Language Helps Us Think

 

(Image credit: Digital Art via Getty Images)

Humans have been expressing thoughts with language for tens (or perhaps hundreds) of thousands of years. It's a hallmark of our species — so much so that scientists once speculated that the capacity for language was the key difference between us and other animals. And we've been wondering about each other's thoughts for as long as we could talk about them.

"The 'penny for your thoughts' kind of question is, I think, as old as humanity," Russell Hurlburt, a research psychologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas who studies how people formulate thoughts, told Live Science. But how do scientists study the relationship between thought and language? And is it possible to think without words?

The answer, surprisingly, is yes, several decades of research has found. Hurlburt’s studies, for instance, have shown that some people do not have an inner monologue — meaning they don't talk to themselves in their heads, Live Science previously reported. And other research shows that people don't use the language regions of their brain when working on wordless logic problems.  READ MORE...

Pikachu Cookie

 

Returning to Normal (somewhat)

Today, I begin to take my Imbruvica capsules, 2-240 mg once a day in the morning) along with my baby aspirin that was postponed due to surgery...  and, while that is not physically back to normal it is gradually moving in that direction.

Aside from the pain almost disappearing in my lower back, except when I adjust my position or walk...  which I believe is a result of the 12-15 inch incision I have on my lower back and not the trauma of the surgery itself on my bones.

Also odd is the fact that I can sleep on my back in relative comfort which one would think would not be so easy to do still this close the surgery but more importantly because of the incision itself.  My wife had hip replacement surgery and her scar was as long as mine and she could not sleep on the side of the scar until 6 months later and then not very long when she did.

Milestones yet to achieve:

Milestone 1 - two week appointment with surgeon after surgery which is almost going to be 3 weeks.

Milestone 2 - either a 4-6 week appointment with surgeon to release me to drive an automobile...  I would suspect a lot of that depends on the results of my 2/3 week appointment.

MIlestone 3 - a 3 month appointment with my surgeon to determine if physical therapy can begin...

After Milestone 3, I don't believe I see my surgeon again unless there is a problem.

Milestone 4 - this is not really an appointment but after 6 months, I should actually feel I am back to normal or should begin to be feeling I am back to normal...  with normal being about 95% or better.  I suppose either my therapist or I determine that.  If I don't feel 95%, then the normal part may take 12-18 months and sometimes 24 months.

CAVEAT:  my surgeon tells me that there is a small possibility that this fusion surgery will not help me at all or very little, although he doesn't think that will happen...  For that diagnosis, I will have to wait 3 months probably.

Meanwhile, after my first appointment with my surgeon,  I will be having dental surgery, meeting with my Onocolist and treatment (Opdivo and IVIG), and a CT scan the following month...  not because I stopped treatment for 3 weeks, but in the normal treatment cycle, it is time for me to have a CT, mainly because of my Melanoma.

A week after that, I will be fitted for a hearing air that I will wear for 30 days, to see if my hearing improves.  Hearing aids are not covered by my insurance, so if I decide I need them, then that expense will be $3,000 and probably a little more.

Growing older physically is no fun but after 14 years, I am kinda getting used to the impact it has had on my physical activities...  it is just something that all of us will go through, some journeys will be easier than others.

China Conducts Anti-Ballistic Test

China successfully conducted a mid-range anti-ballistic missile test late Sunday, its defense ministry said.

The land-based test “achieved its expected objectives” and was defensive in nature and not targeted at any one country, according to the statement.


The country conducted a similar test in February 2021 and brings the tally of publicly announced Chinese land-based anti-ballistic missile technical tests to six, state media Global Times reported.


The test could add to tensions in an already volatile region, where Beijing and Washington are vying for influence. Neighboring North Korea has also ramped up its missile tests in recent months, prompting South Korea and the US to respond to its provocations.

DAYDREAM by Lovin' Spoonful

 

Far Right Shock Waves in France

PARIS, June 19 (Reuters) - France's far-right scored a historic success in legislative elections on Sunday increasing its number of lawmakers almost tenfold and cementing the party's rise from fringe status to the mainstream opposition.

Since taking the helm of the party in 2011, leader Marine Le Pen has sought to rid the National Front - now called the National Rally (RN) - of the anti-Semitic image it acquired under the nearly 40-year leadership of her father, ex-paratrooper Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Securing 42% in April's presidential election, Le Pen had already tapped into the general disenchantment with President Emmanuel Macron and identifying anger across the country over the rising cost of living and the decline of many rural communities.

On Sunday, she took that one step further. According to estimates, Le Pen's party will win between 85-90 seats, up from just two in 2012 and eight in 2017, which could make it the second-largest party in parliament. Major pollsters last week estimated just 25-50 seats.  READ MORE...

Kitten Drinking Water

 

Sloths

 

Belief in God Drops

The percentage of Americans who say they believe in God has dipped to the lowest number in the past nearly 80 years, according to a new Gallup poll published Friday.

The Values and Belief poll, conducted from May 2 to 22, showed 81% of people answered that they believe in God. That is down six percentage points from the 87% of respondents who said they believed in God in the 2017 poll. This year is the lowest percentage in Gallup’s trend since the public opinion polling company first asked the question in 1944.

This year’s poll found 17% of Americans said they do not believe in God.

When asking the question first in 1944, again in 1947, and twice each in the 1950s and 1960s, a consistent 98% of respondents said they believed in God. When Gallup asked the question nearly five decades later, in 2011, 92% of Americans said they believed in God.

A subsequent survey in 2013 found belief in God dipping below 90% to 87%, roughly where it stood in three subsequent updates between 2014 and 2017 before this year's drop to 81%.

The poll found that the belief in God has plummeted the most in recent years among young adults and people on the left of the political spectrum, namely liberals and Democrats.  READ MORE...

Monster

 

Ending Racial Disparities

 

DALLAS (AP) — After Opal Lee led hundreds in a walk through her Texas hometown to celebrate Juneteenth this weekend, the 95-year-old Black woman who helped successfully push for the holiday to get national recognition said it’s important that people learn the history behind it.

“We need to know so people can heal from it and never let it happen again,” said Lee, whose 2 1/2-mile (4-kilometer) walk through Fort Worth symbolizes the 2 1/2 years it took after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation ending slavery in the Southern states for the enslaved people in Texas to be freed.

A year after President Joe Biden signed legislation making June 19 the nation’s 12th federal holiday, people across the U.S. gathered at events filled with music, food and fireworks. Celebrations also included an emphasis on learning about history and addressing racial disparities. Many Black people celebrated the

day just as they did before any formal recognition.

Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day, commemorates the day in 1865 when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, to order freedom for the enslaved people of the state — two months after the Confederacy had surrendered in the Civil War.

“Great nations don’t ignore their most painful moments,” Biden said in a statement Sunday. “They confront them to grow stronger. And that is what this great nation must continue to do.”

A Gallup Poll found that Americans are more familiar with Juneteenth than they were last year, with 59% saying they knew “a lot” or “some” about the holiday compared with 37% a year ago in May. The poll also found that support for making Juneteenth part of school history lessons increased from 49% to 63%.  READ MORE...

Imagine

 

Ancient Black Death Mystery

Researchers believe they may have found ground zero for the deadliest plague in human history, the Black Death — pulling the veil off a mystery that has been shrouded for nearly 700 years.

A paper published in Nature on Wednesday details how a team of archaeologists and geneticists sequenced the genome of plague bacteria found in medieval corpses that predate the first plague outbreaks in Eurasia. The make-up of this ancient bacterial DNA has led researchers to believe it was the origin for almost all subsequent strains of bubonic plague.

Samples of this original Yersinia pestis bacteria, the pathogen that causes bubonic plague, were found in northern Kyrgyzstan, in villages that were along the old Silk Road trade route in Central Asia.

The study began several years ago when Philip Slavin, an economic and environmental historian for the University of Stirling, came across records that a pair of 14th-century cemeteries had a significant amount of tombstones dated from 1338 to 1339. Ten of these tombstones explicitly referenced pestilence.

This was unusual because, prior to this study, the earliest deaths associated with the plague were in 1346 in the Crimean Peninsula.

“When you have one or two years with excess mortality, it means something funny is going on there,” Slavin said at a news conference.  READ MORE...

Sufer

 

Bill O'Reilly Speaks Out

 

Mother Ship of Drones

An aerial view of Whitsun Reef, Spratly Islands, South China Sea imaged 24 March 2021.

