning all the time. But the law is based on a value system. And I suggest that people be very deliberate about what matters to them with whatever decision there is
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  • C is to collect a lot of information. Thirty years ago, the challenge was finding information in a card catalog at the library. Now it's, how do we separate the good stuff from the bad stuff?
  • A is to analyze both sides. Lawyers have to turn the coin over and exhaust counterarguments or we'll lose in court.
  • So lawyers are trained to look for the gray areas, to look for the questions are not the answers. And if we kind of orient our thinking that way, I think we're less likely to shut down competing points of view.
  • My argument in the book is, we can feel good about a decision even if we don't get everything that we want. We have to make compromises.
  • I tell my students, you'll get through the bar. The key is to look for questions and not answers. If you could answer every legal question with a Wikipedia search, there would be no reason to hire lawyers.
  • Lawyers are hired because there are arguments on both sides, you know? Every Supreme Court decision that is split 6-3, 5-4, that means there were really strong arguments on both sides.
  • T is, tolerate the fact that you won't get everything you want every time
  • So we have to be very careful about the source of what you're getting, OK? Is this source neutral? Is this source really care about facts and not so much about an agenda?
  • Step 3, the collecting information piece. I think it's a new skill for all of us that we are overloaded with information into our phones. We have algorithms that somebody else developed that tailor the information that comes into our phones based on what the computer thinks we already believe
  • No. 2 - this is the beauty of social media and the internet - you can pull original sources. We can click on the indictment. Click on the new bill that has been proposed in the United States Congress.
  • then the book explains ways that you can then sort through that information for yourself. Skills are empowering.
  • Maybe as a replacement for sort of being empowered by being part of a team - a red team versus a blue team - that's been corrosive, I think, in American politics and American society. But arming ourselves with good facts, that leads to self-determination.
  • MARTINEZ: Now, you've written two other books - "How To Read The Constitution" and "What You Need To Know About Voting" - along with this one, "How To Think Like A Lawyer - And Why.
  • It kind of makes me think, Kim, that you feel that Americans might be lacking a basic level of civics education or understanding. So what is lacking when it comes to teaching civics or in civics discourse today?
  • studies have shown that around a third of Americans can't name the three branches of government. But if we don't understand our government, we don't know how to hold our government accountable
  • Democracies can't stay open if we've got elected leaders that are caring more about entrenching their own power and misinformation than actually preserving democracy by the people. I think that's No. 1.
  • No. 2 has to do with a value system. We talk about American values - reward for hard work, integrity, honesty. The same value system should apply to who we hire for government positions. And I think Americans have lost that.
  • in my own life, I'm very careful about who gets to be part of the inner circle because I have a strong value system. Bring that same sense to bear at the voting booth. Don't vote for red versus blue. Vote for people that live your value system
  • just like the Ukrainians are fighting for their children's democracy, we need to do that as well. And we do that through informing ourselves with good information, tolerating competing points of view and voting - voting, voting, voting - to hold elected leaders accountable if they cross boundaries that matter to us in our own lives.
Javier E

