Quote: Neil deGrasse Tyson

“The atoms of our bodies are traceable to stars that manufactured them in their cores and exploded these enriched ingredients across our galaxy, billions of years ago. For this reason, we are biologically connected to every other living thing in the world. We are chemically connected to all molecules on Earth. And we are atomically connected to all atoms in the universe. We are not figuratively, but literally stardust.” 

–Neil deGrasse Tyson

Crime Reduction Linked To Lead-Free Gasoline

Hugh Pickens writes"Even low levels of lead can cause brain damage, increasing the likelihood of behavioral and cognitive traits such as impulsivity, aggressiveness, and low IQ that are strongly linked with criminal behavior. The NYTimes has a story on how the phasing out of leaded gasoline starting with the Clean Air Act in 1973 may have led to a 56% drop in violent crime in the US in the 1990s. An economics professor at Amherst College, Jessica Wolpaw Reyes, discovered the connection and wrote a paper comparing the reduction of lead from gasoline between states (PDF) and the reduction of violent crime. She constructed a table linking crime rates in every state to childhood lead exposure in that state 20 or 30 years earlier. If lead poisoning is a factor in the development of criminal behavior, then countries that didn't switch to unleaded fuel until the 1980s, like Britain and Australia, should soon see a dip in crime as the last lead-damaged children outgrow their most violent years."

Crime Reduction Linked To Lead-Free Gasoline - Slashdot

http://science.slashdot.org/story/07/10/23/1839245/crime-reduction-linked-to-lead-free-gasoline

In Praise of Idleness

If you're going to be busy, make sure it's for the right reasons.

Published on April 20, 2013 by Neel Burton, M.D. in Hide and Seek

Bertrand Russell

Some people would rather die than think. In fact, they do. —Bertrand Russell



The manic defence is the tendency, when presented with uncomfortable thoughts or feelings, to distract the conscious mind either with a flurry of activity or with the opposite thoughts or feelings. A general example of the manic defence is the person who spends all of his time rushing around from one task to the next, and who is unable to tolerate even short periods of inactivity. For this person, even leisure time consists in a series of discrete programmed activities that he needs to submit to in order to tick off from an actual or mental list. One needs only observe the expression on his face as he ploughs through yet another family outing, cultural event, or gruelling exercise routine to realize that his aim in life is not so much to live in the present moment as it is to work down his never-ending list. If one asks him how he is doing, he is most likely to respond with an artificial smile and a robotic response along the lines of, ‘Fine, thank you—very busy of course!' In many cases, he is not fine at all, but confused, exhausted, and fundamentally unhappy.

Other, more specific, examples of the manic defence include the socialite who attends one event after another, the small and dependent boy who charges around declaiming that he is Superman, and the sexually inadequate adolescent who laughs ‘like a maniac' at the slightest intimation of sex. It is important to distinguish this sort of ‘manic laughter' from the more mature laughter that arises from suddenly revealing or emphasizing the ridiculous or absurd aspects of an anxiety-provoking person, event, or situation. Such mature laughter enables a person to see a problem in a more accurate and less threatening context, and so to diffuse the anxiety that it gives rise to. All that is required to make a person laugh is to tell him the truth in the guise of a joke or a tease; drop the pretence, however, and the effect is entirely different. In short, laughter can be used either to reveal the truth or—as in the case of the manic defence—to conceal it or to block it out.

Indeed, the essence of the manic defence is to prevent feelings of helplessness and despair from entering the conscious mind by occupying it with opposite feelings of euphoria, purposeful activity, and omnipotent control. This is no doubt why people feel driven not only to mark but also to celebrate such depressing milestones as entering the workforce (graduation), getting ever older (birthdays, New Year), and even, more recently, death and dying (Halloween)—laughing when they should be crying and crying when they should be laughing. The manic defence may also take on more subtle forms, such as creating a commotion over something trivial; filling every ‘spare moment' with reading, study, or chatting on the phone with a friend; spending several months preparing for Christmas or some civic or sporting event; seeking out status or celebrity so as to be a ‘somebody' rather than a ‘nobody'; entering into baseless friendships and relationships; even, sometimes, getting married and having children.


In Virginia Woolf's novel of 1925, Mrs Dalloway, one of several ways in which Clarissa Dalloway prevents herself from thinking about her life is by planning unneeded events and then preoccupying herself with their prerequisites—‘always giving parties to cover the silence'. Everyone uses the manic defence, but some people use it to such an extent that they find it difficult to cope with even short periods of unstructured time, such as holidays, weekends, and long-distance travel, which at least explains why airport shops are so profitable. In sum, it is not that the manically defended person is happy—not at all, in fact—but that he does not know how to be sad and, in time, at peace and at play. As the 19th century writer Oscar Wilde (Figure 3) put it in his essay, The Critic as Artist: With Some Remarks on the Importance of Doing Nothing, ‘To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.'

