Mind Wandering

Research shows that one of the most effective ways to spur creativity is to allow your mind to wander and to follow it without judgment. But science also shows why that is tougher than it sounds.

In 2010, two researchers working at Harvard University began exploring how people feel about and experience mind wandering. They did so by interrupting people at random times of the day by sending texts to cellphone numbers they'd gathered, along with the consent to interrupt. They got responses from 2,250 adults.

The text messages they sent asked a handful of questions. One was, "What are you doing right now?" and that question could be answered with a number from 1 to 22 that corresponded to various common, everyday activities—taking a walk, working, grooming/self-care, doing housework, taking care of children, making love. 

(First off, let's dispense with the joke that for many people sex is not nearly as everyday an activity as they might like.) What's of note about making love is that it was by far the least likely time for a study subject's mind to wander. People were, as they say, on task.

That was not the case, though, for so many other activities.

On average, people's minds wandered 47% of the time.

To read more about mind wandering, CLICK HERE...

The Power of Prayer

 

Cost of Electric Cars

At a time when it costs up to $100 to fill a gas tank, but as little as $10 to charge an electric car, buying an EV may seem like an obvious choice. But EV economics are complicated and you need to be savvy about a lot of unfamiliar factors before you can stick it to the oil companies.

Buying a new car
To drive an EV you have to buy an EV, an often pricey proposition. Even after you sell or trade your current, conventional car you could easily be in the hole $10,000 or more. 

It'll take you several years to just break even, as my CNET Cars colleague Craig Cole calculates here, even assuming a scenario where you buy a very cheap EV, live in a place with cheap electricity and always charge at home. That's a lot of "ifs" to make the purchase of a new EV an economic slam dunk.

This is not a new concern: I can't count the number of people I know who bought a hybrid or other fuel-efficient car at a net cost far higher than they could ever save on fuel with it. 

One friend insisted on trading in their Porsche Cayenne for a Cayenne Hybrid, even after I penciled out that it would take them 111 years to break even.  READ MORE...

Ice Skating

 

Following the Yellow Brick Road in the Pacific Ocean

An expedition to a deep-sea ridge, just north of the Hawaiian Islands, has revealed an ancient dried-out lake bed paved with what looks like a yellow brick road.

The eerie scene was chanced upon by the exploration vessel Nautilus, which is currently surveying the Liliʻuokalani ridge within Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (PMNM).

PMNM is one of the largest marine conservation areas in the world, larger than all the national parks in the United States combined, and we've only explored about 3 percent of its seafloor.

Researchers at the Ocean Exploration Trust are pushing the frontiers of this wilderness, which lies more than 3,000 meters below the waves, and the best part is, anyone can watch the exploration.

All day every day, researchers provide live footage, and a recently published highlight reel on YouTube captures the moment researchers operating the deep-sea vehicle stumbled upon the road to Oz.

"It's the road to Atlantis," a researcher on the radio can be heard exclaiming.

"The yellow brick road?" another voice countered.

"This is bizarre," added another member of the team.

"Are you kidding me? This is crazy."  READ MORE...

Over the Fence

A Little Something About Economics

There are two basic concepts of economics:  SUPPLY and DEMAND...

Supply refers to what is being produced or manufactured and delivered to the marketplace for purchase.

Demand refers to what the general public wants to buy and do they have the money to buy an item.

This does not really refer to the wealthy people but to 80-90% of the people who have an average amount of income...  so, the wealthy and the poor are for the most part excluded when we are talking about economics and supply and demand.

If we stimulate the supply side (produce more products) but we do not increase the demand or increase the money for people to buy, the products will go unsold and prices will drop...  (Theoretically)

If we stimulate the demand side (increase people's money) but do not increase the supply, then prices will increase and quite possibly will cause inflation.  (Theoretically)

So, based upon this basic description then one should stimulate both the supply side as well as the demand side simultaneously so that economic growth takes place as both sides grow together.

However, if both sides grow together, the worker will never really get ahead financially as their pay could increase 3% while at the same time prices increase 3%...

When this happens, the public must find different ways to increase their revenue greater than price increases.  This can be done by:

• increasing one's education
• find other sources of income
• changing jobs
• relocating to another state
• cut one's expenses

Republicans believe in stimulating supply

Democrats believe in stimulating demand

One other concern to this issue is immigration....  By allowing more people into this country, the government is essentially increasing the demand without increasing the supply...  this causes prices to increase...

The general public needs to understand and appreciate the basics of economics so that they can intelligently make decisions that will dramatically influence their lives and their future.

Small Tree

 

Psychopathy an Evolutionary Adaptation

Dan is a psychopath. But he is smart, charming, and successful. You would not know from first meeting him that he feels pride rather than remorse when he regularly plays the system, deceives people, and exploits others to get what he wants.

