Convulsive nature

Some human behaviour is caused by convulsive expressions. They lead to an ending amalgamation of matter and energy, resulting in the exploitation of forms and colour, with an orientation toward the self or the common interest.

The pinch of the buble

“U.S. stocks tumbled on Tuesday, driving the Dow Jones industrial average down in its worst slide since the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, as a sell-off in China's stock market raised concerns that equity valuations may be too high.” Reuters.

The selfish argument fr holocaust climate change

“But a dollar today truly is more valuable than a dollar a century from now. For one thing, your great-grandchild will almost certainly be richer than you are and won’t need your money as much as you do. So spending a dollar on carbon reduction today to avoid a dollar’s worth of economic damage in 2107 doesn’t make sense. We would be better off putting the money toward something likely to have a higher return than alternative energy, like education.” DAVID LEONHARDT, The New York Times.

Regeneracion

“The rules governing mammalian organ repair and regeneration are so widely varied as to suggest at first glance that there are no rules: Blood has such an enormous regenerative capacity that you can literally give it away by the pint and be none the worse for wear; rip a hole in your skin and new skin will cover it; donate a portion of your liver and it will regenerate; but lose a kidney or suffer damage to your pancreas, and what's lost is lost.” B.D. Colen Harvard News Office.

Love development

“The way in which individuals think, feel, and behave in their adult romantic relationships is governed not only by factors in their immediate surroundings, but is also a direct result of their past relationships and personal attachment extending all the way back to childhood, according to Simpson et al. ‘Attachment and the Experience and Expression of Emotion in Romantic Relationships: A Developmental Perspective.’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 92, No. 2, 2007.” Newswise.com

Interested neurons

“What makes something interesting? Appraisal research has proposed two appraisal structures for the emotion of interest. … Within-person analyses found that (a) interest and pleasantness were essentially unrelated; (b) appraised novelty- complexity positively predicted interest, but negatively predicted pleasantness; and (c) disturbing pictures were highly interesting but unpleasant, whereas calming pictures were highly pleasant but uninteresting. The results thus strongly suggest that interesting things needn't be pleasant. Implications for in vivo (versus retrospective) tests of competing appraisal predictions are considered.” In ‘Must interesting things be pleasant? A test of competing appraisal structures’ Turner Jr., Samuel A.; Silvia, Paul J., Emotion, Volume 6, Issue 4, 2006.

Eyes and power

The Eyes Are Sufficient to Produce a Threat Superiority Effect.
Abstract: “The research described in this article used a visual search task and demonstrated that the eye region alone can produce a threat superiority effect. Indeed, the magnitude of the threat superiority effect did not increase with whole-face, relative to eye-region-only, stimuli. The authors conclude that the configuration of the eyes provides a key signal of threat, which can mediate the search advantage for threat-related facial expressions.” Fox, Elaine; Damjanovic, Ljubica. Emotion. 6(3), Aug 2006, 534-539.

Modeling love

“Despite the strong positive feelings that characterize newlyweds, many marriages end in disappointment. To understand this shift, the authors argue that although newlyweds’ global relationship evaluations may be uniformly positive, not all spouses base their global adoration on an accurate perception of their partner’s specific qualities. …Thus, love grounded in specific accuracy appears to be stronger than love absent accuracy.” From ‘To Know You Is to Love You: The Implications of Global Adoration and Specific Accuracy for Marital Relationships’ Neff, L.A. and Karney, B.R. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. March 2005

C02 wind

The adoption of energy-saving technologies could reduce the country's carbon dioxide output by 70 percent by 2050, according to a report compiled by an Environment Ministry project team. The team calculated that the reduction would require an annual investment of 6.7 trillion yen to 9.8 trillion yen in such technologies. The report estimated CO2 emissions for 2050, based on the adoption of realistic technologies such as fuel cells and biomass thermal-power generation, in two scenarios. The Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan, February 17th.

Brain cell creation

“In a dramatic new discovery, scientists have found that the adult human brain can create new cells, which could open the door to new therapies to halt and even reverse paralysis and damage from degenerative nerve disease.” NIKHIL SWAMINATHAN
Scientific American

Sexual mutilation

“FGM -- also known as female circumcision and female genital cutting -- refers to several rituals, common in parts of Africa and, to a lesser extent, Asia and the Middle East. In practicing societies, circumcision is seen variously as a religious obligation, a rite of passage, a hygienic measure, a means of controlling sexuality, and a prerequisite for marriageability.” In ‘Rites and wrongs: Is outlawing female genital mutilation enough to stop it from happening here?’ By Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, February 11, 2007, The Boston Globe.

Love heart

“Loving with all your ... brain: Does a brain in love look much like a sexually stimulated brain? After all, we associate love and sex and sometimes confuse them. The answer is: Brains in love and brains in lust don't look too much alike. In studies when researchers showed erotic photos to people as they underwent brain scans, they found activity in the hypothalamus and amygdala areas of the brain. The hypothalamus controls drives like hunger and thirst and the amygdala handles arousal, among other things. In the studies of people in love, "we didn't find activity in either," according to Dr. Fisher, an anthropologist and author of "Why We Love -- the Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love." Elizabeth Cohen, C CNN. February 14th 2007.