Campaigns Mine Personal Lives to Get Out Vote - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Strategists affiliated with the Obama and Romney campaigns say they have access to information about the personal lives of voters at a scale never before imagined. And they are using that data to try to influence voting habits — in effect, to train voters to go to the polls through subtle cues, rewards and threats in a manner akin to the marketing efforts of credit card companies and big-box retailers.
  • In the weeks before Election Day, millions of voters will hear from callers with surprisingly detailed knowledge of their lives. These callers — friends of friends or long-lost work colleagues — will identify themselves as volunteers for the campaigns or independent political groups. The callers will be guided by scripts and call lists compiled by people — or computers — with access to details like whether voters may have visited pornography Web sites, have homes in foreclosure, are more prone to drink Michelob Ultra than Corona or have gay friends or enjoy expensive vacations.
  • “You don’t want your analytical efforts to be obvious because voters get creeped out,” said a Romney campaign official who was not authorized to speak to a reporter. “A lot of what we’re doing is behind the scenes.”
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  • however, consultants to both campaigns said they had bought demographic data from companies that study details like voters’ shopping histories, gambling tendencies, interest in get-rich-quick schemes, dating preferences and financial problems. The campaigns themselves, according to campaign employees, have examined voters’ online exchanges and social networks to see what they care about and whom they know. They have also authorized tests to see if, say, a phone call from a distant cousin or a new friend would be more likely to prompt the urge to cast a ballot.
  • The campaigns have planted software known as cookies on voters’ computers to see if they frequent evangelical or erotic Web sites for clues to their moral perspectives. Voters who visit religious Web sites might be greeted with religion-friendly messages when they return to mittromney.com or barackobama.com. The campaigns’ consultants have run experiments to determine if embarrassing someone for not voting by sending letters to their neighbors or posting their voting histories online is effective.
  • “I’ve had half-a-dozen conversations with third parties who are wondering if this is the year to start shaming,” said one consultant who works closely with Democratic organizations. “Obama can’t do it. But the ‘super PACs’ are anonymous. They don’t have to put anything on the flier to let the voter know who to blame.”
  • Officials at both campaigns say the most insightful data remains the basics: a voter’s party affiliation, voting history, basic information like age and race, and preferences gleaned from one-on-one conversations with volunteers. But more subtle data mining has helped the Obama campaign learn that their supporters often eat at Red Lobster, shop at Burlington Coat Factory and listen to smooth jazz. Romney backers are more likely to drink Samuel Adams beer, eat at Olive Garden and watch college football.
Javier E

The Psychopath Makeover - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 0 views

