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Archive for September, 2011|Monthly archive page

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Millennial Kids Are Taking Over America

In Accelerated Learning, Culture, Quality of Life on September 28, 2011 at 8:26 pm

 

Move over Gen-X’ers, the Millennial kids are taking over America. The most detailed study to date of the 18- to 29-year-old Millennial generation finds this group probably will be the most educated in American history. But the 50 million Millennials also have the highest share who are unemployed or out of the workforce in almost four decades, according to the study, released today by the Pew Research Center.

“It’s a very consequential generation,” says Pew’s Paul Taylor, the report’s co-editor. “It has made its mark in some fairly dramatic ways.”

Pew’s analysis includes its own data, such as a new survey of 2,020 adults, including 830 Millennials, conducted by landline and cellphone last month. It also analyzes data from other sources, such as the Census, which shows 40% of those 18-24 were in college in 2008, a higher percentage than any previous generation at those ages.

Pew’s report also includes comparisons of Millennials with other generations, based on more than two decades of Pew surveys.

David Morrison of Twentysomething Inc., a Philadelphia-based consulting and research firm, says Pew’s data are important because so much research on Millennials is market-based. “Pew’s data is not just the gold standard but is also quite unusual in that it’s willingly shared,” he says. “Most (research on Millennials) is company-driven and proprietary to the organization.” Read the rest of this entry »

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What Makes People Laugh?

In Mind-Body, Quality of Life, Strange Oddities, Uncategorized on September 27, 2011 at 10:24 pm

Laughter is part of the universal human vocabulary. All members of the human species understand it. Unlike English or French or Swahili, we don’t have to learn to speak it. We’re born with the capacity to laugh.

One of the remarkable things about laughter is that it occurs unconsciously. You don’t decide to do it. While we can consciously inhibit it, we don’t consciously produce laughter. That’s why it’s very hard to laugh on command or to fake laughter. (Don’t take my word for it: Ask a friend to laugh on the spot.)

Laughter provides powerful, uncensored insights into our unconscious. It simply bubbles up from within us in certain situations.

Very little is known about the specific brain mechanisms responsible for laughter. But we do know that laughter is triggered by many sensations and thoughts, and that it activates many parts of the body.

When we laugh, we alter our facial expressions and make sounds. During exuberant laughter, the muscles of the arms, legs and trunk are involved. Laughter also requires modification in our pattern of breathing.

We also know that laughter is a message that we send to other people. We know this because we rarely laugh when we are alone (we laugh to ourselves even less than we talk to ourselves).

Laughter is social and contagious. We laugh at the sound of laughter itself. That’s why the Tickle Me Elmo doll is such a success — it makes us laugh and smile. Read the rest of this entry »

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Blonde Saves Boy From Grizzly Bear Attack

In Amazing Stories, Local Heroes, Wild Stuff on September 23, 2011 at 1:00 am

A lingering winter and late berry crop kept bears in proximity to humans longer than normal, perhaps contributing to a stream of headlines about grizzlies killing people and people killing grizzlies.

On July 30, Erin Bolster of Swan Mountain Outfitters was guiding eight clients on a horse ride on the Flathead National Forest between West Glacier and Hungry Horse, Mont.

“It’s the shortest ride we offer,” she said Wednesday, recalling the incident. “We’d already led two trips that morning. It’s always been a very routine hour-long loop, until that day.”

The group included a family of six plus a vacationing Illinois man, who’d booked the trip for his 8-year-old son’s first horse-riding experience.

The young boy was riding Scout, a steady obedient mount, following directly behind Bolster, who was leading the group on Tonk, a burly 10-year-old white horse of questionable lineage.

Tonk isn’t the typical trail mount. Best anyone knows, he’s the result of cross-breeding a quarter horse with a Percheron – a draft horse. Bolster is 5-foot-10, yet she relies on her athleticism to climb into the saddle aboard Tonk.

“He was one of the horses we lease from Wyoming and bring in every year,” Bolster said, noting that she’d picked him from the stable in May to be hers for the season.

“He’s a very large horse – 18 hands high. That intimidates a lot of riders. But I’ve always loved big horses. He’s kind of high-strung and spooky, the largest of our wrangling horses. I like a horse with a lot of spirit, and I was really glad to be on him that day.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Amazing Video Shows What Our Brain Sees

In Dreams, Mind-Body, Sleep Therapy on September 22, 2011 at 7:30 pm

This is about as awesome as neuroscience gets. This video shows us some everyday clips, and – thanks to some super-advanced brain imaging and computer simulations – how those clips are seen inside our brains.

Researchers at UC Berkeley used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and some seriously complex computational models to figure out what images our minds create when presented with movie and TV clips. So far, the process is only able to reconstruct the neural equivalents of things people have already seen, but eventually it might be possible to construct the images people see in dreams and memories.

This could also open up new ways to communicate with those whose speech is severely impaired, such as stroke victims, patients with neurological diseases, and even people in comas. It’s probably worth stressing that we’re decades away from using this tech to read people’s thoughts and intentions, just in case that’s something you’re worried about.

The researchers developed this technique by showing study participants a series of black-and-white photographs while imaging their minds. By comparing the photographs with the scans, they were able to engineer a way to recognize any image from how the brain responded. With that basic principle in place, it was then only a question of building up a sufficiently complex computer model to decode moving, color images like those in the video above.

Here’s more explanation as to how they did it: Read the rest of this entry »

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Cure For Failing Memory May Be The “Speed-Dial” Molecule

In Accelerated Learning, Medical Benefits, Mind-Body, Quality of Life on September 12, 2011 at 6:51 pm

Suppose scientists could erase certain memories by tinkering with a single substance in the brain. Could make you forget a chronic fear, a traumatic loss, even a bad habit.

The Speed-Dial Molecule

For all that scientists have studied it, the brain remains the most complex and mysterious human organ — and, now, the focus of billions of dollars’ worth of research to penetrate its secrets.

This is the first article in a series that will look in depth at some of the insights these projects are producing.

Researchers in Brooklyn have recently accomplished comparable feats, with a single dose of an experimental drug delivered to areas of the brain critical for holding specific types of memory, like emotional associations, spatial knowledge or motor skills.

The drug blocks the activity of a substance that the brain apparently needs to retain much of its learned information. And if enhanced, the substance could help ward off dementias and other memory problems.

So far, the research has been done only on animals. But scientists say this memory system is likely to work almost identically in people.

The discovery of such an apparently critical memory molecule, and its many potential uses, are part of the buzz surrounding a field that, in just the past few years, has made the seemingly impossible suddenly probable: neuroscience, the study of the brain.

“If this molecule is as important as it appears to be, you can see the possible implications,” said Dr. Todd C. Sacktor, a 52-year-old neuroscientist who leads the team at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center, in Brooklyn, which demonstrated its effect on memory. “For trauma. For addiction, which is a learned behavior. Ultimately for improving memory and learning.” Read the rest of this entry »

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