Talking With God I met god the other day. I know what you're thinking. How the hell did you know it was god? Well, I'll explain as we go along, but basically he convinced me by having all, and I do mean ALL, the answers. Which is odd, because I'm still an atheist and we even agree on that! It all started on the 8.20 back from Paddington. What did he look like? Well not what you might have expected that's for sure. 'Anyone sitting here?' 'Help yourself' I replied. Sits down, relaxes, I ignore and back to the correspondence on genetically modified crops entering the food chain... Train pulls out and a few minutes later he speaks. 'Can I ask you a question?' Fighting to restrain my left eyebrow I replied 'Yes' in a tone which was intended to convey that I might not mind one question, and possibly a supplementary, but I really wasn't in the mood for a conversation. 'Why don't you believe in god?' The Bastard! I love this kind of conversation and can rabbit on for hours about the nonsense of theist beliefs. 'Stottle.
Brainwave Experiment Visualizes Storytelling's Effects on the Mind Image courtesy the artists. Screencaps via What happens inside the brain when you're reading? To explore that question, Latvian interactive art lab Connection Codes equipped participants with EEG headpieces to collect brainwave data as they listened to others read books aloud, including A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh and Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, and a number of texts from Latvian authors. The data was then translated into fractal animations and projected onto the wall of the Latvian National Museum of Art at the “Staro Rīga 2014” Festival of Light. With Reader, Connection Code wanted to see the intersection between reading and technology in a different way—beyond ebooks. The Reader from CONNECTION on Vimeo. Related: Artist Manipulates 48 Pools of Water with Her Mind Brain Activity Changes The Colors Of This Crystal Headpiece Artists 3D Print the Brain's Response to Love
#5 Universe Ring To22 created something nearly perfect. A continuous ring, delicately proportioned, beautifully polished and seemingly flawless. There is only one tiny imperfection. Only magnification reveals the actual object set within the miniature interior. It is a model of the known universe. Now you may be asking yourself; how does that little vortex-looking spiral thingie represent the Universe? The Collaboration Kings To22 is a joint design collaborative with the aim of provoking new ways of thinking. Designer Todd Bracher lives and works in London; designer/filmmaker Efe Buluc resides in Istanbul; and designer Mark Goetz is based in New York City. Contact: (212) 989-7607 info@to22.net check out their site for more projects and design concepts. To make a martini you will need a glass, gin, some dry vermouth, and, of course, an olive. We have all broken something by accident. If you enjoyed this post, the Sifter highly recommends:
Negotiation Examples: How Crisis Negotiators Use Text Messaging In their negotiation training, police and professional hostage negotiators are taught skills that will help them defuse tense situations over the course of long phone calls, such as engaging in active listening, determining the person’s emotions from his or her inflection, and trust building. These crisis negotiators are being put to the test by young criminal suspects and others in crisis, whose first instinct increasingly seems to be texting rather than talking, according to an Associated Press article. Back in 2014, Red Bank, Tennessee, police chief Tim Christol told the Associated Press that the usual negotiation skills he teaches don’t translate to texting, such as emotional labeling in the form of a statement such as “You sound angry.” Without verbal cues, Christol says, it becomes much more difficult to understand the emotional state of the person in crisis, and misunderstandings are common. “Words are only 7 percent of communication,” he says.
Trump’s Fake War on the Fake News Seven days before Donald Trump took office, the inauguration festivities got off to a low-key start inside a modest conference room at the Capitol Hill offices of the American Trucking Associations. There, a hundred-odd familiar faces from the Washington set gathered to fête one of their own, incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer. The party spilled out into the hallway as entrepreneur Susanna Quinn, ubiquitous Republican consultant Ron Bonjean and Spicer’s wife, Rebecca, a staffer at the National Beer Wholesalers Association, rubbed shoulders with CBS’ White House correspondent Major Garrett and its political editor Steve Chaggaris, Time’s Zeke Miller and several journalists from CNN, including Washington bureau chief Sam Feist. Spicer arrived late, but in good spirits, and after 20 minutes of schmoozing he strode to the front of the room to deliver brief remarks. Story Continued Below In public, Trump’s team and the press had been engaged in bitter clashes for months.
