100 Very Cool Facts About The Human Body The Brain The human brain is the most complex and least understood part of the human anatomy. There may be a lot we don’t know, but here are a few interesting facts that we’ve got covered. Nerve impulses to and from the brain travel as fast as 170 miles per hour. Hair and Nails While they’re not a living part of your body, most people spend a good amount of time caring for their hair and nails. Facial hair grows faster than any other hair on the body. Internal Organs Though we may not give them much thought unless they’re bothering us, our internal organs are what allow us to go on eating, breathing and walking around. The largest internal organ is the small intestine. Bodily Functions We may not always like to talk about them, but everyone has to deal with bodily functions on a daily basis. Sneezes regularly exceed 100 mph. Sex and Reproduction As taboo as it may be in some places, sex is an important part of human life as a facet of relationships and the means to reproduce. Senses
Stuff no one told you: Simple truths of life At some point in 2010, Alex Noriega, illustrator from Barcelana, was going through a crisis due to some isues at work. He decided to start a blog as a way of trying to find what he was doing wrong. He wanted to put on paper all that he had learned in life as simple as possible and try to see if what was happening around him made any sense. And it didn’t Still, his work is great and we are happy to present it to you! 5 Logical Fallacies That Make You Wrong More Than You Think The Internet has introduced a golden age of ill-informed arguments. You can't post a video of an adorable kitten without a raging debate about pet issues spawning in the comment section. These days, everyone is a pundit. But with all those different perspectives on important issues flying around, you'd think we'd be getting smarter and more informed. #5. Think about the last time you ran into a coworker or family member spouting some easily disproven conspiracy theory -- somebody who still thinks Obama's birth certificate is a fake or that Dick Cheney arranged 9/11 to cover up his theft of $2.3 trillion from the government. That has literally never happened in the history of human conversation. Getty"OK, so Dick Cheney doesn't have a third arm. The Science: It's called the argumentative theory of reasoning, and it says that humans didn't learn to ask questions and offer answers in order to find universal truths. Yes, kids, being a dick works. So During Your Next Argument, Remember ... #4.
Games « you found me. I make alternate reality games: games that are designed to improve real lives or solve real problems. I’ve been making ARGs since 2001 — and you can watch trailers for a dozen of my favorite ARGs below. Many of my games challenge players to tackle real-world problems at a planetary-scale: hunger, poverty, climate change, or global peace, for example (see: EVOKE, World Without Oil, Superstruct). Others are simply designed to make players happier in their everyday lives — by dancing more, say, or by being kind to strangers (see: Top Secret Dance Off and Cruel 2 B Kind). And some have specific positive health impacts in mind: increasing physical activity, for example, or speeding up recovery from a concussion (see: CryptoZoo and SuperBetter). The biggest influence on my game design is the science of positive psychology. Most of the games I make aren’t like typical videogames that you can play whenever you want. SUPERBETTER (2012 ) The game that builds your real-life resilience. Like this:
60 Small Ways to Improve Your Life in the Next 100 Days Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to make drastic changes in order to notice an improvement in the quality of your life. At the same time, you don’t need to wait a long time in order to see the measurable results that come from taking positive action. All you have to do is take small steps, and take them consistently, for a period of 100 days. Below you’ll find 60 small ways to improve all areas of your life in the next 100 days. Home 1. Day 1: Declutter MagazinesDay 2: Declutter DVD’sDay 3: Declutter booksDay 4: Declutter kitchen appliances 2. If you take it out, put it back.If you open it, close it.If you throw it down, pick it up.If you take it off, hang it up. 3. A burnt light bulb that needs to be changed.A button that’s missing on your favorite shirt.The fact that every time you open your top kitchen cabinet all of the plastic food containers fall out. Happiness 4. 5. 6. How many times do you beat yourself up during the day? 7. Learning/Personal Development 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.
Human Thought Controls Neurons in Brain Neuroscience research involving epileptic patients with brain electrodes surgically implanted in their medial temporal lobes shows that patients learned to consciously control individual neurons deep in the brain with thoughts. Subjects learned to control mouse cursors, play video games and alter focus of digital images with their thoughts. The patients were each using brain computer interfaces, deep brain electrodes and software designed for the research. The article below offers more detail. Controlling Individual Cortical Nerve Cells by Human Thought Five years ago, neuroscientist Christof Koch of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) , neurosurgeon Itzhak Fried of UCLA, and their colleagues discovered that a single neuron in the human brain can function much like a sophisticated computer and recognize people, landmarks, and objects, suggesting that a consistent and explicit code may help transform complex visual representations into long-term and more abstract memories.
30 Habits that Will Change your Life Developing good habits is the basic of personal development and growth. Everything we do is the result of a habit that was previously taught to us. Unfortunately, not all the habits that we have are good, that’s why we are constantly trying to improve. The following is a list of 30 practical habits that can make a huge difference in your life. You should treat this list as a reference, and implement just one habit per month. This way you will have the time to fully absorb each of them, while still seeing significant improvements each month. Health habits Exercise 30 minutes every day. Productivity habits Use an inbox system. Personal Development habits Read 1 book per week. Career habits Start a blog. What do you think? Update: A reader put together a downloadable copy of all these habits.
A rich club in the human brain Wednesday, November 2, 2011 This image shows the group connectome, with the nodes and connections colored according to their rich-club participation. Green represents few connections. Just as the Occupy Wall Street movement has brought more attention to financial disparities between the haves and have-nots in American society, researchers from Indiana University and the University Medical Center Utrecht in The Netherlands are highlighting the disproportionate influence of so called "Rich Clubs" within the human brain. Not all regions of the brain, they say, are created equal. "We've known for a while that the brain has some regions that are 'rich' in the sense of being highly connected to many other parts of the brain," said Olaf Sporns, professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences in IU's College of Arts and Sciences. The study, "Rich-Club Organization of the Human Connectome," is published in the Nov. 2 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.
>How-To: Newsprint Manicure « A Pretty Penny I saw this newsprint manicure over on The Daily Nail and thought it was adorable (especially for bookworms and word lovers like myself). I did a little Google detective work to see how to recreate it, and was surprised at how easy it is! All of the tutorials I found called for vodka or other clear distilled spirits, but we were fresh out. I used isopropyl alcohol instead, and it seemed to get the job done. I tried a quick and dirty version this afternoon to share it with you: Like this: Like Loading...
7 Man-Made Substances that Laugh in the Face of Physics The universe is full of weird substances like liquid metal and whatever preservative keeps Larry King alive. But mankind isn't happy to accept the weirdness of nature when we can create our own abominations of science that, due to the miracle of technology, spit in nature's face and call it retarded. That's why we came up with... #7. What do you get when you suspend nanoparticles of iron compounds in a colloidal solution of water, oil and a surfactant? A ferrofluid is a liquid that reacts to magnetic fields in trippy ways that make you think that science is both magical and potentially evil. Tell us that didn't look like the birth of the most sinister dildo ever. What happens is that when a magnetic field is applied to the fluid, the particles of iron compound inside align to it. What the Hell is it Used For? Ferrofluids have a lot of pretty mundane uses, from lubricating and protecting hard drives to providing heat conduction in speakers, but their primary use is in looking cool. #6. #5.