Re-learn Astonishment

Saturn traveling through the last degree of Scorpio before reaching Sagittarius

As Saturn’s wandering through the desert draws to a close, her eyes are firmly transfixed on the ever nearing mountains. It has been a colossally intense two and half years. Nothing has been left unturned as she has faced down all her suppressed fears and vulnerabilities, as the enemies of her Soul have surfaced, craving her undivided attention. With unwavering bravery she has confronted her loneliness, feeling of abandonment, unworthiness and unlovableness. Naked, in an unprotected state, she has grown in inner strength, conviction and confidence, as she listened to the Angel of Light when he said “If you would only step out of hiding, then god could find you”.

And now at the end of this journey, the open Alpine fields, close to the heavens beckon, she feels the need to review and reflect on the highly charged emotions that have nearly exhausted her body and mind, in a final attempt to release any lingering Shadows.

Mirroring Saturn’s final trek in Scorpio before entering Sagittarius on the 23rd December and during this time of release, what residual emotional attachments linger within you that are necessary to be forgiven and to be released?

Have some space backgrounds! Resolution: 700x1050px (which should be large enough for most phones)

Saturn’s Rings - the Cassini Space Probe

Thanks to NASA’s Cassini Space Probe astronomers are now able to produce the most detailed maps of Saturn’s rings in history. This image of Saturn, back-lit by our sun, reveals previously unknown layers of rings. From a distance the rings look ordered and tidy. However, up close, Cassini has found that Saturn’s rings are very complex. The spacecraft has been making repeated dives into the ring belts to study their properties. It has discovered completely empty regions where moons have formed and dense regions which transmit waves through ripples of debris.

make me choose

Curiosity: It Helps Us Learn, But Why? By Maanvi Singh

[…] Jolanda Blackwell,  like many others teachers, understands that when kids are curious, they’re much more likely to stay engaged. But why? What, exactly, is curiosity and how does it work? A study published in the October issue of the journal Neuron, suggests that the brain’s chemistry changes when we become curious, helping us better learn and retain information.

Our Brains On Curiosity

"In any given day, we encounter a barrage of new information," says Charan Ranganath, a psychologist at the University of California, Davis, and one of the researchers behind the study. "But even people with really good memory will remember only a small fraction of what happened two days ago."

Ranganath was curious to know why we retain some information and forget other things. So he and his colleagues rounded up 19 volunteers and asked them to review more than 100 trivia questions. Questions such as, “What does the term ‘dinosaur’ actually mean?” and “What Beatles single lasted longest on the charts, at 19 weeks?” Participants rated each question in terms of how curious they were about the answer. Next, everyone reviewed the questions — and their answers — while the researchers monitored their brain activity using an MRI machine. When the participants’ curiosity was piqued, the parts of their brains that regulate pleasure and reward lit up. Curious minds also showed increased activity in the hippocampus, which is involved in the creation of memories.

"There’s this basic circuit in the brain that energizes people to go out and get things that are intrinsically rewarding," Ranganath explains. This circuit lights up when we get money, or candy. It also lights up when we’re curious. When the circuit is activated, our brains release a chemical called dopamine which gives us a high. "The dopamine also seems to play a role in enhancing the connections between cells that are involved in learning."

Indeed, when the researchers later tested participants on what they learned, those who were more curious were more likely to remember the right answers

Curiosity Helps Us Learn Boring Stuff, Too

There was one more twist in Ranganath’s study: Throughout the experiment, the researchers flashed photos of random faces, without giving the participants any explanation as to why. Those whose curiosity was already piqued were also the best at remembering these faces. The researchers were surprised to learn that curious brains are better at learning not only about the subject at hand, but also other stuff — even incidental, boring information. […]

Reminiscing can help boost mental performance

To solve a mental puzzle, the brain’s executive control network for externally focused, goal-oriented thinking must activate, while the network for internally directed thinking like daydreaming must be turned down to avoid interference – or so we thought.

New research led by Cornell University neuroscientist Nathan Spreng shows for the first time that engaging brain areas linked to so-called “off-task” mental activities (such as mind-wandering and reminiscing) can actually boost performance on some challenging mental tasks. The results advance our understanding of how externally and internally focused neural networks interact to facilitate complex thought, the authors say.

“The prevailing view is that activating brain regions referred to as the default network impairs performance on attention-demanding tasks because this network is associated with behaviors such as mind-wandering,” said Spreng. “Our study is the first to demonstrate the opposite – that engaging the default network can also improve performance.”

There are plenty of neuroimaging studies showing that default network activation interferes with complex mental tasks – but in most, Spreng explained, the mental processes associated with default network conflict with task goals. If you start thinking about what you did last weekend while taking notes during a lecture, for example, your note-taking and ability to keep up will suffer.

Spreng and his team developed a new approach in which off-task processes such as reminiscing can support rather than conflict with the aims of the experimental task. Their novel task, “famous faces n-back,” tests whether accessing long-term memory about famous people, which typically engages default network brain regions, can support short-term memory performance, which typically engages executive control regions.

While undergoing brain scanning, 36 young adults viewed sets of famous and anonymous faces in sequence and were asked to identify whether the current face matched the one presented two faces back. The team found participants were faster and more accurate when matching famous faces than when matching anonymous faces and that this better short-term memory performance was associated with greater activity in the default network. The results show that activity in the default brain regions can support performance on goal-directed tasks when task demands align with processes supported by the default network, the authors say.

Geminid Meteor Shower Fireball 2014

The Apollo 11 command module sheds flaming pieces as its protective ablative covering as it hurtles through the Earth atmosphere toward splash down, July 24, 1969.

NASA just found strong evidence of life on Mars