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tongoscar

What scientists know so far about the effects of coronavirus on children | Jonathan Ball | Opinion | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...irus-children-studies-carriers

shared by tongoscar on 24 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • These were the groups initially urged to socially distance themselves. But we’re beginning to see that coronavirus can make some younger people seriously ill.
  • Compared to other European countries, the UK was slow in closing schools – waiting until there had already been 104 deaths due to coronavirus to take action. Studies from China showed children were rarely diagnosed with novel coronavirus, and therefore presumably had little role in the spread of the disease.
  • Like many of my colleagues, I could see no obvious reason why children weren’t being infected: this was a virus spread by the respiratory route, not through a process unique to adults. If significant numbers of children were infected and suffered very minor cold-like symptoms, then their potential to spread the virus was immense.
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  • The current coronavirus is different. In more than 85% of confirmed cases symptoms can go undetected or be easily confused with the common cold of mild flu. Its biggest weapon – the thing that has, according to one study, allowed it to spread so easily – is this ability to cause mild disease in the majority of people it infects. When you can’t easily tell if someone has a cold or coronavirus, case identification and infection control are far more difficult.
  • Judging from past pandemics, school closures can be an effective way to reduce the spread of a virus – particularly when they form part of a larger programme of social distancing measures. Every school day, children congregate en masse, often in close proximity, and then return home, taking with them any new infection they’ve picked up. Intuitively, reducing this cycle should help slow the virus.
manhefnawi

Dreams: Why do we dream? - 1 views

www.medicalnewstoday.com/...284378.php

Dreams Cognitive State Emotion Misunderstood

shared by manhefnawi on 12 Jun 18 - No Cached
  • Dreams are a universal human experience that can be described as a state of consciousness characterized by sensory, cognitive and emotional occurrences during sleep
  • There is no cognitive state that has been as extensively studied and yet as misunderstood as much as dreaming.40,42
  • Neuroscience offers explanations linked to the rapid eye movement (REM) phase of sleep as a pinpoint for where dreaming occurs.28
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  • Lucid dreaming is a state of sleep where the dreamer knows they are dreaming. As a result, the dreamer may have some measure of control over their dream.
katherineharron

Domestic violence victims, stuck at home, are at risk during coronavirus pandemic - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by katherineharron on 27 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • Home is the safest place to be while a pandemic rages outside. Health officials have said as much for weeks now.
  • Self-isolation forces victims of domestic violence and their children into uncomfortable and dangerous circumstances: Riding out the Covid-19 crisis, shut in with their abusers.
  • And the deluge of stress and fear -- of unemployment, of sickness, of death -- is only intensifying the abuse they face.
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  • The frequency and severity of domestic abuse will likely increase while Americans stay home for weeks or months during the pandemic, said Katie Ray-Jones, president and CEO of the National Domestic Violence Hotline, a service that connects victims of domestic violence with local resources.
  • The calls National Hotline staff have received since the start of state shutdowns are startling, Ray-Jones said: One woman said when she tried to go to work at an essential business, her abusive partner began to load his firearm to scare her into staying. Another said that her partner threatened to expose her to the virus on purpose and swore he wouldn't pay for treatment if she fell ill.
  • Domestic violence cases spike in times of prolonged stress and disruption, like financial crises and natural disasters.
  • "Many of the options that battered women and their children use as safety valves to get away from violence are no longer available," he told CNN.
  • And once the stay-at-home orders are lifted, Ray-Jones said she expects victims to flood hotlines. They may not know how many victims there are until the coronavirus pandemic is over.
manhefnawi

Sojourners in Space: Annie Dillard on What Mangrove Trees Teach Us About the Human Search for Meaning in an Unfeeling Universe - Brain Pickings - 0 views

www.brainpickings.org/...annie-dillard-sojourner

Meaning Contradictions Universe

shared by manhefnawi on 14 Jun 18 - No Cached
  • We don’t know where we belong, but in times of sorrow it doesn’t seem to be here… where space is curved, the earth is round, we’re all going to die, and it seems as wise to stay in bed as budge
  • How is it that, adrift amid a vast and unfeeling universe, we live with our sundering contradictions and still manage to constellate our lives with meaning, with beauty, with the transcendent possibility of belonging with each other and of homecoming to ourselves?
tongoscar