  • The eminent criminal psychologist and creator of the widely used Psychopathy Checklist paused before answering. "I think, in general, yes, society is becoming more psychopathic," he said. "I mean, there's stuff going on nowadays that we wouldn't have seen 20, even 10 years ago. Kids are becoming anesthetized to normal sexual behavior by early exposure to pornography on the Internet. Rent-a-friend sites are getting more popular on the Web, because folks are either too busy or too techy to make real ones. ... The recent hike in female criminality is particularly revealing. And don't even get me started on Wall Street."
  • in a survey that has so far tested 14,000 volunteers, Sara Konrath and her team at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research has found that college students' self-reported empathy levels (as measured by the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, a standardized questionnaire containing such items as "I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me" and "I try to look at everybody's side of a disagreement before I make a decision") have been in steady decline over the past three decades—since the inauguration of the scale, in fact, back in 1979. A particularly pronounced slump has been observed over the past 10 years. "College kids today are about 40 percent lower in empathy than their counterparts of 20 or 30 years ago," Konrath reports.
  • Imagining, it would seem, really does make it so. Whenever we read a story, our level of engagement is such that we "mentally simulate each new situation encountered in a narrative," according to one of the researchers, Nicole Speer. Our brains then interweave these newly encountered situations with knowledge and experience gleaned from our own lives to create an organic mosaic of dynamic mental syntheses.
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  • during this same period, students' self-reported narcissism levels have shot through the roof. "Many people see the current group of college students, sometimes called 'Generation Me,' " Konrath continues, "as one of the most self-centered, narcissistic, competitive, confident, and individualistic in recent history."
  • Reading a book carves brand-new neural pathways into the ancient cortical bedrock of our brains. It transforms the way we see the world—makes us, as Nicholas Carr puts it in his recent essay, "The Dreams of Readers," "more alert to the inner lives of others." We become vampires without being bitten—in other words, more empathic. Books make us see in a way that casual immersion in the Internet, and the quicksilver virtual world it offers, doesn't.
  • if society really is becoming more psychopathic, it's not all doom and gloom. In the right context, certain psychopathic characteristics can actually be very constructive. A neurosurgeon I spoke with (who rated high on the psychopathic spectrum) described the mind-set he enters before taking on a difficult operation as "an intoxication that sharpens rather than dulls the senses." In fact, in any kind of crisis, the most effective individuals are often those who stay calm—who are able to respond to the exigencies of the moment while at the same time maintaining the requisite degree of detachment.
  • mental toughness isn't the only characteristic that Special Forces soldiers have in common with psychopaths. There's also fearlessness.
  • I ask Andy whether he ever felt any regret over anything he'd done. Over the lives he'd taken on his numerous secret missions around the world. "No," he replies matter-of-factly, his arctic-blue eyes showing not the slightest trace of emotion. "You seriously don't think twice about it. When you're in a hostile situation, the primary objective is to pull the trigger before the other guy pulls the trigger. And when you pull it, you move on. Simple as that. Why stand there, dwelling on what you've done? Go down that route and chances are the last thing that goes through your head will be a bullet from an M16. "The regiment's motto is 'Who Dares Wins.' But sometimes it can be shortened to 'F--- It.' "
  • one of the things that we know about psychopaths is that the light switches of their brains aren't wired up in quite the same way as the rest of ours are—and that one area particularly affected is the amygdala, a peanut-size structure located right at the center of the circuit board. The amygdala is the brain's emotion-control tower. It polices our emotional airspace and is responsible for the way we feel about things. But in psychopaths, a section of this airspace, the part that corresponds to fear, is empty.
  • Turn down the signals to the amygdala, of course, and you're well on the way to giving someone a psychopath makeover. Indeed, Liane Young and her team in Boston have since kicked things up a notch and demonstrated that applying TMS to the right temporoparietal junction—a neural ZIP code within that neighborhood—has significant effects not just on lying ability but also on moral-reasoning ability: in particular, ascribing intentionality to others' actions.
  • at an undisclosed moment sometime within the next 60 seconds, the image you see at the present time will change, and images of a different nature will appear on the screen. These images will be violent. And nauseating. And of a graphic and disturbing nature. "As you view these images, changes in your heart rate, skin conductance, and EEG activity will be monitored and compared with the resting levels that are currently being recorded
  • "OK," says Nick. "Let's get the show on the road." He disappears behind us, leaving Andy and me merrily soaking up the incontinence ad. Results reveal later that, at this point, as we wait for something to happen, our physiological output readings are actually pretty similar. Our pulse rates are significantly higher than our normal resting levels, in anticipation of what's to come. But with the change of scene, an override switch flips somewhere in Andy's brain. And the ice-cold Special Forces soldier suddenly swings into action. As vivid, florid images of dismemberment, mutilation, torture, and execution flash up on the screen in front of us (so vivid, in fact, that Andy later confesses to actually being able to "smell" the blood: a "kind of sickly-sweet smell that you never, ever forget"), accompanied not by the ambient spa music of before but by blaring sirens and hissing white noise, his physiological readings start slipping into reverse. His pulse rate begins to slow. His GSR begins to drop, his EEG to quickly and dramatically attenuate. In fact, by the time the show is over, all three of Andy's physiological output measures are pooling below his baseline.
  • Nick has seen nothing like it. "It's almost as if he was gearing himself up for the challenge," he says. "And then, when the challenge eventually presented itself, his brain suddenly responded by injecting liquid nitrogen into his veins. Suddenly implemented a blanket neural cull of all surplus feral emotion. Suddenly locked down into a hypnotically deep code red of extreme and ruthless focus." He shakes his head, nonplused. "If I hadn't recorded those readings myself, I'm not sure I would have believed them," he continues. "OK, I've never tested Special Forces before. And maybe you'd expect a slight attenuation in response. But this guy was in total and utter control of the situation. So tuned in, it looked like he'd completely tuned out."
  • My physiological output readings, in contrast, went through the roof. Exactly like Andy's, they were well above baseline as I'd waited for the carnage to commence. But that's where the similarity ended. Rather than go down in the heat of battle, in the midst of the blood and guts, mine had appreciated exponentially. "At least it shows that the equipment is working properly," comments Nick. "And that you're a normal human being."
  • TMS can't penetrate far enough into the brain to reach the emotion and moral-reasoning precincts directly. But by damping down or turning up the regions of the cerebral cortex that have links with such areas, it can simulate the effects of deeper, more incursive influence.
  • Before the experiment, I'd been curious about the time scale: how long it would take me to begin to feel the rush. Now I had the answer: about 10 to 15 minutes. The same amount of time, I guess, that it would take most people to get a buzz out of a beer or a glass of wine.
  • The effects aren't entirely dissimilar. An easy, airy confidence. A transcendental loosening of inhibition. The inchoate stirrings of a subjective moral swagger: the encroaching, and somehow strangely spiritual, realization that hell, who gives a s---, anyway? There is, however, one notable exception. One glaring, unmistakable difference between this and the effects of alcohol. That's the lack of attendant sluggishness. The enhancement of attentional acuity and sharpness. An insuperable feeling of heightened, polished awareness. Sure, my conscience certainly feels like it's on ice, and my anxieties drowned with a half-dozen shots of transcranial magnetic Jack Daniel's. But, at the same time, my whole way of being feels as if it's been sumptuously spring-cleaned with light. My soul, or whatever you want to call it, immersed in a spiritual dishwasher.
  • So this, I think to myself, is how it feels to be a psychopath. To cruise through life knowing that no matter what you say or do, guilt, remorse, shame, pity, fear—all those familiar, everyday warning signals that might normally light up on your psychological dashboard—no longer trouble you.
  • I suddenly get a flash of insight. We talk about gender. We talk about class. We talk about color. And intelligence. And creed. But the most fundamental difference between one individual and another must surely be that of the presence, or absence, of conscience. Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels good. But what if it's as tough as old boots? What if one's conscience has an infinite, unlimited pain threshold and doesn't bat an eye when others are screaming in agony?
Zack Lessner

