About this site - Notes from a Linguistic Mystic This site exists both as a place for me to post the things that intrigue me and make me think, but also as a place for you to find and learn about things that might intrigue you. I’ll do my best to write in such a way that you don’t need a background in Linguistics to understand my posts, and always feel free to comment if you don’t understand something. I’ll post a clarification as soon as I can. Although I’m a Linguist by trade and by passion, some what I’m discussing on this site might fall outside of mainstream linguistics. I’ll always do my best to be factually accurate in areas where facts exist (and corrections are encouraged), but I’ve chosen this site and this name to emphasize that this is my own personal site, pulling in information from my life and my many passions, rather than just from a linguistics textbook. About the Author More information than you likely wanted to know can be found at my personal homepage. Advertising Policy Pronoun Policy Well, a man can dream.
Heart With No Beat Offers Hope Of New Lease On Life hide captionAn X-ray shows the dual turbinelike blood pumps that replaced Craig Lewis' heart. These devices were used in a last attempt to save his life. Courtesy of the Texas Heart Institute An X-ray shows the dual turbinelike blood pumps that replaced Craig Lewis' heart. These devices were used in a last attempt to save his life. The search for the perfect artificial heart seems never-ending. But Dr. Inside the institute's animal research laboratory is an 8-month-old calf with a soft brown coat named Abigail. "If you listened to her chest with a stethoscope, you wouldn't hear a heartbeat," says Cohn. The pumps spin Abigail's blood and move it through her body. "By every metric we have to analyze patients, she's not living," Cohn says. Human Trials In March, after practicing on 38 calves, Cohn and Frazier felt confident enough to try their device on a human patient. In Lewis' case, his heart became so damaged, doctors said he had about 12 hours left to live. Linda Lewis Progress and Setbacks
The Genius in All of Us Determined to be different: what we do changes the wiring of our genes The human genome provides penetrating and unexpected insights into human individual and collective history. Among them is the counterintuitive idea that genes are at the mercy of experience – that what we do in our lives affects which genes are switched on and off. A stressful experience, for example, can make you more vulnerable to infection, because stress hormones indirectly alter the switches that control the expression of genes. So, far from genes being the cause of how we act, the new understanding sees them as just as much a consequence of how we act. On a much longer, evolutionary timescale, the same reversal of causation is necessary. We now know that many genetic changes in human beings are driven by cultural ones, at least as much as the other way round. For example, the ability to digest lactose as adults spread among Africans and Europeans because of dairy farming, rather than vice versa. Blue eyes may be a consequence of the invention of agriculture.
The WWW Virtual Library Chandra :: Photo Album :: The Big Chandra Picture The Big Chandra Picture In more than a decade of operation, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has transformed our view of the high-energy Universe with its ability to make exquisite X-ray images of star clusters, supernova remnants, galactic eruptions, and collisions between clusters of galaxies. As Chandra expands the realm of the known, it continues to raise new questions and point the way for future exploration. This photo blog presents some of Chandra's most spectacular images in a large and shareable format. Follow Chandra on Twitter 10 Apr 2014 G352.7-0.1: Supernovas are the spectacular ends to the lives of many massive stars. 03 Apr 2014 El Gordo: This is a composite image of X-rays from Chandra and optical data from Hubble of the galaxy cluster ACT-CL J0102-4915, located about 7 billion light years from Earth. 20 Mar 2014 DEM L241: When a massive star runs out fuel, it collapses and explodes as a supernova. 05 Mar 2014 04 Mar 2014 18 Feb 2014 06 Feb 2014 23 Jan 2014 08 Jan 2014 04 Dec 2013
L'abeille en héraldique L'abeille est un animal héraldique par excellence car sa symbolique est particulièrement riche. Traditionnellement, elle représente l'énergie vitale, c'est-à-dire l'âme. Quand elle est en nombre autour d'un rucher, elle évoque la cohésion sociale et l'industrie. Mais s'agissant de blasons plus récents, cette représentation est généralement liée à une activité simplement apicole Aristée, fils du dieu Apollon, possédait un rucher. Mais il voulut séduire Eurydice, l'épouse d'Orphée, et celle-ci, en échappant à ses avances, mourut d'une morsure de serpent. Principales représentations héraldiques de l'abeille. Principales représentations héraldiques de la ruche. Alçay-Alçabéhéty-Sunharette (Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Aquitaine) D'azur au loup d'argent sortant d'une ruche d'or, accompagné d'abeilles d'or sans nombre. Sous le Premier Empire, le blason des grandes villes comportait obligatoirement un chef de gueules chargé de trois abeilles d'or. Anvers (Belgique) Apprieu (Isère, Rhône-Alpes) Arcachon Brioude
31 Year Anniversary of Mount St. Helens Eruption (31 Pics) Mount St. Helens erupting with Spirit Lake reflection 05-19-82. This was just the beginning. Mount St. Helens and the devastated area is now within the 110,000-acre Mount St. May 19, 1982: Plumes of steam, gas, and ash often occurred at Mount St. When Mount St. Mount St. During Mount St. Reid Blackburn’s (photographer, National Geographic, Vancouver Columbian) car, about 10 miles from Mount St. The May 18th, 1980 eruption of the Mount St. After May 18th, five more explosive eruptions of Mount St. Nearly 135 miles (220 kilometers) of river channels surrounding the volcano [Mt. In May 1985 a permanent tunnel was opened, allowing water to drain out of the Spirit Lake safely. 360° panorama of Mount Saint Helens from 4,100 feet on the North-Eastern slope near the summit of Alpine Butte. Mount St. During the May 18, 1980 eruption, at least 17 separate pyroclastic flows descended the flanks of Mount St. April 27, 1980: A “bulge” developed on the north side of Mount St. Mt. Mount St.
