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morituri te salutant
Indifference is thy enemy
"Indifference and contempt will always be able to take on an aura of intellectual superiority over sympathy and love for others."
- Baroness Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
LāĆtranger
FranƧais
"Après avoir demandé au jury et à mon avocat s'ils avaient des questions à poser, le président a entendu le concierge. Pour lui comme pour tous les autres, le même cérémonial s'est répété. En arrivant, le concierge m'a regardé et il a détourné les yeux. Il a répondu aux questions qu'on lui posait. Il a dit que je n'avais pas voulu voir maman, que j'avais fumé, que j'avais dormi et que j'avais pris du café au lait. J'ai senti alors quelque chose qui soulevait toute la salle et, pour la première fois, j'ai compris que j'étais coupable."
Deutsch
"Nachdem der Vorsitzende die Geschworenen und meinen Anwalt gefragt hatte, ob sie noch Fragen zu stellen hätten, vernahm er den Pförtner. Wie bei allen anderen wiederholte sich auch bei ihm die gleiche Zeremonie. Als der Pförtner vortrat, sah er mich an und wandte dann die Augen ab. Er beantwortete die Fragen, die an ihn gerichtet wurden. Er sagte, ich hätte Mama nicht sehen wollen, hätte geraucht und geschlafen und Milchkaffee getrunken. Da fühlte ich, daà es wie Empörung durch den Saal ging, und ich begriff zum ersten Mal, daà ich schuldig war."
- A. Camus (LāĆtranger)
LāĆtranger
FranƧais
"Les lampes de la rue se sont alors allumées brusquement et elles ont fait pâlir les premières étoiles qui montaient dans la nuit. J'ai senti mes yeux se fatiguer à regarder ainsi les trottoirs avec leur chargement d'hommes et de lumières. Les lampes faisaient luire le pavé mouille, et les tramways, à intervalles réguliers, mettaient leurs reflets sur des cheveux brillants, un sourire ou un bracelet d'argent. Peu après, avec les tramways plus rares et la nuit déjà noire au-dessus des arbres et des lampes, le quartier s'est vidé insensiblement, jusqu'à ce que le premier chat traverse lentement la rue de nouveau déserte. J'ai pensé alors qu'il fallait dîner. J'avais un peu mal au cou d'être resté longtemps appuyé sur le dos de ma chaise. Je suis descendu acheter du pain et des pâtes, j'ai fait ma cuisine et j'ai mangé debout. J'ai voulu fumer une cigarette à la fenêtre, mais l'air avait fraîchi et j'ai eu un peu froid. J'ai fermé mes fenêtres et en revenant j'ai vu dans la glace un bout de table ou ma lampe à alcool voisinait avec des morceaux de pain. J'ai pensé que c'était toujours un dimanche de tiré, que maman était maintenant enterrée, que j'allais reprendre mon travail et que, somme toute, il n'y avait rien de changé."
Deutsch
"Dann flammten plƶtzlich die StraĆenlaternen auf und lieĆen die ersten Sterne, die in die Nacht einzogen, verblassen. Ich fühlte, wie die Beobachtung der Bürgersteige mit ihrer Last aus Menschen und Licht meine Augen ermüdete. Das feuchte Pflaster glƤnzte im Laternenlicht, und die StraĆenbahnen warfen in regelmƤĆigen AbstƤnden ihren Lichtschein auf glƤnzendes Haar, auf ein LƤcheln oder ein silbernes Armband. Bald wurden die StraĆenbahnen seltener, die Nacht wurde schwƤrzer über den BƤumen und den Laternen, und das Viertel leerte sich unmerklich, bis die erste Katze langsam über die nun wieder stille StraĆe strich. Ich dachte, daĆ ich etwas essen müĆte. Weil ich mich so lange auf die Stuhllehne gestützt hatte, tat mir der Hals weh. Ich ging nach unten und kaufte Brot und Nudeln, kochte und aĆ im Stehen. Ich wollte am Fenster noch eine Zigarette rauchen, es war aber kühl geworden, und ich fror ein wenig. Ich schloĆ die Fenster, und als ich mich umwandte, sah ich im Spiegel etwas von dem Tisch, auf dem mein Spirituskocher neben Brotresten stand. Ich dachte, daĆ ein Sonntag vorbei und Mama nun begraben sei, daĆ ich wieder meine Arbeit tun würde und daĆ sich eigentlich nicht geƤndert habe." - A. Camus (LāĆtranger)

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Maths experts are āmade, not bornā
A new study of the brain of a maths supremo supports Darwinās belief that intellectual excellence is largely due to āzeal and hard workā rather than inherent ability.