Great apes have midlife crises too, study finds - 0 views

  •  
    A study of 336 chimpanzees and 172 orangutans suggests that midlife crises might be driven by biological factors. At middle age, a great ape will neither cheat on a spouse nor buy a red sports car on impulse. But researchers have found that chimpanzees and orangutans experience midlife crises just as surely as do humans.
Emily Horwitz

Drought May Have Killed Sumerian Language | LiveScience - 1 views

  • A 200-year-long drought 4,200 years ago may have killed off the ancient Sumerian language, one geologist says.
  • no written accounts explicitly mention drought as the reason for the Sumerian demise, the conclusions rely on indirect clues.
  • his was not a single summer or winter, this was 200 to 300 years of drought," said Matt Konfirst, a geologist at the Byrd Polar Research Center.
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  • Sumerian culture disappeared around 4,000 years ago, and the Sumerian language went extinct soon after that.
  • geological records point to a long period of drier weather in the Middle East around 4,200 years ago, Konfirst said. The Red Sea and the Dead Sea had increased evaporation; water levels dropped at Lake Van in Turkey, and cores from marine sediments around that period indicate increased dust in the environment.
  • Around the same time, 74 percent of the ancient Mesopotamian settlements were abandoned, according to a 2006 study of an archaeological site called Tell Leilan in Syria. The populated area also shrank by 93 percent, he said.
  • great drought, two waves of marauding nomads descended upon the region, sacking the capital city of Ur. After around 2000 B.C., ancient Sumerian gradually died off as a spoken language in the region. For the next 2,000 years, the tongue lingered on as a dead written language, similar to Latin in the Middle Ages, but has been completely extinct since then, Konfirst said.
Javier E

The Dark Age Of Journalism « The Dish - 0 views

  • Anyone who cares deeply about quality, independent journalism should pray for paywalls and other subscription models to take hold. Because in the world of the smart and the desperate, desperate always has the last word.
  • it matters that the industry that is responsible for the dissemination of information is increasingly ceding editorial control to PR firms simply to stay afloat
  • Democracy is a market in which politicians design policies to get votes. Like any market, it relies on information and signals being reliably transmitted from producer to consumer and vice versa. In a situation where the producer can effectively block the signals that actually their policies are designed simply to siphon wealth from everyone else into the pockets of the rich, what do you think happens to that market? Yep, that’s right, you get a choice between red, blue and yellow versions of producers all with the same agenda.
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  • We’ve gone from advertizing supporting journalism to journalism supporting corporate propaganda. At the rate we’re going, as the line between church and state is deliberately blurred by desperate media companies, we may end up with a handful of actual independent online magazines and newspapers and a vast industry of corporate propaganda designed to look like the real thing. If we’re lucky.
Javier E