But does Dan have a psychological disorder?

Lesleigh Pullman and colleagues recently set out to assess the hypothesis that psychopathy might not be a mental disorder, but rather an effective life strategy. To do so, they analyzed a surprising sign of mental disorders: handedness.
Defining psychopathy and mental disorders

Psychopathy is characterized by emotional and interpersonal deficits such as callousness, grandiosity, and a lack of empathy and remorse. It sometimes involves deviant behavior like aggression and violence. Diagnosis is generally based on interviews or self-reported questionnaires that assess selfishness, remorseless use of others, and lifestyle.

Though the term is often used for run-of-the-mill jerks, less than 5 percent of the population — maybe even less than 1 percent — is selfish and remorseless enough to qualify as a psychopath.

Pullman and her colleagues take an evolutionary perspective on what constitutes a mental disorder, specifying that it must be a harmful dysfunction. To add up to a mental disorder, in other words, behavior cannot just fall outside of the norm. Instead, the behavior must constitute a failure to perform a function that evolution selected because it helps a person.

In other words, psychopathy must harm a person’s functioning or wellbeing if we are to consider it a disorder.

It might seem obvious that psychopathy is in fact harmful. Psychopaths struggle to maintain relationships. They are more likely to die prematurely and to be incarcerated. Hart and Hare, for example, argue that given its negative impact on society, psychopathy is perhaps second only to schizophrenia as a public health concern.  READ MORE...

Snow Ball for Dogs

 

Electric Vehicle Maintenance

Today I completed the annual maintenance on my 3.5 year old electric car. I refilled the wiper fluid and added a bit of air to the tires. That’s it. Except for two other things, that’s all I’ve done in the life of the car, though one of those things was a doozy.

The promise of the electric car is that it needs almost no maintenance. There are no oil changes or minor, regular and major service appointments. There are far fewer parts and fewer things to go wrong. In time, I’ll need new wiper blades and a few other minor things. Many drivers report their brake pads not wearing out after 200,000 miles because EV driving almost never uses the brakes.

I did change out the internal air filter to add a HEPA filter for the wildfire and Covid problems of today. That cost about $40 and a bit of time, and probably will need doing again 3 years later.

The doozy was needing new tires at around 28,000 miles. That was too early, far before their rated life. One reason for this was a stupid mistake on my part. In the past, I’ve taken my gasoline cars in for regular service, and they were rotating my tires as needed during this service. Not taking my EV in for service, I never got the rotation done. That not only meant the drive tires of my car wore out faster, it also meant I could not make a warranty claim on them. Lesson learned.  READ MORE...

Don't Take My Eggs

 

Dark Zone Art

The cave winds two miles beneath northern Alabama, with mysterious so-called dark zones, deposits, waterfalls, and passageways that turn into deep pools. Ancient footprints are embedded in its farthest passages. Union soldier names from the Civil War remain scribbled on the wall.

Crouching because the ceiling was so low, Alan Kresler took off the light from his helmet on July 30, 1998 and raked a beam across the surface above him.

I can see the artwork of fellow humans who lived centuries ago. Probably a round-headed bird.

“When I see it, I think it’s OK,” Cresler, who currently works at the US Geological Survey, said in an interview this week. “Talking about it gives me chills today. I recognized the imminent importance of it.”

Mr. Cressler, along with archaeologists, 3D photography experts, etc. In addition, he explored for many years the cave known as the 19th Anonymous Cave and its art. This week they published their findings in the journal Antiquity. This study reveals art that was initially invisible when Mr. Cressler was too close to the ceiling over 20 years ago to see a complete array radiating in all directions above. He emphasized the role of 3D technology above. he.

Jan Simek, an archaeologist at the University of Tennessee and co-author of the dissertation, said cave art is one of the largest found in North America, deep in complex dark zones out of natural light. ..

Using radiocarbon dating and analysis of pottery debris, researchers have found that art has replaced mid- and late Woodland eras, or agriculture, hunting, and gathering have replaced the region’s food production and sedentary lifestyles. It is estimated to date back between 500 and 1000 AD.

There is a human-characteristic figure, a coiled snake with a rattling tail and a bifurcated tongue, and a 10-foot-long snake that winds across the expanse. Some designs incorporate ceiling features, such as snakes that appear to emerge from natural crevices.  READ MORE...

The Bee

 

Matrix

Sacred Bird Sacrificed to Thoth

Carol Ann Barsody and Frederic Gleach examine the over 1,500-year-old mummy bird. 

(Image credit: Cornell University)

An ancient Egyptian bird mummy, long forgotten in storage and mislabeled as a hawk, is finally getting its due now that researchers have digitally peered inside its wrappings.