It should be noted that the manic defence is particularly prevalent in Occidental and Occidentalized societies such as the USA and the UK. One of the central tenets of the Western worldview is that one should always be engaged in some kind of outward task; in contrast, most people living in a country such as Kenya in Africa do not share in this idea that it is somehow noble or worthwhile to spend all of one's time rushing around from one task to the next. When Westerners go to Kenya and behave as they do back home, they are met with peels of laughter and cries of ‘Mzungu', which is Swahili for ‘Westerner'. The literal translation of ‘Mzungu' is ‘one who moves around', ‘to go round and round', or ‘to turn around in circles'.

Sometimes, however, a life situation can become so unfulfilling or untenable that the manic defence no longer suffices to block out negative feelings, and the person has no real choice but to switch and to adopt the depressive position. Put differently, a person adopts the depressive position if the gap between his current life situation and his ideal life situation becomes so large that it can no longer be carpeted over. His goals seem far out of reach and he can no longer envisage a future. As in Psalm 41, abyssus abyssum invocat—‘hell brings forth hell', or, in an alternative translation, ‘the deep calls onto the deep'.



See my recent and related blog post, Can Depression be Good for You?

Find Neel on Twitter and Facebook

Find Neel's latest book on Amazon: Plato: Letters to my Son





Source:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide-and-seek

Hand Balancer

Steel-Willed Hand Balancer Jaakko Tenhunen Explains Why Effort Brings the Most Satisfaction

in Life, Sports, Video - Arts & Culture | April 19th, 2013 

Few of us possess the physical strength and even steelier will to follow in the hand prints of professional balancer Jaakko Tenhunen, but most of us have other projects that could benefit from the sort of relentless determination he brings to his work. “Effort, not comfort, is what gives the most tangible sense of satisfaction,” he remarks in the  voice-over above, as the camera captures him supporting his entire body weight on a single palm, his face intense but not at all anguished. Reduce this elegant philosophy to the far punchier “just do it,” and you stand to sell a lot of shoes.

As Tenhunen knows firsthand, this sort of effortful pursuit depends on discipline and daily practice. Patience is also key, as success is cumulative, and difficult to measure in the early stages.

The stripped down aesthetic of his performance does not necessarily make what he does look easy, so much as worthwhile. If you are a fledgling hand balancer, you may well find it discouraging, but for those of us striving to see other goals through to completion, Tehunen provides a bracing visual metaphor.

Related Content:
J.K. Rowling Tells Harvard Grads Why Success Begins with Failure
Conformity Isn’t a Recipe for Excellence: Wisdom from George Carlin & Steve Jobs (NSFW)
Meet Frank Catalfumo, the Shoemaker Who Has Been Mending Souls in Brooklyn Since 1945
Ayun Halliday will be at tabling at the Brooklyn Zinefest this Sunday. Immediately thereafter catch her performing the Complete History of her long running zine, the East Village Inky… in song, as part of Brooklyn Brain Frame.

by Ayun Halliday



Source:

http://www.openculture.com/2013/04/steel-willed_hand_balancer_jaakko_tenhunen_explains_why_effort_bring_the_most_satisfaction.html

Rare Javan leopards captured in stunning camera-trap photos

Researcher places 30 cameras throughout West Java rainforest and lets sit for 30 days, catches critically endangered species in candid poses

May 22, 2013 by David Strege

Thirty cameras were placed throughout the Gunung Halimun Salak National Park in West Java, Indonesia, to capture wildlife scenes in the rainforest. The camera traps sat for one month before researcher Age Kridalaksana of the Center for International Forestry Research finally collected them.

What he discovered when retrieving the images were stunning photos of the rare and critically endangered Javan leopards. One leopard acted as if it knew right where to lie down and get photographed. Kridalaksana shared the vivid and brilliant photos in this Vimeo video. Enjoy:

The photos in the video show the leopard resting, grooming, yawning, and rolling around. Another camera caught a leopard just passing by.

According to Wired Science, Kridalaksana captured thousands of images of deer, civets, and birds, along with the rare photos of two spotted leopards and one black leopard.

“The Javan leopard population is believed to comprise fewer than 250 adults, with deforestation, human conflicts, and a declining prey base among major threats to the population,” wrote Nadia Drake of Wired Science. “Since leopards normally have a territory spanning several square miles, seeing three in one area is unusual.”

Javan leopards have been classified as critically endangered since 2008 by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. They are confined to the island of Java, the world’s 13th largest island in the world, located in Indonesia.

No doubt their beauty is striking.

Photo is a screen grab from the video



Source:  http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/nature/post/rare-javan-leopards-captured-in-stunning-camera-trap-photos/

Chris Hadfield: Space Oddity

Published on May 12, 2013

A revised version of David Bowie's Space Oddity, recorded by Commander Chris Hadfield on board the International Space Station.

(Note: This video cannot be reproduced and is licensed for online music use only.)

With thanks to Emm Gryner, Joe Corcoran, Andrew Tidby and Evan Hadfield for all their hard work.

Captioning kindly provided by CHS (www.chs.ca)

Find out more:

Twitter: twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield
Facebook: www.facebook.com/AstronautChrisHadfield?­­fref=ts
Google+: plus.google.com/113978637743265603454/po­­sts/p/pub

Source:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo