The 20 most-watched TED Talks as of August 2012 TEDTalks The 20 most-watched TEDTalks (so far) Today, on the fifth birthday of TEDTalks video, we’re releasing a new list of the 20 most-watched TEDTalks over the past five years — as watched on all the platforms we track: TED.com, YouTube, iTunes, embed and download, Hulu and more … What a great, mixed-up group this is! Talks about education and creativity, sex […] Playlist The 20 most popular TED Talks, as of December 2013 UPDATED: To see all these talks at one click, check out our updated Playlist: The 20 Most Popular Talks of All Time.
Brain Atlas - Introduction The central nervous system (CNS) consists of the brain and the spinal cord, immersed in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Weighing about 3 pounds (1.4 kilograms), the brain consists of three main structures: the cerebrum, the cerebellum and the brainstem. Cerebrum - divided into two hemispheres (left and right), each consists of four lobes (frontal, parietal, occipital and temporal). The outer layer of the brain is known as the cerebral cortex or the ‘grey matter’. – closely packed neuron cell bodies form the grey matter of the brain. Cerebellum – responsible for psychomotor function, the cerebellum co-ordinates sensory input from the inner ear and the muscles to provide accurate control of position and movement. Brainstem – found at the base of the brain, it forms the link between the cerebral cortex, white matter and the spinal cord. Other important areas in the brain include the basal ganglia, thalamus, hypothalamus, ventricles, limbic system, and the reticular activating system. Neurons
Bill Gates: My 13 favorite talks | Playlist | TED.com Now playing Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script — give students video lectures to watch at home, and do "homework" in the classroom with the teacher available to help. Expanding the Science and Practice of Gratitude For too long, we’ve taken gratitude for granted. Yes, “thank you” is an essential, everyday part of family dinners, trips to the store, business deals, and political negotiations. That might be why so many people have dismissed gratitude as simple, obvious, and unworthy of serious attention. But that’s starting to change. Recently scientists have begun to chart a course of research aimed at understanding gratitude and the circumstances in which it flourishes or diminishes. Stronger immune systems and lower blood pressure;Higher levels of positive emotions;More joy, optimism, and happiness;Acting with more generosity and compassion;Feeling less lonely and isolated. That’s why the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley—in collaboration with the University of California, Davis—launched a $5.6 million, three-year project, Expanding the Science and Practice of Gratitude. Research Initiatives 1. 2. 3. Public Education Initiatives 1. 2. 3. Contact Information
MSNBC - How to Think About the Mind How to Think About the MindNeuroscience shows that the 'soul' is the activity of the brain Sept. 27 issue - Every evening our eyes tell us that the sun sets, while we know that, in fact, the Earth is turning us away from it. Astronomy taught us centuries ago that common sense is not a reliable guide to reality. Today it is neuroscience that is forcing us to readjust our intuitions. People naturally believe in the Ghost in the Machine: that we have bodies made of matter and spirits made of an ethereal something. Modern neuroscience has shown that there is no user. This resistance is not surprising. The disconnect between our common sense and our best science is not an academic curiosity. Prozac shouldn't be dispensed like mints, of course, but the reason is not that it undermines the will. To many, the scariest prospect is medication that can make us better than well by enhancing mood, memory and attention. © 2004 Newsweek, Inc.
The Big Five Personality Test Directions: The following statements concern your perception about yourself in a variety of situations. Your task is to indicate the strength of your agreement with each statement, utilizing a scale in which 1 denotes strong disagreement, 5 denotes strong agreement, and 2, 3, and 4 represent intermediate judgments. In the boxes after each statement, click a number from 1 to 5 from the following scale: Strongly disagreeDisagreeNeither disagree nor agreeAgreeStrongly agree There are no "right" or "wrong" answers, so select the number that most closely reflects you on each statement. Personality Traits List Personality Traits List In the field of psychology, there are five main dimensions of a personality that is used to describe a personality type. These five main dimensions are known as the Big Five factors or Five Factor Model. These main dimensions have been arrived at by empirical, data driven research. Though the initial model was proposed and advanced by Raymon Cristal and Ernest Tupes in 1961, it was only in 1990s that the refined five factor model was advanced by J M Digman. Openness: This is characterized by general appreciation for adventure, art, imagination, curiosity, unusual ideas and a variety of experiences. Conscientiousness: Individuals who display this trait are dutiful, self disciplined and they aim for achievement. Extraversion: This trait is often related to individuals who are energetic and outgoing and tend exude positive emotions, energy, and a tendency to seek stimulation while in others company. Tags: personality traits list
Scientists discover previously unknown cleaning system in brain A previously unrecognized system that drains waste from the brain at a rapid clip has been discovered by neuroscientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center. The findings were published online August 15 in Science Translational Medicine. The highly organized system acts like a series of pipes that piggyback on the brain's blood vessels, sort of a shadow plumbing system that seems to serve much the same function in the brain as the lymph system does in the rest of the body – to drain away waste products. "Waste clearance is of central importance to every organ, and there have been long-standing questions about how the brain gets rid of its waste," said Maiken Nedergaard, M.D., D.M.Sc., senior author of the paper and co-director of the University's Center for Translational Neuromedicine. "We're hopeful that these findings have implications for many conditions that involve the brain, such as traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer's disease, stroke, and Parkinson's disease," she added.