The age of fear

“The initial learning and subsequent behavioral expression of fear are often viewed as independent processes with potentially unique neural substrates. Laboratory animal studies of Pavlovian fear conditioning suggest that the amygdala is important for both forming stimulus associations and for subsequently expressing learned behavioral responses. In the present article, human amygdala activity was studied during the autonomic expression of conditional fear in two differential conditioning experiments … These results indicate that amygdala activity may specifically reflect the expression of learned fear responses and support the position that this region plays a central role in the expression of emotional reactions.” In Cheng, D. et al. ‘Human Amygdala Activity During the Expression of Fear Responses’. Behavioural Neuroscience, V. 120 (5), Dec. 2006.

Positive recovery

“Our focus reflects interest in investigating the possibility that individuals may grow or benefit from aversive experiences. Posttraumatic growth occurs when fundamental assumptions about the self, others, and the future are challenged. In response to this challenge, traumatized individuals may try to find meaning from their experience. Thus, individuals often discover that they have benefited from the traumatic event.” in Responses to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks: experience of an indirect traumatic event and its relationship with perceived benefits. Swickert, R. et al., Journal of Psychology, November 2006.

Mass market manipulation

“A study published in the current issue of the journal Annals of Family Medicine examined 38 different pharmaceutical advertisements that ran during peak television viewing times. Researchers found that while the overwhelming majority of the ads made arguments for the use of drugs, only about a quarter of them described the causes of the medical conditions the drugs are designed to treat. The study also found that emotional appeals were common, and about 85 percent emphasized regaining control over some aspect of life.” DAN CHILDS 
ABC News, January 30th.

The vacuum cleaner prize

“Imagine, if you will, a giant vacuum cleaner for the atmosphere. That is what the British billionaire Richard Branson and the former U.S. Vice President Al Gore seemed to appeal for on Friday, when they announced a $25 million prize to overcome what could be the biggest challenge faced by humankind: To reduce the huge quantities of planet- warming gases that have collected in the atmosphere since the dawn of the industrial revolution.” James Kanter, International Herald Tribune, February 9th.

Love impulse

“What would possess a woman to don a diaper and drive 900 miles to confront her lover’s other woman, as alleged by authorities?
More to the point, what would make a married mother of three and an accomplished astronaut — one of only 106 overall active U.S. astronauts and one of only 24 active U.S. women astronauts, according to NASA — jeopardize and potentially sacrifice her family, her future and her successful career for a love affair?” L.A. JOHNSON
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Mass balance and land

“Current models suggest ice mass losses increase with temperature more rapidly than gains due to precipitation and that the surface mass balance becomes negative at a global average warming (relative to pre-industrial values) in excess of 1.9 to 4.6°C. If a negative surface mass balance were sustained for millennia, that would lead to virtually complete elimination of the Greenland ice sheet and a resulting contribution to sea level rise of about 7 m. The corresponding future temperatures in Greenland are comparable to those inferred for the last interglacial period 125,000 years ago, when paleoclimatic information suggests reductions of polar land ice extent and 4 to 6 m of sea level rise.”

Rolling future

“Anthropogenic warming and sea level rise would continue for centuries due to the timescales associated with climate processes and feedbacks, even if greenhouse gas concentrations were to be stabilized. Contraction of the Greenland ice sheet is projected to continue to contribute to sea level rise after 2100.” The Physical Science Basis, Summary for Policymakers, IPPC, February 2nd.

The broken ice of climate change

“Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations
The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that global climate change of the past fifty years can be explained without external forcing, and very likely that it is not due to known natural causes alone … Anthropogenic forcing is likely to have contributed to changes in wind patterns, affecting extra-tropical storm tracks and temperature patterns in both hemispheres. However, the observed changes in the Northern Hemisphere circulation are larger than simulated in response to 20th century forcing change ... Temperatures of the most extreme hot nights, cold nights and cold days are likely to have increased due to anthropogenic forcing. It is more likely than not that anthropogenic forcing has increased the risk of heat waves.” Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, Summary for Policymakers, IPPC, February 2nd.

Locating the image of the future

““Brain scans have given US scientists a clue about how we create a mental image of our own future. The Washington University team say that specific areas of the brain are active when thinking about upcoming events. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study could help doctors trying to understand damage inflicted by strokes, injuries or diseases. The findings tally with damage spotted in the brains of patients who have lost the ability to 'think ahead'.” BBC News. January 2, 2007.

Heating up sensation

“An international body of climate scientists issued somber findings today that even more strongly confirm that Earth's rising air and ocean temperatures are very likely due to the increase in emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. Even if the industrial nations start to immediately reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases, the past and future gases will continue to contribute to global warming and the rise of oceans for more than 1,000 years, according to a long-awaited report released in Paris.” Jane Kay, San Francisco Chronicle

Standing alone

“Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry slammed the foreign policy of the Bush administration Saturday, saying it has caused the United States to become "a sort of international pariah" Kerry said the administration has failed to adequately address a number of foreign policy issues. "When we walk away from global warming, Kyoto, when we are irresponsibly slow in moving toward AIDS in Africa, when we don't advance and live up to our own rhetoric and standards, we set a terrible message of duplicity and hypocrisy," Kerry said.” Houston Chronicle