The End of Courtship? - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • “The word ‘date’ should almost be stricken from the dictionary,” Ms. Silver said. “Dating culture has evolved to a cycle of text messages, each one requiring the code-breaking skills of a cold war spy to interpret.”
  • Raised in the age of so-called “hookup culture,” millennials — who are reaching an age where they are starting to think about settling down — are subverting the rules of courtship.
  • Instead of dinner-and-a-movie, which seems as obsolete as a rotary phone, they rendezvous over phone texts, Facebook posts, instant messages and other “non-dates” that are leaving a generation confused about how to land a boyfriend or girlfriend.
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  • Blame the much-documented rise of the “hookup culture” among young people, characterized by spontaneous, commitment-free (and often, alcohol-fueled) romantic flings. Many students today have never been on a traditional date,
  • Hookups may be fine for college students, but what about after, when they start to build an adult life? The problem is that “young people today don’t know how to get out of hookup culture,”
  • In interviews with students, many graduating seniors did not know the first thing about the basic mechanics of a traditional date. “They’re wondering, ‘If you like someone, how would you walk up to them? What would you say? What words would you use?’ ”
  • Traditional courtship — picking up the telephone and asking someone on a date — required courage, strategic planning and a considerable investment of ego (by telephone, rejection stings). Not so with texting, e-mail, Twitter or other forms of “asynchronous communication,” as techies call it. In the context of dating, it removes much of the need for charm; it’s more like dropping a line in the water and hoping for a nibble.
  • Online dating services, which have gained mainstream acceptance, reinforce the hyper-casual approach by greatly expanding the number of potential dates. Faced with a never-ending stream of singles to choose from, many feel a sense of “FOMO” (fear of missing out), so they opt for a speed-dating approach — cycle through lots of suitors quickly.
  • “I’ve seen men put more effort into finding a movie to watch on Netflix Instant than composing a coherent message to ask a woman out,” said Anna Goldfarb, 34, an author and blogger in Moorestown, N.J. A typical, annoying query is the last-minute: “Is anything fun going on tonight?” More annoying still are the men who simply ping, “Hey” or “ ’sup.”
  • The mass-mailer approach necessitates “cost-cutting, going to bars, meeting for coffee the first time,” he added, “because you only want to invest in a mate you’re going to get more out of.”
  • in  a world where “courtship” is quickly being redefined, women must recognize a flirtatious exchange of tweets, or a lingering glance at a company softball game, as legitimate opportunities for romance, too.
  • THERE’S another reason Web-enabled singles are rendering traditional dates obsolete. If the purpose of the first date was to learn about someone’s background, education, politics and cultural tastes, Google and Facebook have taken care of that.
  • Dodgy economic prospects facing millennials also help torpedo the old, formal dating rituals. Faced with a lingering recession, a stagnant job market, and mountains of student debt, many young people — particularly victims of the “mancession” — simply cannot afford to invest a fancy dinner or show in someone they may or may not click with.
  • “Maybe there’s still a sense of a man taking care of a woman, but our ideology is aligning with the reality of our finances,” Ms. Rosin said. As a man, you might “convince yourself that dating is passé, a relic of a paternalistic era, because you can’t afford to take a woman to a restaurant.”
  • “A lot of men in their 20s are reluctant to take the girl to the French restaurant, or buy them jewelry, because those steps tend to lead to ‘eventually, we’re going to get married,’ ” Mr. Edness, 27, said. In a tight economy, where everyone is grinding away to build a career, most men cannot fathom supporting a family until at least 30 or 35, he said.
  • Even in an era of ingrained ambivalence about gender roles, however, some women keep the old dating traditions alive by refusing to accept anything less. Cheryl Yeoh, a tech entrepreneur in San Francisco, said that she has been on many formal dates of late — plays, fancy restaurants. One suitor even presented her with red roses. For her, the old traditions are alive simply because she refuses to put up with anything less. She generally refuses to go on any date that is not set up a week in advance, involving a degree of forethought. “If he really wants you,” Ms. Yeoh, 29, said, “he has to put in some effort.”
Javier E

How Conservative Media Lost to the MSM and Failed the Rank and File - Conor Friedersdor... - 0 views