Sir Ken Robinson Opening Keynote #ASTD2013 @sirkenrobinson These are my live blogged notes from the opening session at the ASTD International Conference & Expo (ICE) -- happening this week in Dallas, TX. 10,000 or so training and development people here to extend their practice. We all have deep talents, but it’s often the case that we don’t discover them. Human talent are like the world’s natural resources – they are often buried beneath the surface. And if you don’t go looking for them you’ll never find them. You need circumstances for talent to demonstrate themselves… Whether you actually discover your talents is another matter. Why don’t we discover what we’re good at? What really makes you a success is PASSION. When it’s just a job, you’re disengaged. People who love what they do…”this isn’t what I do, it’s who I am.” Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative (Sir Ken book, published ten years ago.) When a really original idea turns up, it excites everyone’s imagination. Today we have a crisis in human resources.
Who, What, Why: Why is 'the hum' such a mystery 13 June 2011Last updated at 14:49 A village in Durham is the latest place to report a strange vibrating noise - known as "the hum". Why is it such a mystery? According to sufferers, it is as if someone has parked next to your house and left the engine running. The Hum is a mystery low frequency noise, a phenomenon that has been reported across Britain, North America and Australia in the past four decades. There is a range of theories from farm or factory machinery to conspiracy theories such as flying saucers. Woodland, a village in county Durham, is the latest place to fall victim to the noise. "It sounds like an overhead power line with this constant humming buzz," says Kevin Fail, a 53 year-old bathroom installer who lives in the village. Continue reading the main story The answer He said that he and his wife hear it in bed, downstairs in the house and outside in the garden, but some residents have heard nothing. "The hum" is an international phenomenon.
Say what you type in French : Say what you type in Spanish the best way to start with French and Spanish! Choose the language you want to listen your text, type your text in your selected language then click on "say it". You can change the character or the voice if you want. Use this keyboard for foreign accents: Gut Bacteria Know Secrets About Your Future : Krulwich Wonders… You have a hundred trillion of these guys in you right now. Before you were born, you had hardly any. Barcroft/Fame Pictures Back then, you were floating in amniotic fluid, protected, sanitized. Bacteria kept their distance. Then came your birthday, and all of a sudden, you were invaded. Paula Bronstein/Getty Images Right now, in your mouth, in your gut, on your skin, you are carrying about 10 times more bacteria cells than human cells. "We are, in essence, only 10 percent human," Dr. Mostly Microbe What are bacteria doing in you? They look, yes, a little alien. Now comes the big (and double) surprise. First (I wrote about this a few years ago), scientists discovered that people around the world can have different communities of bacteria in our intestines. I, for example, might have a lot of bacteria in me that are great at digesting oats. I gain weight. So why do different people attract different bacteria as they grow up? Scientists assumed it must be cultural. iStockphoto.com
Hacking Knowledge: 77 Ways To Learn Faster, Deeper, & Better If someone granted you one wish, what do you imagine you would want out of life that you haven’t gotten yet? For many people, it would be self-improvement and knowledge. Newcounter knowledge is the backbone of society’s progress. Great thinkers such as Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, and others’ quests for knowledge have led society to many of the marvels we enjoy today. Your quest for knowledge doesn’t have to be as Earth-changing as Einstein’s, but it can be an important part of your life, leading to a new job, better pay, a new hobby, or simply knowledge for knowledge’s sake — whatever is important to you as an end goal. Life-changing knowledge does typically require advanced learning techniques. Health Shake a leg. Balance Sleep on it. Perspective and Focus Change your focus, part 2. Recall Techniques Listen to music. Visual Aids Every picture tells a story. Verbal and Auditory Techniques Stimulate ideas. Kinesthetic Techniques Write, don’t type.
Solar flare? Yes, but tonight's northern lights have a more spectacular cause. Skywatchers in the northern US tonight may become the beneficiaries of a major burp from the sun that took place June 7. Skip to next paragraph Subscribe Today to the Monitor Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS ofThe Christian Science MonitorWeekly Digital Edition While the solar storm did include a solar flare, the giant pulse of plasma, electricity, and matter that fountained across nearly half the sun's surface was a coronal mass ejection – and that's what we can thank for the auroral display filling the skies Wednesday night. If the oncoming hordes of charged particles from that event reach Earth at the right time, aurora could be visible on the northern horizon as far south as Washington, D.C., according to an alert today from the University of Alaska's Geophysical Institute. If you live in the northern half of the country, look north around midnight local time, say experts. Residents in the southern hemisphere would see the mirror opposite of any aurora in the northern hemisphere.