CogZest – Thrive in the Sea of Knowledge Pretty pictures: Can images stop data overload? 16 April 2012Last updated at 19:01 ET By Fiona Graham Technology of business reporter, BBC News Brain scan: Research suggests that one way to avoid being overloaded by data is by presenting it visually rather than text or numbers Sitting at your desk in the middle of the day, yet another email notification pops up in the corner of the screen, covering the figures you're trying to digest in the complicated spreadsheet in front of you. Your laptop is open on the desk next to you with another set of figures you need - meanwhile you're frantically tabbing through different documents on the main screen. You have a meeting in 20 minutes and you suddenly feel as if you're swimming in a sea of impenetrable data, and you're starting to sink. Welcome to the 21st Century workplace, and "data overload". Under siege You're not alone. Dr Lynda Shaw is a neuroscience and psychology lecturer at Brunel University in the west of London. "When we feel overwhelmed we start to delay making decisions." “Start Quote
Drawing on the right side of the brain: A voxel-based morphometry analysis of observational drawing Highlights We measure structural differences in GM and WM in art students and non-art students. We correlate GM and WM volume and performance on drawing tasks. Drawing skill linked to increased GM in the cerebellum and medial frontal gyrus. Drawing relates to changes in fine motor structures in art and non-art students. Abstract Structural brain differences in relation to expertise have been demonstrated in a number of domains including visual perception, spatial navigation, complex motor skills and musical ability. Keywords Art Drawing Cerebellum Expertise Voxel-based morphometry View full text Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc.
A New Media Approach For Improved Sense-Making Through Physiological Coherence The simple exercise you were just introduced to is designed to help create a physiological heart brain connection that has been shown to improve memory, learning, problem-solving and discernment. Since 2009, Collective Evolution has been committed to forging a radically new approach to media and the discussion of current events.This new approach was developed by our founder Joe Martino, and collectively refined as years went on. Over the years scientific research has come to support the approach we have been taking to help improve the way people consume and synthesize information in order to make meaningful choices in their lives and in society. This discussion is worthy of consideration as most platforms either focus on simple ‘feel good’ or ‘well being’ based content, or focus on news from a purely journalistic sense, often with a political bias. Coherence & Optimal Function Research from The Institute of HeartMath illustrating the difference in coherent and incoherent heart rhythms.
Science Reveals Artists Really Do Have Different Brains We might now have neurological proof that artists actually are different creatures from everyone else on the planet. According to a study published in Neurolmage, researchers believe that artists have brains that are structurally different from non-artists. It appears that there's now justifiable support for the idiom "she's just wired differently, idk." The study, titled "Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Analysis Of Observational Drawing," included 44 graduate and post-grad art students and non-art students who were asked to complete various drawing tasks. The completed tasks were measured and scored, and that data was compared to "regional grey and white matter volume in the cortical and subcortical structures" of the brain using a scanning method called voxel-based morphometry. The scans depicted that the artist group had more grey matter in the area of the brain called the precuneus in the parietal lobe. Image via For more on your noggin': h/t BBC
The Role of Neuroscience in Psychiatry Redux Neuroskeptic has launched the “mother of all blog posts” against my article, published earlier this week. Neuroskeptic is skeptical that there is a “War Between Neuroscience and Psychiatry.” I fully agree. There is NOT a war and I regret the first title that was published with my piece. I did not choose “War Between Neuroscience and Psychiatry” and was grateful when the editors changed the title to “Why Psychiatry Needs Neuroscience” at my request. I’m thrilled that Neuroskeptic was so engaged by my piece. And yet, Neuroskeptic missed the point. For example, they argue that “it’s naïve to think that we will understand the brain well enough for [a neuroscience framework] to work.” In medical school and residency, I recall learning many unknowns about heart physiology, perhaps the best “figured out” of organs. Well, that’s true for many medicines. Medicine embraces but does not rely on serendipity. Sign up for Scientific American’s free newsletters. Perhaps I may be of help.
The objectivity thing (or, why science is a team sport). One of the qualities we expect from good science is objectivity. And, we're pretty sure that the scientific method (whatever that is) has something to do with delivering scientific knowledge that is objective (or more objective than it would be otherwise, at any rate). In this post, I'm here to tell you that it's more complicated than that -- at least, if you're operating with the picture of the scientific method you were taught in middle school. What we'll see is that objectivity requires more than a method; it takes a team. (I'll briefly note that my discussion of objectivity, subjectivity, and scientific knowledge building owes much to Helen E. But let's start at the beginning. It may be useful to start with the contrast to objective: subjective. "Friday Night Lights is the best television series ever!" Generally speaking, though, we look to science to deliver something other than mere opinions. Sign up for Scientific American’s free newsletters. It's not clear to me that you could.
Second Brain Found in Heart Neurons - Trust your Gut Feelings The idea of transplanted cellular memory emerged as early as 1920 in the film "Les Mains d'Orleac" written by science fiction writer Maurice Renard. A second brain in the heart is now much more than an idea. Prominent medical experts have recently discovered that many recipients of heart transplants are inheriting donors' memories and consequently report huge changes in their tastes, their personality, and, most extraordinarily, in their emotional memories. Today new science is testing the theory that the heart is involved in our feelings. Amazing new discoveries show that the heart organ is intelligent and that it sometimes can lead the brain in our interpretation of the world around us, and in the actions we chose to take. Meeting Donor's Family Upon meeting their donors' families, the heart transplant patients' hunches were confirmed: the new personality traits had indeed been passed on from their donors. The Little Brain In The Heart Neurologist Dr. Most Amazingly... Dr.