40 years later, the mothers of Argentina's 'disappeared' refuse to be silent | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-de-mayo-argentina-anniversary

shared by tongoscar on 18 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • Haydée Gastelú was among the first to arrive. “We were absolutely terrified,” she recalls.
  • Four decades on and 2,037 marches later, the mothers are still marching, though some of them must now use wheelchairs.
  • “Argentina’s new government wants to erase the memory of those terrible years and is putting the brakes on the continuation of trials,” says Taty Almeida, 86, whose 20-year-old son, Alejandro, disappeared in 1975.
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  • But the mothers – most of them now in their late 80s – warn that the current era of alternative facts and revisionist history poses a new kind of threat for the country.
  • “People were scared,” recalls Gastelú, now 88. “If I talked about my kidnapped son at the hairdresser or supermarket they would run away. Even listening was dangerous.
  • “Among us there are mothers who escaped from the Nazi Holocaust, only to lose their Argentinian-born children to another dictatorship – so we know for a fact that these tragedies can repeat themselves,” Gastelú says.
katherineharron

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

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by katherineharron on 17 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • 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.
honordearlove

6 Cognitive Biases That Make Politics Irrational - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.ca/...e-bias-politics_b_3077740.html

bias politics psychology

shared by honordearlove on 07 Nov 17 - No Cached
  • In turn, these seemingly irrational flaws in judgement can lead to perpetual distortion, inaccurate judgement, and illogical interpretation -- all of which are key ingredients in the widening of cultural rifts, the deepening of global disparity gaps, and the general intensifying of political upheavals.
  • forming culturally cohesive social circles based upon similar viewpoints, and unconsciously referencing only those perspectives which reaffirm our deeply entrenched beliefs
  • innate tribal desire to be socially accepted, we tend to favour the thoughts, ideals, and sentiments of those with whom we racially, culturally, and ethnocentrically identify with most.
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  • The repercussions of this bias confines us to the same routines, political parties, and economic strategies
  • our cognitive selective attention processes identify negative news as inherently important or profound
  • This is the sort of groupthink that convinces religious and political radicals they have greater support
  • This lack of self-control, where most of us would rather exchange serious pains in the not-to-distant future for menial pleasures in the moment, personifies the impulsive decision-making that has led to the financial meltdown, urban saturation, political corruption, and general slighting of imminent environmental cataclysms.
  • So while the majority of us may be prone to these errors in rational judgement, we can also be more aware of them. And who knows, if we can manage to re-rationalise how we think, act, and treat one another, perhaps our politics will follow suit.
katherineharron

Lindsey Graham encourages senior judges to step aside ahead of election - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by katherineharron on 29 May 20 - No Cached
  • Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham on Thursday encouraged senior federal judges to step aside so his committee can approve conservatives who President Donald Trump would nominate to replace them ahead of the November election.
  • "This is an historic opportunity," Graham said in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. "If (Trump) can get four more years, I mean, it would change the judiciary for several generations. So if you're a circuit judge in your mid-60s, late 60s, you can take senior status, now would be a good time to do that if you want to make sure the judiciary is right of center."
  • The unusual plea was prompted by Hewitt and reflects a recognition from Senate Republicans they may not control the chamber next session and therefore won't be in a position to push through confirmations of Trump's judges should he win reelection.
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  • Federal judges who have reached age 65 are eligible to take "senior status" depending on their number of years on the bench. That allows them to maintain a reduced caseload, while creating a vacancy on the court
  • Should Trump lose his reelection bid to presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, any future vacancies could potentially be filled by liberal judges. If Trump remains in office but Democrats take control of the Senate, his nominations could be blocked by the new majority.
  • "Obviously, the senior judges need to let the White House know in advance of the actual date so that we can be prepared to move the new nominee. As I said, my motto for the year is leave no vacancy behind, and that's exactly what I mean," the Kentucky Republican told Hewitt in an interview in February.
  • Speaking late last year to Hewitt, McConnell remarked that "one of every four of the US circuit judges in the country have been put on the bench" during Trump's tenure.
katherineharron

