Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans

Brain training in the news!

Tourette syndrome. You might think that someone who exhibits the physical and verbal tics of Tourette has less control of hismind than do non-Tourette people.

Well, here’s a surprise. Studies show that children with Tourette actually have greater cognitive control than do their peers. The researchers think that the enhanced control is the effect of spending so much time and energy attempting to subdue Tourette-related behaviors. The work is in the journal Current Biology.

The unprecedented flooding in Pakistan in the latter half of 2010 disrupted the lives of 20 million people, but it also affected the country’s arachnid population.

Documents found in an Ethiopian warehouse are allowing Sudanese refugees in the United States to piece together half-remembered stories from their childhoods.

It’s a pretty entertaining article about being brutally honest at all times, removing the filter between brain and mouth, as a way of actually being more compassionate and authentic in all kinds of relationships.  I personally also like the idea, because being brutally honest is something I’m pretty terrible at, and has lead to all kinds of preventable problems.

“The women — part of a special female United Nations police unit from India — lead dual lives: stamping out street crime by night and standing guard under the steamy equatorial sun outside the Monrovia headquarters of the Liberian president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. When they retreat, home is a military barracks where they tell bedtime stories to their toddlers via video conference calls.”

“SOUTH BRUNSWICK — They never touched the floor — that would have set off an alarm.

They didn’t appear on store security cameras. They cut a hole in the roof and came in at a spot where the cameras were obscured by advertising banners.

And they left with some $26,000 in laptop computers, departing the same way they came in — down a 3-inch gas pipe that runs from the roof to the ground outside the store.”

“They do not eat pork, they practise male circumcision, they ritually slaughter their animals, some of their men wear skull caps and they put the Star of David on their gravestones.

Their oral traditions claim that their ancestors were Jews who fled the Holy Land about 2,500 years ago.”

hangingfire:

Esquire profile of Ebert and his life, post-surgery. Absolutely heartwrenching and inspiring. Just go read it.

Whole-hearted support: go read it.

It’s a bizarre story, one taken right out of an episode of House.  It still seems a bit *too* fantastic to me, but it’s fascinating nonetheless.

A really fun tool for people who are interested in movement and physical expression of emotion and other characteristics.  Biological motion is yet another example of how completely awesome psychology really is.

“The duo’s projects were designed to be slightly uncomfortable, with a malignant edge, Loizeau says.

“‘What we’re doing with this is asking people if they would be interested in using living things as fuel — things we normally consider pests and things we normally dispose of, but once it’s actively used as a fuel, how comfortable they feel with that.’”  (via)