  • Before rank-and-file conservatives ask, "What went wrong?", they should ask themselves a question every bit as important: "Why were we the last to realize that things were going wrong for us?"
  • It is easy to close oneself off inside a conservative echo chamber. And right-leaning outlets like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh's show are far more intellectually closed than CNN or public radio.
  • Since the very beginning of the election cycle, conservative media has been failing you. With a few exceptions, they haven't tried to rigorously tell you the truth, or even to bring you intellectually honest opinion. What they've done instead helps to explain why the right failed to triumph in a very winnable election.
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  • Conservatives were at a disadvantage because Romney supporters like Jennifer Rubin and Hugh Hewitt saw it as their duty to spin constantly for their favored candidate rather than being frank about his strengths and weaknesses.
  • Conservatives were at an information disadvantage because so many right-leaning outlets wasted time on stories the rest of America dismissed as nonsense. WorldNetDaily brought you birtherism. Forbes brought you Kenyan anti-colonialism. National Review obsessed about an imaginary rejection of American exceptionalism, misrepresenting an Obama quote in the process, and Andy McCarthy was interviewed widely about his theory that Obama, aka the Drone Warrior in Chief, allied himself with our Islamist enemies in a "Grand Jihad" against America. Seriously? 
  • Conservatives were at a disadvantage because their information elites pandered in the most cynical, self-defeating ways, treating would-be candidates like Sarah Palin and Herman Cain as if they were plausible presidents rather than national jokes who'd lose worse than George McGovern.
  • How many hours of Glenn Beck conspiracy theories did Fox News broadcast to its viewers? How many hours of transparently mindless Sean Hannity content is still broadcast daily? Why don't Americans trust Republicans on foreign policy as they once did? In part because conservatism hasn't grappled with the foreign-policy failures of George W. Bush. A conspiracy of silence surrounds the subject. Romney could neither run on the man's record nor repudiate it.
  • Most conservative pundits know better than this nonsense -- not that they speak up against it. They see criticizing their own side as a sign of disloyalty. I see a coalition that has lost all perspective, partly because there's no cost to broadcasting or publishing inane bullshit. In fact, it's often very profitable. A lot of cynical people have gotten rich broadcasting and publishing red meat for movement conservative consumption.
  • On the biggest political story of the year, the conservative media just got its ass handed to it by the mainstream media. And movement conservatives, who believe the MSM is more biased and less rigorous than their alternatives, have no way to explain how their trusted outlets got it wrong, while the New York Times got it right. Hint: The Times hired the most rigorous forecaster it could find.   It ought to be an eye-opening moment.   
Emily Horwitz

True Blue Stands Out in an Earthy Crowd - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • blue was the only color with enough strength of character to remain blue “in all its tones.”
  • Scientists, too, have lately been bullish on blue, captivated by its optical purity, complexity and metaphorical fluency.
  • Still other researchers are tracing the history of blue pigments in human culture, and the role those pigments have played in shaping our notions of virtue, authority, divinity and social class. “Blue pigments played an outstanding role in human development,” said Heinz Berke, an emeritus professor of chemistry at the University of Zurich. For some cultures, he said, they were as valuable as gold.
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  • people their favorite color, and in most parts of the world roughly half will say blue, a figure three to four times the support accorded common second-place finishers like purple or green
  • t young patients preferred nurses wearing blue uniforms to those in white or yellow.
  • blue’s basic emotional valence is calmness and open-endedness, in contrast to the aggressive specificity associated with red. Blue is sea and sky, a pocket-size vacation.
  • computer screen color affected participants’ ability to solve either creative problems —
  • blue can also imply coldness, sorrow and death. On learning of a good friend’s suicide in 1901, Pablo Picasso fell into a severe depression, and he began painting images of beggars, drunks, the poor and the halt, all famously rendered in a palette of blue.
  • association arose from the look of the body when it’s in a low energy, low oxygen state. “The lips turn blue, there’s a blue pallor to the complexion,” she said. “It’s the opposite of the warm flushing of the skin that we associate with love, kindness and affection.”
  • A blue glow makes food look very unappetizing.”
  • That blue can connote coolness and tranquillity is one of nature’s little inside jokes. Blue light is on the high-energy end of the visible spectrum, and the comparative shortness of its wavelengths explains why the blue portion of the white light from the sun is easily scattered by the nitrogen and oxygen molecules in our atmosphere, and thus why the sky looks blue.
sissij