University of Sussex neuroscientists took fMRI scans ofĀ champion āmental calculatorā Yusnier Viera during arithmetical tasks that were either familiar or unfamiliar to him and found that his brain did not behave in an extraordinary or unusual way.
The paper, published this week (23 September 2013) in PLOS ONE, provides scientific evidence that some calculation abilities are a matter of practice. Co-author Dr Natasha Sigala says: āThis is a message of hope for all of us. Experts are made, not born.ā
Cuban-born Yusnier holds world records for being able to name the days of the week for any dates of the past 400 years, giving his answer in less than a second.Ā This is the kind of ability sometimes found in those with autism, although Yusnier is not on the autistic spectrum. Unlike those with autism or the related conditionĀ Aspergerās, he is able to explain exactly how he calculates his answers ā and even teaches his system and has written books on the subject.Ā Ā
The study, carried out at the Clinical Imaging Sciences Centre on the University of Sussex campus, suggests that Yusnier has honed his ability to create short cuts to his answers by storing information in the middle part of the brain specialised for long-term working memory (the hippocampus and surrounding cortex). This type of memory helps us carry out tasks in our area of expertise with speedĀ and efficiency.
Although the left side of his brain was activated during mathematical problems ā which is normal for all brains ā the scientists observed that something slightly different happened when Yusnier was presented with unfamiliar problems.
The scans showed marked connectivity of the anterior parts of the brain (prefrontal cortex), which are Ā involvedĀ in decision making, during the unfamiliar calculations. This supports Yusnierās report that he was building in an extra step to his mental processes to turn an unfamiliar problem into a familiar one. His answers to the unfamiliar questions had an 80 per cent degree of accuracy (compared with more than 90 per cent for familiar questions) and his responses were slightly slower.
Dr Sigala explains: āAlthough this kind of ability is seen among some people with autism, it is much rarer in those not on that spectrum. Brain scans of those with autism tend to show a variety of activity patterns, and autistic people are not able to explain how they reach their answer.
āWith Yusnier, however, it is clear that his expertise is a result of long-term practice ā and motivation.ā
She adds: āIt was beyond the scope of our paper to discuss the debate on deliberate practice vs. innate ability.Ā But our study does not provide evidence for specific innate ability for mental calculations. As put by Charles Darwin to Francis Galton: ā [ā¦] I have always maintained that, excepting fools, men did not differ much in intellect, only in zeal and hard work; I still think this an eminently important difference.āā
Researchers Identify Risk-Factors for Addictive Video-Game Use among Adults
New research from the University of Missouri indicates escapism, social interaction and rewards fuel problematic video-game use among āvery casualā to āhardcoreā adult gamers. Understanding individual motives that contribute to unhealthy game play could help counselors identify and treat individuals addicted to video games.
āThe biggest risk factor for pathological video game use seems to be playing games to escape from daily life,ā said Joe Hilgard, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Psychological Sciences in the MU College of Arts and Science. āIndividuals who play games to get away from their lives or to pretend to be other people seem to be those most at-risk for becoming part of a vicious cycle. These gamers avoid their problems by playing games, which in turn interferes with their lives because theyāre so busy playing games.ā
Problematic video game use is more than just excessive use of video games; it also includes a variety of unhealthy behaviors, such as lying to others about how much time is spent playing games and missing work or other obligations to play games.
āPeople who play games to socialize with other players seem to have more problems as well,ā Hilgard said. āIt could be that games are imposing a sort of social obligation on these individuals so that they have to set aside time to play with other players. For example, in games like World of Warcraft, most players join teams or guilds. If some teammates want to play for four hours on a Saturday night, the other players feel obligated to play or else they may be cut from the team. Those play obligations can mess with individualsā real-life obligations.ā
Problematic video game use isnāt all that different from other types of addictive behavior, such as alcohol or drug abuse, which can be spurred by poor coping strategies, Hilgard said.
āGamers who are really into getting to the next level or collecting all of the in-game items seem to have unhealthier video-game use,ā Hilgard said. āWhen people talk about games being āso addictive,ā usually theyāre referring to games like Farmville or Diablo that give players rewards, such as better equipment or stronger characters, as they play. People who are especially motivated by these rewards can find it hard to stop playing.ā
Understanding individualsā motives for playing video games can inform researchers, game developers and consumers about why certain games attract certain individuals, Hilgard said.
