Bored out of your skull is a reality. A new study of mind wandering shows that the mundane moments of life allow brains to shift into a default resting state that invites daydreaming.
Some psychologists had suggested that mind wandering could be the brain's baseline, a place of flitting thoughts from which a person must wrench away for challenging work.
The new study agrees and looks deeply into the neural mechanics behind this common and sometimes happy affliction.
Health & Wellness
Nanchang - A sixty-year-old man in east China's Jiangxi Province claims that he has gradually recovered from liposarcoma - malignant tumors found in the tissue of fat cells - and stomach ulcers after eating sand for 18 years.
Sheng Shoudong, a cleaner at a food market in Shaxi town, Shangrao City, began to eat about four spoonfuls of sand a day from 1988 after he read a newspaper article in a local newspaper about a man who had recovered from cancer after eating sand.
Sheng Shoudong, a cleaner at a food market in Shaxi town, Shangrao City, began to eat about four spoonfuls of sand a day from 1988 after he read a newspaper article in a local newspaper about a man who had recovered from cancer after eating sand.
Your boss and other people in power often really have no idea what you and others feel and think, new experiments suggest.
Power is often defined as the capacity to get what you want or the ability to influence others.
"The powerful have a profound effect on others, and you would naturally hope they would be sensitive to other points of view," said Adam Galinsky, a social psychologist at Northwestern University.
Power is often defined as the capacity to get what you want or the ability to influence others.
"The powerful have a profound effect on others, and you would naturally hope they would be sensitive to other points of view," said Adam Galinsky, a social psychologist at Northwestern University.
Washington - Chemicals known to change the sexual characteristics of fish and other animals have been found in West Virginia tributaries of the Potomac River, which runs through Washington, D.C. and surrounding areas, the U.S. Geological Survey said on Wednesday.
An investigation into fish that had both male and female characteristics turned up a range of chemicals including pesticides, flame retardants, and personal-care products, the USGS said.
An investigation into fish that had both male and female characteristics turned up a range of chemicals including pesticides, flame retardants, and personal-care products, the USGS said.
Comment: It's always interesting to read about the thousands of health destroying environmental pollutants being pumped into our bodies, but instead of addressing these issues with restrictions on the big corporations making billions and trillions off of our suffering, instead they go after tobacco - and blame everything on that! Because, of course, stopping smoking is laid on the consumer, while no stopping of anything is laid on the industries.
A bit unequal, don't you think?
Brain scans of women reaching orgasm have cast new light on how the mind and nervous system work.
Both Indonesia and South Africa are leading the world in firmly moving towards prohibiting this chemical for medical reasons: aspartame is an excitotoxin and causes brain damage. The sugar substitute breaks down in the body producing 3 toxic substances: methanol (wood alcohol which can cause blindness), formaldhehyde, and diketopiperazine, which causes brain tumors. Jakarta Indy repost.
Washington - New research showing a strong link between Parkinson's disease and low levels of "bad" cholesterol are so worrying that U.S. researchers are launching a study to look into it.
The team at the University of North Carolina is planning clinical trials involving thousands of people to see whether statin drugs, which lower low density lipoprotein, or LDL, might actually cause Parkinson's in some people.
The team at the University of North Carolina is planning clinical trials involving thousands of people to see whether statin drugs, which lower low density lipoprotein, or LDL, might actually cause Parkinson's in some people.
The Roslin Institute, near Edinburgh, says it has produced five generations of birds that can produce useful levels of life-saving proteins in egg whites.
Comment: A number of GM animals are now being used as drug factories - see this article for more: The first medicine produced from a genetically modified animal has been recommended for use in Europe. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5041298.stm
A Californian woman who took part in a water-drinking contest to win a video game system has died of water intoxication, tests have shown.
When Ana Carolina Reston arrived for her first foreign fashion shoot, the 8st model was warned she was too fat. Two years later, and two stone lighter, she died from complications arising from anorexia. Tom Phillips reports from Sao Paulo on the tragic waste of a woman whose childhood dreams of being a cover girl came true - but for all the wrong reasons
Jundiai town, Sao Paulo, Brazil. A brown-haired teenage girl walks on to the stage at the local beauty contest. Below, her parents, wedged at the front of a cheering audience, clap enthusiastically as a judge slips a green and white sash over their daughter's head and pronounces her the Queen of Jundiai, 1999. Her mother wasn't surprised: 'The other girls were podgy and had bottoms,' she said later. 'She won because she was slim and elegant.'
It doesn't seem an earth-shattering achievement. But for 13-year-old Ana Carolina Reston Marcan it was one step nearer her dream of becoming a supermodel. It would take Reston (who dropped Marcan from her professional name) seven years to 'arrive', by which time she would be working as far afield as Hong Kong and Japan, for designers as well known as Giorgio Armani and Dior.
Jundiai town, Sao Paulo, Brazil. A brown-haired teenage girl walks on to the stage at the local beauty contest. Below, her parents, wedged at the front of a cheering audience, clap enthusiastically as a judge slips a green and white sash over their daughter's head and pronounces her the Queen of Jundiai, 1999. Her mother wasn't surprised: 'The other girls were podgy and had bottoms,' she said later. 'She won because she was slim and elegant.'
It doesn't seem an earth-shattering achievement. But for 13-year-old Ana Carolina Reston Marcan it was one step nearer her dream of becoming a supermodel. It would take Reston (who dropped Marcan from her professional name) seven years to 'arrive', by which time she would be working as far afield as Hong Kong and Japan, for designers as well known as Giorgio Armani and Dior.
Comment: What about "P" for psychopathy?