This is your child's brain on books: Scans show benefit of reading vs. screen time - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by katherineharron on 16 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • Taking away screens and reading to our children during the formative years of birth to age 5 boosts brain development. We all know that's true, but now science can convince us with startling images.
  • Both images are from recent studies done by the Reading & Literacy Discovery Center of Cincinnati's Children's Hospital. They are the first studies to provide neurobiological evidence for the potential benefits of reading and the potential detriments of screen time on a preschool child's brain development.
  • Both studies used a special type of MRI, called diffusion tensor imaging, to examine the white matter of 47 healthy children between the ages of three and five who had not yet started kindergarten.
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  • In addition to brain scans, the children were also given cognitive tests. When it came to screen time, kids who used screens more than one hour a day had poorer emerging literacy skills, less ability to use expressive language, and tested lower on the ability to rapidly name objects.
  • In contrast, children who frequently read books with their caregiver scored higher on cognitive tests.
johnsonel7

The coronavirus recession is just getting started - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...decades-pain-is-just-beginning

coronavirus economy

shared by johnsonel7 on 27 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • The record 3.3 million jobless claims reported Thursday mark the beginning of an economic crisis facing American workers and businesses — a slump, experts say, that will only end when the coronavirus pandemic is contained.
  • Although no official figures exist yet, the unemployment rate has likely jumped to at least 5.5 percent, says economist Martha Gimbel of Schmidt Futures, a level not seen since 2015 and up from 3.5 percent in February.“The most terrifying part about this is this is likely just the beginning of the layoffs,” Gimbel said
  • The bill, which gives most Americans checks worth $1,200 or more and provides billions in low-cost loans to businesses, is likely to provide a lifeline to workers and companies facing devastation, but it won’t stop a severe recession nor be adequate to sustain workers if the coronavirus health crisis lasts more than a month or two.
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  • Much of the nation has made the gut-wrenching choice to stop about half the economy and encourage most workers to stay home in an effort to save as many lives as possible
  • The average unemployment benefit check is currently $385 a week, which is less than half the typical weekly paycheck in the United States. The amount is slated to rise an additional $600 a week once President Trump signs the relief bill into law, a substantial increase meant to tide workers over as they are forced to stay home
  • All employees now have their temperature tested on the way into the warehouse. He’s had lengthy discussions with each worker about whether they should take the health risk of coming to work. They now run two shifts and mandate that employees stand about 10 feet from each other. Between the shifts, they sanitize the whole facility — doorknobs, surfaces, bathrooms, tools.
johnsonel7

The Psychology of "OK, Boomer" | Psychology Today - 0 views

www.psychologytoday.com/...the-psychology-ok-boomer

psychology language generational war

shared by johnsonel7 on 18 Nov 19 - No Cached
  • Unlike previous editions of intergenerational conflict, the phrase isn’t about older generations not being “cool” or appreciating a counter-culture aesthetic. It refers instead to a perception that the older generation is unrealistic about the way the world works now, out of touch with the kitchen table issues of climate change, shrinking opportunities for economic advancement, and the suffering caused by wars that never should have been started.
  • Imagine that instead of members of a couple, we have two generations talking to each other. Each has its own distinct interests and style, but ultimately they are tied together in a relationship. What would it mean if one member of the couple was willing to just off-handedly dismiss the entire worldview of another?
  • Being dismissive of someone’s entire world view is rude behavior, and so the phrase “OK, Boomer” is just an instance of bad behavior by people in one generation. The problem would appear to be that Generation Z and Millenials are rude and behaving badly. But when you listen to why people use the phrase, it’s pretty clear it’s because they are frustrated, fed up. Just telling people who are fed up “don’t be rude to people” without also trying to address why they are fed up also feels dismissive.
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  • It sometimes feels like the refusal to turn back towards people after conflict, but instead fire back and double down on the conflict, is the most prevalent and pressing problem in modern society.
tongoscar

Say It Loud: How Music Changes Society | uDiscover - 0 views

www.udiscovermusic.com/...how-music-changes-society

shared by tongoscar on 19 Nov 19 - No Cached
  • Songs are such powerful things: they can reassure, soothe, inspire and educate us – and that’s just for starters.
  • Songs have always held a mirror to the world, reflecting the things going on around us, and, arguably, music changes society like no other artform.
  • Songs could shape listeners in new ways, challenging people’s preconceived ideas of the world, shining a light on things that weren’t spoken of in the news of the day.
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  • Until the late 30s, music hadn’t directly confronted the issues of racism and segregation in the US. Venues were segregated, with famous black musicians such as Louis Armstrong labelled as “Uncle Toms”, suggesting they’d only play for white audiences, where the money really was.
  • “I wanted a club where blacks and whites worked together behind the footlights and sat together out front. There wasn’t, so far as I know, a place like it in New York or in the whole country.”
  • Back then, popular song wasn’t a place for such brutal truths, and Holiday would have been sorely aware of the trouble it could create.
krystalxu