āResearchers have suspected that Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) are the most addictive genre of video games,ā Hilgard said. āOur study provides some evidence that supports that claim. The games provide opportunities for players to advance levels, to join teams and to play with others. In addition, the games provide enormous fantasy worlds that gamers can disappear into for hours at a time and forget about their problems. MMORPGs may be triple threats for encouraging pathological game use because they present all three risk factors to gamers.ā
āConsistent with previous research, we did not find a perfect relationship between total time spent playing games and addictive video game behaviors,ā said study co-author Christopher Engelhardt, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Health Psychology in the MU School of Health Professions and the MU Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders. āAdditionally, other variables, such as the proportion of free time spent playing video games, seem to better predict game addiction above and beyond the total amount of time spent playing video games.ā
The open-access journal, Frontiers in Psychology, published the article, āIndividual differences in motives, preferences, and pathology in video games: the gaming attitudes, motives, and experiences scales (GAMES),ā earlier in September.
So to rid ourselves fully of the vestiges of Cartesianism, to become fully Darwinian in our thinking, we need to stop thinking of words as representations and to start thinking of them as nodes in the causal network which binds the organism together with its environment.
Richard Rorty (via philopc)
Magic is Real (by ildikoneer)

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"The essence of the liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment. This is the way opinions are held in science, as opposed to the way in which they are held in theology.ā
-Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays
This quote reveals the manās dogma about religion that doesnāt understand the place of mythos, subjectivity, and anthropocentrism in religion and science
Brain regions associated with memory shrink as adults age, and this size decrease is more pronounced in those who go on to develop neurodegenerative disease, reports a new study published Sept. 18 in the Journal of Neuroscience. The volume reduction is linked with an overall decline in...
Scientists at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have identified a molecular pathway that seems to contribute to the ability of malignant glioma cells in a brain tumor to spread and invade previously healthy brain tissue. Researchers said the findings, published Sept. 19, 2013, in the journal...
Coma: researchers observe never-before- detected brain activity
Researchers from the University of Montreal and their colleagues have found brain activity beyond a flat line EEG, which they have called Nu-complexes (from the Greek letter n). According to existing scientific data, researchers and doctors had established that beyond the so-called āflat lineā (flat electroencephalogram or EEG), there is nothing at all, no brain activity, no possibility of life. This major discovery suggests that there is a whole new frontier in animal and human brain functioning.
The researchers observed a human patient in an extreme deep hypoxic coma under powerful anti-epileptic medication that he had been required to take due to his health issues. āDr. Bogdan Florea from Romania contacted our research team because he had observed unexplainable phenomena on the EEG of a coma patient. We realized that there was cerebral activity, unknown until now, in the patientās brain,ā says Dr. Florin Amzica, director of the study and professor at the University of Montrealās School of Dentistry.
Dr. Amzicaās team then decided to recreate the patientās state in cats, the standard animal model for neurological studies. Using the anesthetic isoflurane, they placed the cats in an extremely deepābut completely reversibleācoma. The cats passed the flat (isoelectric) EEG line, which is associated with silence in the cortex (the governing part of the brain). The team observed cerebral activity in 100% of the cats in deep coma, in the form of oscillations generated in the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for memory and learning processes. These oscillations, unknown until now, were transmitted to the master part of the brain, the cortex. The researchers concluded that the observed EEG waves, or Nu-complexes, were the same as those observed in the human patient.
Dr. Amzica stresses the importance of understanding the implications of these findings. āThose who have decided to or have to āunplugā a near-brain-dead relative neednāt worry or doubt their doctor. The current criteria for diagnosing brain death are extremely stringent. Our finding may perhaps in the long term lead to a redefinition of the criteria, but we are far from that. Moreover, this is not the most important or useful aspect of our study,ā Dr. Amzica said.
From Nu-complexesto therapeutic comas
The most useful aspect of this finding is the therapeutic potential, the neuroprotection, of the extreme deep coma. After a major injury, some patients are in such serious condition that doctors deliberately place them in an artificial coma to protect their body and brain so they can recover. But Dr. Amzica believes that the extreme deep coma experimented on the cats may be more protective.
āIndeed, an organ or muscle that remains inactive for a long time eventually atrophies. It is plausible that the same applies to a brain kept for an extended period in a state corresponding to a flat EEG,ā says Professor Amzica. āAn inactive brain coming out of a prolonged coma may be in worse shape than a brain that has had minimal activity. Research on the effects of extreme deep coma during which the hippocampus is active, through Nu-complexes. is absolutely vital for the benefit of patients.ā
āAnother implication of this finding is that we now have evidence that the brain is able to survive an extremely deep coma if the integrity of the nervous structures is preserved,āĀ said lead author of the study, Daniel Kroeger. āWe also found that the hippocampus can send āordersā to the brainās commander in chief, the cortex. Finally, the possibility of studying the learning and memory processes of the hippocampus during a state of coma will help further understanding of them. In short, all sorts of avenues for basic research are now open to us.ā

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An English girl comforts her doll in the rubble of her bomb-damaged home in 1940. - From Fox Photos/Getty Images #WWII #History