The 1,500-year-old mummy, scientists learned, is not a hawk but likely a sacred ibis (Threskiornis aethiopica) — a wading bird with stilt-like legs and a long curved beak that the ancient Egyptians often sacrificed to Thoth, the god of the moon, reckoning, learning and writing.


"Not only was this once a living creature that people of the day may have enjoyed watching stroll through the water," Carol Ann Barsody, a masters student in archaeology at Cornell University, who spearheaded the project, said in a statement. "It also was, and is, something sacred, something religious."  READ MORE...

Best Friends

 

Molten Salt Battery & Energy

Close-up of the freeze-thaw battery developed by the PNNL team. 

Credit: Andrea Starr/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

During spring in the Pacific Northwest, meltwater from thawing snow rushes down rivers and the wind often blows hard. These forces spin the region’s many power turbines and generate a bounty of electricity at a time of mild temperatures and relatively low energy demand. But much of this seasonal surplus electricity—which could power air conditioners come summer—is lost because batteries cannot store it long enough.

Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), a Department of Energy national laboratory in Richland, Wash., are developing a battery that might solve this problem. In a recent paper published in Cell Reports Physical Science, they demonstrated how freezing and thawing a molten salt solution creates a rechargeable battery that can store energy cheaply and efficiently for weeks or months at a time. 

Such a capability is crucial to shifting the U.S. grid away from fossil fuels that release greenhouse gases and toward renewable energy. President Joe Biden has made it a goal to cut U.S. carbon emissions in half by 2030, which will necessitate a major ramp-up of wind, solar and other clean energy sources, as well as ways to store the energy they produce.

Most conventional batteries store energy as chemical reactions waiting to happen. When the battery is connected to an external circuit, electrons travel from one side of the battery to the other through that circuit, generating electricity. To compensate for the change, charged particles called ions move through the fluid, paste or solid material that separates the two sides of the battery. 

But even when the battery is not in use, the ions gradually diffuse across this material, which is called the electrolyte. As that happens over weeks or months, the battery loses energy. Some rechargeable batteries can lose almost a third of their stored charge in a single month.  READ MORE...

Crazy Animal

 

Reversing Aging

Summary: Transplanting fecal microbiota from young mice to older mice reversed hallmark signs of aging in the gut, brains, and eyes. Transplanting the fecal microbiota from old to young mice had the reverse effect, inducing inflammation in the brain and depleting a key protein associated with healthy vision.

Source: University of East Anglia

In the search for eternal youth, poo transplants may seem like an unlikely way to reverse the aging process.

However, scientists at the Quadram Institute and the University of East Anglia have provided evidence, from research in mice, that transplanting fecal microbiota from young into old mice can reverse hallmarks of aging in the gut, eyes, and brain.

In the reverse experiment, microbes from aged mice induced inflammation in the brain of young recipients and depleted a key protein required for normal vision.

These findings show that gut microbes play a role in the regulating some of the detrimental effects of aging and open up the possibility of gut microbe-based therapies to combat decline in later life.

Prof Simon Carding, from UEA’s Norwich Medical School and head of the Gut Microbes and Health Research Program at the Quadram Institute, said: “This ground-breaking study provides tantalizing evidence for the direct involvement of gut microbes in aging and the functional decline of brain function and vision and offers a potential solution in the form of gut microbe replacement therapy.”

It has been known for some time that the population of microbes that we carry around in our gut, collectively called the gut microbiota, is linked to health. Most diseases are associated with changes in the types and behavior of bacteria, viruses, fungi and other microbes in an individual’s gut.  READ MORE...

Jellyfish

Coffee Anytime

Do You Need A Graduate Degree?

More U.S. workers than ever hold a graduate degree. Years of intensifying job requirements and headlines declaring a master’s “the new bachelor’s degree” nudged a record number of students into grad school.

And yet more well-paying jobs no longer require a college degree at all. In this tight labor market, do college grads need a master’s degree to compete? Maybe not.

“We have all reduced our almost obsession with the master’s degree,” says Johnny C. Taylor Jr., CEO and president of the Society for Human Resource Management.

Anecdotal and statistical evidence shows employers were already pulling back degree requirements even before the pandemic: Data from a job market analysis done by the Burning Glass Institute show a reduction in middle-skills and high-skills requirements — jobs that require more education than a high school diploma — from 2017 to 2019.

If fewer employers are requiring grad degrees to gain entrance to good jobs, prospective students should assess whether advanced degrees are worth taking on debt.

Some fields still require advanced degrees
Advanced degrees are still the key to entering certain professions: Medicine, law and teaching come to mind. In other fields, as long as you can convey you have the skills an employer is looking for, you can get a job without an advanced degree, says Brad Hershbein, senior economist and deputy director of research for the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Advanced degrees could hedge against a recession
Employers are likely reducing education requirements to fill slots, which can be difficult in a tight labor market like this one, experts say. But that doesn’t mean it will last.

“Nobody can quite explain what we’re going through now; I think everyone thinks it’s temporary,” says Gordon Lafer, a professor in the Labor Education & Research Center at the University of Oregon.

Holding an advanced degree could provide a safeguard for the future. If the economic tide turns , Taylor says, the degree becomes a differentiator.  READ MORE...

Crazy Pets

 

Saving During Inflation

When it comes to spending power, inflation means that things cost more and that your money becomes less valuable. When a period of high inflation hits — like right now — you may want to consider changing up the way you handle your finances to help protect the value of your cash.

“Inflation is a time for investors and savers to reevaluate their strategies,” says Walter Russell, CEO of financial adviser firm Russell and Company.

Through the Federal Reserve, the government tries to combat inflation on a large scale by raising the federal funds rate, which is the interest rate that commercial banks use to borrow and lend money to each other.

When the cost of borrowing becomes more expensive, higher interest rates trickle down to consumer products such as loans and mortgages, making them more expensive. But higher interest rates may also apply to deposit accounts, meaning that banks start to offer higher interest rates on checking, savings and certificates of deposit.

No one knows what the future will bring, but by making changes to how you spend and where you keep your money, you may be able to weather times of inflation more easily.

Here are some ways to save more during periods of inflation.

Look for high-yield interest rates
It can be frustrating to not be able to get loans for big purchases as easily during periods of high inflation. Still, consumers can take advantage of higher interest rates on bank accounts to fight the effects of inflation on their cash. Bank account interest rates usually don’t totally beat the rate of inflation, but these accounts can help hedge against inflation far better than keeping cash at home or in a low-rate account.

The national average annual percentage yield for savings accounts is 0.06%, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, but there are plenty of financial institutions that offer rates that are much higher — some even 1.00% APY or more. To find these rates, you can research high-yield or high-interest accounts and choose the bank that works best for you.

Find ways to keep costs low
If you haven’t looked over your budget in a while, now may be a good time. During the pandemic, you may have subscribed to multiple streaming services that you don’t use anymore, or you might be spending more money dining out or paying for more convenience services now.

Some people are taking even more radical steps to save money. Amanda Claypool , a financial blogger based in upstate New York, has recently made larger lifestyle changes to keep her costs low in the face of inflation. She spent 2021 living out of her car while driving around the country and plans to return to that way of living soon to save on housing costs. She’s also been trying to trim her budget by biking 16 miles round-trip to work and by eating more rice and beans, a cheap but healthy meal.  READ MORE...

Gym Person

 

SCOTUS Hypocrisy

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) pulled no punches while delivering a scathing speech on Thursday after Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion justifying the intention to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked. Gillibrand commanded all the attention deserving of her well-placed anger, addressing not just Alito, but all men.

“I would like to speak to America’s men for one minute. Imagine you do not have authority over your own body for 10 months. Imagine if that decision-making would be taken away even if you would die in childbirth, even if you couldn’t decide who you’re having children with, even if you couldn’t decide when you were having that child,” the New York Senator vehemently declared.

Gillibrand’s remarks echoed the sentiment of women across the nation at that moment, watching in horror as 50 years of precedent and reproductive health care choice is on the precipice of being stripped away.

The righteously indignant Gillibrand called out the GOP-appointed Justices who sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee during their own confirmation hearings and vowed to respect the constitutional law, including Justices Kavanaugh, Barrett, Gorsuch, and Alito himself. At Alito’s own hearing in 2006, the right-wing activist justice had this to say about the court’s reliance on precedents:  READ MORE...

Alien

 

Dancing

Cannes Film Festival

Veteran French actor Vincent Lindon will head the main jury at this year’s Cannes Film Festival which awards the coveted Palme d’Or top prize, organisers said Tuesday.

The jury under Lindon, who co-starred in the 2021 winner “Titane”, will choose between 21 movies in the main competition at the film fest which runs from May 17 to 28.

Lindon, 62, will be accompanied by eight fellow jurors.

They are British actress and director Rebecca Hall, Indian actress Deepika Padukone, Swedish actress Noomi Rapace, Italian actress and director Jasmine Trinca, Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, French director Ladj Ly, American director Jeff Nichols, and Norwegian director Joachim Trier.

The line-up for this year’s festival, the 75th Cannes edition, is a mix of cult arthouse directors and Hollywood glamour.

Canadian horror maestro David Cronenberg, US filmmaker James Gray and France’s Claire Denis are among the competitors for the Palme d’Or.

They are expected to bring a bevy of stars to the red carpet, with Cronenberg’s sci-fi/horror cross-over “Crimes of the Future” starring Kristen Stewart, Lea Seydoux and Viggo Mortensen.  READ MORE...