Why We Fear | Psychology Today - 0 views

www.psychologytoday.com/...why-we-fear

fear brain science knowledge science psychology

shared by krystalxu on 24 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • It is certainly true that we fear some things more than others—snakes, spiders, rats—but this could be the result of conditioning more than programming.
  • These studies have revealed that humans are predisposed to fear snakes and spiders, though there is no universal and firmly programmed fear of them. 
  • Most humans are not born afraid of snakes, but they are much more likely to become afraid of them than they are most other kinds of animals.
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  • The vicarious fear conditioning was not effective when the researchers attempted to train the monkeys to fear flowers.
  • how would they know the flowers weren’t harmful?
  • Then we developed the fear and avoidance of those snakes.
manhefnawi

10 Surprising Ways Senses Shape Perception | Mental Floss - 0 views

mentalfloss.com/...g-ways-senses-shape-perception

Sense Perception

shared by manhefnawi on 12 Jun 18 - No Cached
  • CERTAIN SOUNDS TAKE PRIORITY
  • PAST IMAGES AFFECT PRESENT PERCEPTION
  • COLOR INFLUENCES TASTE
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  • AND SO DOES SOUND
  • The phenomenon that allows us to tune out big details like this is called selective attention. If you devote all your mental energy to one task, your brain puts up blinders that block out irrelevant information without you realizing it.
  • The most mind-bending room in the "Our Senses" exhibit is practically empty. The illusion comes from the black grid pattern painted onto the white wall in such a way that straight planes appear to curve.
  • This conflicting sensory information can make us feel dizzy and even nauseous.
  • If our brains didn’t know how to adjust for lighting, we’d see every shadow as part of the object it falls on. But we can recognize that the half of a street that’s covered in shade isn’t actually darker in color than the half that sits in the sun.
  • The human brain is really good at recognizing human faces—so good it can make us see things that aren’t there. This is apparent in the Einstein hollow head illusion.
tongoscar

What will Taiwan election results mean for Hong Kong's future under China? | South China Morning Post - 0 views

www.scmp.com/...s-mean-hong-kongs-future-under

shared by tongoscar on 20 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • As newly re-elected President Tsai Ing-wen might agree, the outcome was determined by the youth of Hong Kong in the streets of Hong Kong.
  • It is also possible that, in preparing to deal with the United States in 2021 and a newly elected US president, the central government in Beijing will begin to prepare for further negotiations by showing a new face in Hong Kong.
  • While it is clear in the near term which way Taiwan is headed, this is not the case for Hong Kong. The success of forces in Taiwan who are against greater engagement with China could well lead to the imposition of more stringent controls on Hong Kong. And this could serve to discourage potential dissidents elsewhere in China.
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  • The last thing we need from Beijing is an armchair tough guy making comments about a subject which he seemingly knows very little of.
honordearlove

The End of Reflection - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...logy-phones-introspection.html

brain science knowledge research technology social media

shared by honordearlove on 12 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • In a world in which a phone or computer is rarely more than arm’s length away, are we eliminating introspection at times that may have formerly been conducive to it? And is the depth of that reflection compromised because we have retrained ourselves to seek out the immediate gratification of external stimuli?
  • But our solipsism is frequently given outward expression rather than inward exploration, with more emphasis than ever before on images.
  • in which they correlated introspective ability with the amount of gray matter in the prefrontal cortex. (Introspective ability was defined for the study as the accuracy of measuring one’s own performance on a visual-perception task, a sign of metacognition, or “thinking about thinking.”)
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  • Being distracted by the second task didn’t hurt actual performance on the first task, but it did impair the subjects’ ability to be introspective (again, by accurately self-reporting how they did). The finding supports previous widespread evidence that multitasking leads to lower cognitive performance.
  • If you are awake for 16 hours, turning on or checking your phone 85 times means doing so about once every 11 minutes (and doesn’t account for internet use on a computer), and 5.05 hours is over 30 percent of the day. What might be the effect on reflection of this compulsive behavior?
  • “That hints at the way that, as our technologies increase the intensity of stimulation and the flow of new things, we adapt to that pace,” Mr. Carr said. “We become less patient. When moments without stimulation arise, we start to feel panicked and don’t know what to do with them, because we’ve trained ourselves to expect this stimulation — new notifications and alerts and so on.”
  • Mr. Carr also noted counterarguments: Formulating relatively simple thoughts on the internet can yield more complex ones through real-time exchanges with others, and people whose reflex is to post a notion hastily rather than let it sit may not have been the most deliberative thinkers in a pre-smartphone time, either.
  • “We’ve adopted the Google ideal of the mind, which is that you have a question that you can answer quickly: close-ended, well-defined questions. Lost in that conception is that there’s also this open-ended way of thinking where you’re not always trying to answer a question. You’re trying to go where that thought leads you. As a society, we’re saying that that way of thinking isn’t as important anymore. It’s viewed as inefficient.”
manhefnawi

