8 Things Everybody Ought to Know About Concentrating “Music helps me concentrate,” Mike said to me glancing briefly over his shoulder. Mike was in his room writing a paper for his U.S. History class. On his desk next to his computer sat crunched Red Bulls, empty Gatorade bottles, some extra pocket change and scattered pieces of paper. In the pocket of his sweat pants rested a blaring iPod with a chord that dangled near the floor, almost touching against his Adidas sandals. On his computer sat even more stray objects than his surrounding environment. Mike made a shift about every thirty seconds between all of the above. Do you know a person like this? The Science Behind Concentration In the above account, Mike’s obviously stuck in a routine that many of us may have found ourselves in, yet in the moment we feel it’s almost an impossible routine to get out of. When we constantly multitask to get things done, we’re not multitasking, we’re rapidly shifting our attention. Phase 1: Blood Rush Alert Phase 2: Find and Execute Phase 3: Disengagement
9 Ways Facebook Is Changing People’s Lives Pan Xunbin / Shutterstock Facebook has over 800 million users, and researchers and pollsters have been busy studying them. Here are some of the ways the site is impacting people's lives and changing their behavior. 1. You Might Be Addicted If you're on Facebook, could you go 24 hours without checking your page? 2. When polled, a majority of people admit to snooping on their significant other through social media. 3. While many employers are blocking their workers’ access to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, studies have shown that people who use Facebook at work are actually up to 9% more productive than people who don't. 4. Most people use social networks to talk about the positives in their lives. Since you are only seeing the good part of a hundred or more people’s lives, you may end up feeling increasingly upset about the problems in your own life, which, at least according to their pages, none of your friends have. 5. ...or it Can Boost Your Self Esteem 6. 7. 8. 9.
Ocean's toxic alkalisation spurred animal evolution - life - 18 April 2012 HOW ironic. Concerns abound about the acidification of oceans due to climate change. Meanwhile, researchers have found evidence that the reverse - a massive and toxic alkalisation of the oceans hundreds of millions of years ago - paradoxically made animal life flower. Complex animals first appeared 850 million years ago but didn't evolve into a great variety of forms until the Cambrian period, 540 million years ago. Why the delay? Answering this is difficult, in part because rocks that formed immediately before the Cambrian appear to have vanished. Shanan Peters of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Robert Gaines of Pomona College in Claremont, California, now suggest this crucial rock record may have dissolved into the ocean. The result was toxic. New Scientist Not just a website! More From New Scientist 410-million-year-old arachnid crawls back to life (New Scientist) Neanderthal demise traced in unprecedented detail (New Scientist) Human sex from the inside out (New Scientist)
Why you should learn to lucid dream | Yes, I Can! by Robin Nixon If you’ve never experienced it then you may find it hard to understand what lucid dreaming is all about. In fact you may be thoroughly sceptical and dismiss the whole thing as silly nonsense. But I can tell you from personal experience that lucid dreams are very real and something that many millions of people regularly enjoy. Note: Due to the huge amount of interest that this post has generated I am now seriously considering writing a book on the subject, and I would welcome input from anyone with an interest. These types of dreams are hyper-real in that when you experience one it is bursting with vibrant colour, there’s often marvellous music playing in the background (if you listen for it), the air is the freshest and sweetest you’ve ever smelled, and you are the healthiest you have ever been (or could ever be). Lucid dreaming is when you experience full consciousness while dreaming. When you ‘wake up’ inside a dream you can consciously appreciate just how wonderful dreams really are.
Who, What, Why: How dangerous are swans? 17 April 2012Last updated at 07:41 ET A man has drowned after being attacked by a swan, which knocked him out of his kayak and stopped him swimming to shore. So how dangerous are these graceful white birds? Anthony Hensley, 37, worked for a company that provided swans to keep geese away from property. On Saturday morning, the married father of two set out in a kayak across a pond at a residential complex in Des Plaines, just outside Chicago, where he was tending the birds. One of the swans charged his boat, capsizing it, says Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, whose deputies investigated the death. Mr Hensley tried to swim to shore but eyewitnesses told the sheriff's investigators the swan appeared to have actively blocked him. "I find myself still scratching my head," says Sheriff Dart. Continue reading the main story The answer According to ornithologists, the swan's aggressive reaction is typical for the species, the mute swan, when defending a nest. "It's going to defend that territory."
Going viral on Twitter is a random act - tech - 13 April 2012 WHAT causes some photos, videos, and Twitter posts to spread across the internet like wildfire while others fall by the wayside? The answer may have little to do with the quality of the information. What goes viral may be completely arbitrary, according to a controversial new study of online social networks. By analysing 120 million retweets – repostings of users' messages on Twitter – by 12.5 million users of the social network, researchers at Indiana University, Bloomington, learned the mechanisms by which memes compete for user interest, and how information spreads. Using this insight, the team built a computer simulation designed to mimic Twitter. How a meme grows The reason for this, says team member Filippo Menczer, is that the simulated users had a limited attention span and could only view a portion of the total number of tweets – as is the case in the real world. Katherine Milkman of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia disagrees. All in the timing? Promoted Stories
Saving species could keep humans healthy - environment - 13 April 2012 Are animals good for us? Several studies suggest that our chances of picking up an animal disease are reduced if we are surrounded by a variety of species – the thinking goes that abundant animal life acts a pool that prevents the disease from jumping to people. Others strongly disagree, arguing that more creatures means a greater variety of diseases and a higher chance that one of them will evolve to infect us. The results of a new mathematical model presented at the Planet Under Pressure meeting in London last month suggest both sides may be right – depending on the type of biodiversity in an area. Benjamin Roche of the International Center for Mathematical and Computational Modeling of Complex Systems in Bondy Cedex, France, who generated the model, says that it shows – perhaps unsurprisingly – that a diversity of disease carriers is bad news. Whether these effects hold true on a global scale is still hotly debated. More From New Scientist More from the web Recommended by
Esa selects 1bn-euro Juice probe to Jupiter 2 May 2012Last updated at 10:54 ET By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News Continue reading the main story The JUpiter ICy moon Explorer Would launch on Ariane rocket in 2022 Journey to Jupiter system takes eight years Will study gas giant as well as moons Fly-bys planned for moons Callisto and Europa First mission to orbit an icy moon - Ganymede Would end mission by crashing into surface The European Space Agency (Esa) is to mount a billion-euro mission to Jupiter and its icy moons. The probe, called Juice, has just been approved at a meeting of member state delegations in Paris. It would be built in time for a launch in 2022, although it would be a further eight years before it reached the Jovian system. The mission has emerged from a five-year-long competition to find the next "large class" space venture in Europe. Juice stands for JUpiter ICy moon Explorer. Callisto, Europa and Ganymede are all suspected to have oceans of water below their icy surfaces.
I Still Shoot Film Film Photographer Spotlight: Oleg Oprisco Name: Oleg OpriscoAge: 25Location: St. Petersburg, Russia & Kiev, UkrainePhotographing For: 4 years Camera: Kiev 6C + Kiev 88 and a set of optics - 90/f2,8 + 180/f2,8 + 300/f4 Fav film: Kodak Portra Oleg on why he shoots film: “My journey began in Lviv, Ukraine when I was 16 and just started working at a photo lab, where met the film. Read more To shoot more of it? Share what you plan to do differently this year! Reader Top 10: Landscapes on Film! We asked you guys to share your favorite landscape you’ve shot on film and the results were so impressive, we had to pick a top 10 this time.