Gallo Images/Orbital Horizon/Copernicus Sentinel Data 2021)

China has launched the world's first crewless drone carrier that uses artificial intelligence to navigate autonomously in open water.

Beijing has officially described it as a maritime research tool, but some experts have said the ship has the potential to be used as a military vessel.

The autonomous ship, the Zhu Hai Yun (pictured here) is around 290 feet long, 45 feet wide, and 20 feet deep and can carry dozens of air, sea, and submersible drones equipped with different observation instruments, according to the shipbuilder, CSSC Huangpu Wenchong Shipping Co.

It describes the vessel as "epoch making" and the "world's first intelligent unmanned system mother ship."  READ MORE...

What do Table Manners Say About You?

 

A Little Mishap

Yesterday morning, I was in the kitchen toasting an English Muffin and decided that while it was cooking I would get the jelly and a spoon.  We have had irobots cleaning our floors every day because of 3 cats for over 3 years and their noise is still present but sounds like background noise so it is pretty much ignored by me.  

That ignoring worked to my disadvantage as when I turned the damn irobot was right behind me and after my first step, I immediately fell.  My arms instinctively reached out and hit the top of our free-standing island, slowing me down enough to land on my knees and not bounce off the island and onto the floor quite possibly landing on my back or side.

I stayed in that position for a couple of minutes waiting for the onset of additional pain but none arrived, so I pulled myself up and called out to my wife as I headed back to the bedroom to lay flat on my back on our bed.  My wife entered the room and checked me out as I explained to her what had happened.  She found nothing.

But, as the day gradually unwound, my lower back began aching more and more so I spent more than normal today laying on my back on the bed.

I don't think I damaged the surgery but I do think my already beat-up back muscles went into action as soon as they realized I was falling...  it will take a couple of days perhaps to get them calmed back down.

Lesson Learned:  pay attention to everything in your house or in your environment, even if you don't think there are any hazards around...  because they are there and they will reach up and bite you in the ass like they did me.  Don't take anything for granted and make sure you are aware of sound and anything around whenever you decide to move or change locations.

Inevitable Growth

Since the birth of the USA, about 250 years have passed by to get us to where we are in 2022...  Since a generation spans about 20-30 years (25 on average), those 250 years have given us 10 generations...  10 generations is a lot of time, for instance:

• My family
• My Parents
• My Grandparents
• MY Great Grandparents is still only 4 generations and I have no memory of my Great Grandparents because I never met them...  and, about the only memory of my grandparents were when I was a young child up through my first marriage that my grandfather attended.  Shortly thereafter he died...   I was 21 years old.

So, this should impress upon you the the absolute length of 250 years.

1772/1776

1. Underwater warfare - submarine - the Turtle
2. Chronometer - accurate time
3. Underwater exploration with scuba
4. Indoor Plumbing
5. The Kitchen Stove
6. Electricity
7. Mechanical Motion
8. Steam Engines
9. Multi-tasking - revolving bookstand
10. The Spinning Mule
11. The Cotton Gin
12. Bubbles in Water (Soda)

EARLY 1900s 

there were 600,000 telephones in American homes across the USA

by 1905 - 2.2 million telephones

by 1910 - 5.8 million telephones

by 1915 - first transcontinental cable laid connecting telephone service from USA to Great Britain.

by 1973 - first mobile phone released to the public

First Computer

1830s -  Charles Babbage invented the first digital computer

1951 - first keyboard invented to access computer

1974 - the first personal computer

What do we have in 2022?

You name it, we have it...

• smart phones
• smart vehicles
• smart homes
• wristband computer phones (iwatch)
• electric vehicles
• surgeon robots
• artificial intelligence
• online classes
• virtual learning head devices
• students can perform virtual surgeries
• space flight
• reusable spacecraft (returning to base, landing upright

How Fast is Technology Growing? 

By 2025...

38.6 billion smart devices will be collecting, analyzing, and sharing data.
The web hosting services market is to reach $77.8 billion 
70% of all tech spending is expected to go for cloud solutions.
There are 1.35 million tech startups.
Global AI market is expected to reach $89.8 billion.
There are 4,383 million internet users.
Solar energy adoption has grown by around 50%.

Imagine This