Why Our Brains Love Plot Twists | Mental Floss - 0 views

mentalfloss.com/...hy-our-brains-love-plot-twists

Knowledge Cognitive Science Plot Twist

shared by manhefnawi on 12 Jun 18 - No Cached
  • The curse of knowledge, Tobin explains, refers to a psychological effect in which knowledge affects our perception and "trips us up in a lot of ways." For instance, a puzzle always seems easier than it really is after we've learned how to solve it, and once we know which team won a baseball game, we tend to overestimate how likely that particular outcome was.
katherineharron

Donald Trump's 'bunker' story tells you everything you need to know about him - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by katherineharron on 03 Jun 20 - No Cached
  • "Well it was a false report. I was down during the day and I was there for a tiny, little short period of time. And it was much more for an inspection. There was no problem during the day."
  • "I've gone down two or three times, all for inspection. And, you go there, some day you may need it. I went down. I looked at it. It was during the day, and it was not a problem. And I read about it, in like, a big thing. There was never a problem ... nobody ever came close to giving us a problem."
  • This re-framing of history is remarkable solely for the gall it takes to attempt it. After all, every single major media organization reported over the weekend -- with NO pushback from the White House -- that Trump had been taken into the bunker for his own protection, not to, uh, "inspect" it.
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  • "As protesters gathered outside the White House Friday night in Washington, DC, President Donald Trump was briefly taken to the underground bunker for a period of time, according to a White House official and a law enforcement source.
  • "A law enforcement source and another source familiar with the matter tell CNN that first lady Melania Trump and their son, Barron, were also taken to the bunker.
  • So, why would Trump describe it falsely to Fox? Especially when there are a few other things going on in the country -- most notably ongoing protests over the murder of a black man at the hands of police in Minneapolis and a global pandemic that has killed 106,000 Americans and is projected to kill 135,000 by early August.
  • There is nothing Trump hates more than weakness. And the image of him cowering in an underground bunker while protesters stood outside the gates of the White House is simply not something he cannot accept. This is a man who has been telling himself a story of his life -- one in which he is always the toughest, the smartest and the winner-est -- for, well, his entire adult life.
  • He could have gone anytime, of course! It was just a coincidence he was down there amid the protests outside the White House! Just going down to make sure all the buttons worked! All the brass was sufficiently polished! And the like.
katherineharron