Color of 2017? Pantone Picks a Spring Shade - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Not just any old green, of course: Pantone 15-0343, colloquially known as greenery, which is to say a “yellow-green shade that evokes the first days of spring.”
  • That is, the Color of the Year for 2017.
  • “This is the color of hopefulness, and of our connection to nature. It speaks to what we call the ‘re’ words: regenerate, refresh, revitalize, renew. Every spring we enter a new cycle and new shoots come from the ground. It is something life affirming to look forward to.”
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  • Certainly the psychology of color ranges from the obvious (red represents aggression; pink is swaddling and calms people) to the chiaroscuro.
  • a combination of yellow and blue, or warmth and a certain cool,” she said. “It’s a complex marriage.”
  • You could argue that the selection is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, except the point is that the products are already there (otherwise they couldn’t be marketed so immediately), which supports Pantone’s contention that it has identified a burgeoning trend.
  •  
    I found this article very interesting because it talks about the different impression color can give us. Take the example in this article, the color of the year is greenery because it gives people a refreshing feeling. This is related to how we assign different meaning to things based on our pattern recognition. Since we always see color green in the nature, so it very easy for us to relate green with new life and energy. They way Ms. Eiseman said about color is also very interesting. She saw colors with significant meaning and though green is the kid of the complex marriage between blue and yellow. She even personified the colors. This shows how we tends to assign human properties to completely lifeless objects. --Sissi (12/9/2016)
sissij

A Scar on the Chinese Soul - The New York Times - 1 views

  • It “is that the Chinese, without direct orders, were so cruel to each other.”
  • The blurry distinction between perpetrators and victims makes collective healing by confronting the past a thorny project.
  • neither joining the Red Guards nor believing in Maoism protected someone from suffering long-term trauma.
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  • Cultural Revolution trauma differs from that related to other horrific events, like the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, studies have noted, in part because in China, people were persecuted not for “unalterable” characteristics such as ethnicity and race, but for having the wrong frame of mind.
  • The idea that life experiences could cause inheritable genetic changes has been identified among children of Holocaust survivors, who have been shown to have an increased likelihood of stress-related illnesses.
  • The possibility of epigenetic inheritance has been raised by Chinese academics regarding the Cultural Revolution, but to research the topic would most certainly invite state punishment.
    • sissij
       
      I think this article is a little bit exaggerating. Nobody is perfect, even the Mao that saved China from the hand of the Japanese. The title "a scar on the Chinese soul" is just too heavy. It is only showing one perspective of the event and it can be misleading to the general population America. From a media course I took during the winter break, it shows that there are cultural elements influencing the media inevitably. For America, the key words are "freedom", "supremacy", "heroism", "democracy"... I can see those elements influencing the view of the author in this article. And he is not the only one. There is a book called "Street of Eternal Happiness". It is also talking about Chinese suffering. There is confirmation bias in whom the author is interviewing and what data he is using in support to his argument. --Sissi (1/19/2017)
Javier E

Dogs, Cats and Leadership - The New York Times - 1 views

  • the performance of presidents, especially on foreign policy, is shaped by how leaders attach to problems. Some leaders are like dogs: They want to bound right in and make things happen. Some are more like cats: They want to detach and maybe look for a pressure point here or there.
  • we should be asking them a different set of questions:
  • How much do you think a president can change the flow of world events? President Obama, for example, has a limited or, if you want to put it that way, realistic view of the extent of American influence. He subscribes to a series of propositions that frequently push him toward nonintervention: The world “is a tough, complicated, messy, mean place and full of hardship and tragedy,” he told Goldberg. You can’t fix everything. Sometimes you can only shine a spotlight.
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  • Furthermore, Obama argues, because of our history, American military efforts are looked at with suspicion. Allies are unreliable. Ukraine is always going to be in Russia’s sphere of influence, so its efforts there will always trump ours. The Middle East is a morass and no longer that important to U.S. interests.
  • Do you think out loud in tandem with a community, or do you process internally? Throughout the Goldberg article, Obama is seen thinking deeply and subtly, but apart from the group around him. In catlike fashion, he is a man who knows his own mind and trusts his own judgment. His decision not to bomb Syria after it crossed the chemical weapons red line was made almost entirely alone.
  • More generally, Obama expresses disdain with the foreign policy community. He is critical of most of his fellow world leaders — impatient with most European ones, fed up with most Middle Eastern ones.
  • When seeking a description of a situation, does your mind leap for the clarifying single truth or do you step back to see the complex web of factors? Ronald Reagan typified the single clarifying truth habit of mind, both when he was describing an enemy (Evil Empire) and when he was calling for change (tear down this wal
  • , Obama leans to the other side of the spectrum. He is continually stepping back, starting with analyses of human nature, how people behave when social order breaks down, the roots and nature of tribalism.
  • Do you see international affairs as a passionate struggle or a conversation and negotiation? Continue reading the main story 343 Comments Obama shows a continual distrust of passion. He doesn’t see much value in macho bluffing or chest-thumping, or in lofty Churchillian rhetoric, or in bombings done in the name of “credibility.”
  • He may be critical, but he is not a hater. He doesn’t even let anger interfere with his appraisal of Vladimir Putin
  • it’s striking how many Americans have responded by going for Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, who are bad versions of the bounding in/we-can-change-everything doggy type.
Javier E