Why genius and madness are connected Many of history's most celebrated creative geniuses were mentally ill, from renowned artists Vincent van Gogh and Frida Kahlo to literary giants Virginia Woolf and Edgar Allan Poe. Today, the fabled connection between genius and madness is no longer merely anecdotal. Mounting research shows these two extremes of the human mind really are linked — and scientists are beginning to understand why. A panel of experts discussed recent and ongoing research on the subject at an event held on May 31 in New York as part of the 5th annual World Science Festival. All three panelists suffer from mental illnesses themselves. Kay Redfield Jamison, a clinical psychologist and professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said the findings of some 20 or 30 scientific studies endorse the notion of the "tortured genius." Bipolar disorder entails dramatic mood swings between extreme happiness (known as "mania") and severe depression. Related on Life's Little Mysteries:
6 Insane Things Science Can Predict About You at Infancy #3. Smaller Babies Do Worse on Exams Getty Want to know whether it's worth it to put money aside for your baby's college education? *This is a joke. GettySo the earlier you start your prenatal steroid regimen, the better. The researchers picked out 334 kids from schools that had a pretty homogenous socioeconomic enrollment set (so they could prevent winding up with a bunch of kids who were both small and stupid for some extraneous reason, like, say, they were malnourished due to their parents' crippling meth addiction). Half of the kids selected were of lower-than-normal birth weight, and the others were normal or larger. GettyMost go right to the "beer and balls" section, which has never been failed by a single participant. The leader of the research team, Professor Peter Pharoah of the University of Liverpool, stresses that this doesn't mean that your gigantic freak mammoth baby is going to win a Nobel Prize. Getty"Dude, just piss him off so we can kick his ass." #2. #1.
List of emotions The contrasting and categorisation of emotions describes how emotions are thought to relate to each other. Various recent proposals of such groupings are described in the following sections. Contrasting basic emotions[edit] The following table,[1] based on a wide review of current theories, identifies and contrasts the fundamental emotions according to a set of definite criteria. have a strongly motivating subjective quality like pleasure or pain;are in response to some event or object that is either real or imagined;motivate particular kinds of behaviour. The combination of these attributes distinguish the emotions from sensations, feelings and moods. HUMAINE's proposal for EARL (Emotion Annotation and Representation Language)[edit] The emotion annotation and representation language (EARL) proposed by the Human-Machine Interaction Network on Emotion (HUMAINE) classifies 48 emotions.[2] Parrott's emotions by groups[edit] Plutchik's wheel of emotions[edit] Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions
FUTURE PSYCHOLOGICAL EVOLUTION DynaPsych Table of Contents Future Psychological Evolution John Stewart jes999@tpg.com.au ABSTRACT: Humans are able to construct mental representations and models of possible interactions with their environment. They can use these mental models to identify actions that will enable them to achieve their adaptive goals. Is the psychological evolution of humanity at an endpoint? One way we can begin to answer this question is to ask whether there are blind spots in our current psychological capacities. If we discover that there are limitations in our current psychological capacities, we can then ask whether these can be overcome by changes to our psychological software. If we find that there are limitations, and if these can only be overcome by changes to our psychological software, we can then ask whether humans are likely to make these changes. We begin in section 2 by identifying significant limitations in our current psychological capacities.
'Mind reading' brain scans reveal secrets of human vision Courtesy of Fei-Fei Li Researchers were able to determine that study participants were looking at this street scene even when the participants were only looking at the outline. Researchers call it mind reading. One at a time, they show a volunteer – who's resting in an MRI scanner – a series of photos of beaches, city streets, forests, highways, mountains and offices. The researchers, however, can usually tell which photo the volunteer is watching at any given moment, aided by sophisticated software that interprets the signals coming from the scan. Now, psychologists and computer scientists at Stanford, Ohio State University and the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign have taken mind reading a step further, with potential impact on how both computers and the visually impaired make sense of the world they see. The results demonstrate that outlines play a crucial role in how the human eye and mind interpret what is seen. Steve Taylor / Creative Commons The significance of the work?