Trump pursues his political obsessions as stark 100,000 coronavirus deaths landmark looms - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by katherineharron on 26 May 20 - No Cached
  • Sometime in the next few days, the 100,000th American will succumb to Covid-19 in a pandemic that President Donald Trump once predicted would just "miraculously" disappear.
  • In his most politically significant maneuver, he heaped intense pressure on North Carolina's Democratic governor to permit a normal, crowded Republican National Convention, despite fears such a mass gathering could seed virus hot spots. Trump warned he could pull the huge money-earner out of Charlotte, which was picked to play host in August.
  • And he indulged his preoccupations on his tax returns, Hillary Clinton, Fox News, slanders against MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, the Russia investigation, Joe Biden's mental health, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, mail-in voting in November and highlighted dangerous and unproven Covid-19 therapies promoted on conservative media he has tested himself.
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  • "For as long as we have citizens willing to follow their example, to carry on their burden, to continue their legacy, then America's cause will never fail and American freedom will never, ever die."
  • But that doesn't mean it isn't jarring, as the most wrenching moment so far approaches in the nation's battle against a pandemic that while ebbing in terms of total deaths is trending up in 18 states, is steady in 22 and easing in 10 more. More than 98,000 people in the US have now died from the coronavirus and more than 1.6 million have been infected. More than 30 million Americans have lost their jobs and the unemployment rate is approaching Great Depression levels.
  • There was little evidence of a deeper meaning to his presidency at this stage than personal and political grievances.
  • No White House could have been fully prepared for the disaster and subsequent economic hollowing of this year's pandemic
  • Trump spent much of Memorial Day, fulminating against Cooper, complaining that the North Carolina governor was "unable to guarantee" the arena for the convention in August can be filled to capacity. The President is determined to deploy the full pageantry of convention season to portray a nation and economy in the full throes of what he calls a "transition to greatness."
  • Yet such a spectacle as the Republican convention seems utterly incongruous with real-world events. Sports teams that use such arenas are expecting to play without fans for at least months in a bio-secure environment. The prospect of thousands of delegates pouring into convention cities from all over the country, including coronavirus hotspots, is a huge headache for organizers.
  • "In other words, we would be spending millions of dollars building the Arena to a very high standard without even knowing if the Democrat Governor would allow the Republican Party to fully occupy the space."
  • It was not immediately clear whether Trump and the Republican National Committee are serious about pulling the convention from Charlotte.
  • Trump has used federal resources multiple times to fly to his resorts and golf courses. Trump's two rounds this weekend struck critics as inappropriate during a national crisis and on a weekend when American remembers its war dead.
  • "Nearly 100,000 lives have been lost, and tens of millions are out of work. Meanwhile, the president spent his day golfing," Biden wrote in a tweet accompanying an online ad Saturday.
  • Trump may not come under such criticism had he not been so dismissive of Obama's afternoons on the golf course -- and saying he wouldn't have time to play golf if he was elected president.
marleen_ueberall

9 Surprising Health Benefits Of Learning A Foreign Language - 0 views

www.iwillteachyoualanguage.com/...of-learning-a-foreign-language

shared by marleen_ueberall on 09 Nov 19 - No Cached
  • You already know that learning a foreign language can put you ahead in your career.But there’s a growing body of evidence that the health benefits of learning a foreign language may be significant as well.
  • Being able to speak another language can help you make better decisions.
  • A heightened appreciation of the complexities of a situation can lead to more rational decision-making in many areas of life. Monolingual people, on the other hand, tend to base their decisions more on emotions.
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  • Learning a foreign language helps improve memory
  • (Working memory deals with the storage and processing of information over a short period of time.)
  • Speaking a second language helps you focus, and deal with distractions appropriately
  • A bilingual person is accustomed to switching between different languages, deciding which is the appropriate language to use in a given situation
  • This gives the brain plenty of practice in focusing and filtering information.
  • Related to your attention span is your ability to multi-task.
  • Speaking two languages, and switching between them, makes you better at multi-tasking in other tasks, too.
    • marleen_ueberall
      marleen_ueberall on 09 Nov 19
       
      We talked about multi-tasking and that there is a higher chance that multi-tasking is not possible.
  • Speaking more than one language provides constant exercise for your brain, and keeping your brain active is one way in which to delay the onset of dementia.
  • What this perceptual sensitivity could mean, is that babies raised with two languages will find it easier to learn other languages later in life, as a result of the ability to easily distinguish between different sounds.
  • Bilingual people have also been shown to have better cognitive abilities than monolinguals.
  • Interestingly, this is regardless of what age the person learns the foreign language, so even a person who learns a foreign language as an adult will benefit from these improved skills.
  • By learning another language, your mother tongue can improve as a result. As you learn a second language, your knowledge of grammar improves.
  • In fact, as crazy as it may sound, learning a foreign language can actually increase the size of your brain.
  • In this study, two groups of subjects underwent brain scans. One group did an intensive language course for three months while the other, the control group, did intensive courses in a subject that was not a language. What the scientists found was that specific parts of the language learners’ brains became bigger than those of the non-language learners.
  • Given all the benefits outlined in this article, it’s hardly surprising that learning a foreign language keeps your brain healthy for longer
  • The benefits of multiple languages can start as early as before a baby is able to speak
  • Whatever your age, the health benefits of learning a foreign language make it a surefire way to upgrade your life, and future-proof your brain for old age.
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