ThinkUp Helps the Social Network User See the Online Self - NYTimes.com - 1 views

  • In addition to a list of people’s most-used words and other straightforward stats like follower counts, ThinkUp shows subscribers more unusual information such as how often they thank and congratulate people, how frequently they swear, whose voices they tend to amplify and which posts get the biggest reaction and from whom.
  • after using ThinkUp for about six months, I’ve found it to be an indispensable guide to how I navigate social networks.
  • Every morning the service delivers an email packed with information, and in its weighty thoroughness, it reminds you that what you do on Twitter and Facebook can change your life, and other people’s lives, in important, sometimes unforeseen ways.
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  • ThinkUp is something like Elf on the Shelf for digitally addled adults — a constant reminder that someone is watching you, and that you’re being judged.
  • “The goal is to make you act like less of a jerk online,” Ms. Trapani said. “The big goal is to create mindfulness and awareness, and also behavioral change.”
  • One of the biggest dangers is saying something off the cuff that might make sense in a particular context, but that sounds completely off the rails to the wider public. The problem, in other words, is acting without thinking — being caught up in the moment, without pausing to reflect on the long-term consequences. You’re never more than a few taps away from an embarrassment that might ruin your career, or at least your reputation, for years to come.
  • Because social networks often suggest a false sense of intimacy, they tend to lower people’s self-control.
  • Like a drug or perhaps a parasite, they worm into your devices, your daily habits and your every free moment, and they change how you think.Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story
  • For those of us most deeply afflicted, myself included, every mundane observation becomes grist for a 140-character quip, and every interaction a potential springboard into an all-consuming, emotionally wrenching flame battle.
  • people often tweet and update without any perspective about themselves. That’s because Facebook and Twitter, as others have observed, have a way of infecting our brains.
  • getting a daily reminder from ThinkUp that there are good ways and bad ways to behave online — has a tendency to focus the mind.
  • More basically, though, it’s helped me pull back from social networks. Each week, ThinkUp tells me how often I’ve tweeted. Sometimes that number is terribly high — a few weeks ago it was more than 800 times — and I realize I’m probably overtaxing my followers
  • ThinkUp charges $5 a month for each social network you connect to it. Is it worth it? After all, there’s a better, more surefire way of avoiding any such long-term catastrophe caused by social media: Just stop using social networks.
  • The main issue constraining growth, the founders say, is that it has been difficult to explain to people why they might need ThinkUp.
  • your online profile plays an important role in how you’re perceived by potential employers. In a recent survey commissioned by the job-hunting site CareerBuilder, almost half of companies said they perused job-seekers’ social networking profiles to look for red flags and to see what sort of image prospective employees portrayed online.
  • even though “never tweet” became a popular, ironic thing to tweet this year, actually never tweeting, and never being on Facebook, is becoming nearly impossible for many people.
  • That may change as more people falter on social networks, either by posting unthinking comments that end up damaging their careers, or simply by annoying people to the point that their online presence becomes a hindrance to their real-life prospects.
maxwellokolo

Mount Etna, Europe's Most Active Volcano, Puts On a Show - 1 views

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    In a fiery reminder of its presence and its power, Mount Etna roared to life this week on the island of Sicily, sending red-hot fountains of molten rock and ash high into the air and down the slopes of Europe's largest and most active volcano.
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