Are We Having Fun Yet? Argentina is home to two amusement parks and one zoo where having fun means completely ignoring the voice in your head that says, “This is not normal.” I know this because I recently visited all three and returned home physically and mentally battered. Does a weekend spent ambling around a Christian “experience,” watching children pretend to run a government, and petting adult lions sound enticing to you? If so, Argentina is your wonderland—specifically the area in and around Buenos Aires, where these attractions can be found within an hour’s drive from one another. Entering Tierra Santa inspires the thought, “What would Jesus do if he paid $8 to enter a theme park that depicted the CliffsNotes version of his life via kitschy revues and fiberglass statues?” Before arriving at a suitable answer to this question, I was distracted by a line of women in flowing kaftans. I joined the eager throngs and witnessed what amounted to a Showbiz Pizza version of the Second Coming.
10 Awesome Online Classes You Can Take For Free Cool, but you need iTunes for nearly everything, and that gets an 'F.' Are there really no other places to get these lessons? I was sure there are some on Academic Earth. Flagged 1. 7 of them are available via YouTube. 2. iTunes is free. 1. 2. Don't worry, we're looking out for you! While I have no personal beef with iTunes, I know that many people share your sentiments — so I actually made a concerted effort to include relevant youtube links when possible.
printer Who came up with the idea that we are supposed to drink orange juice at breakfast? And why, if oatmeal is so good for us, do we eat that only in the morning as well? Apologies to the Palinites, but nutritionists are starting to realize that you and I like our oatmeal and OJ before we start the day because we evolved to like it that way—because enjoying the two together is healthier than eating each of them alone. Epidemiologist David R. What's more fascinating, however, is that the evolution between eater and eaten might answer the long-held question about why humans live longer, healthier lives on traditional diets. Tomatoes & Avocadoes Tomatoes are rich in lycopene, a pigment-rich antioxidant known as a carotenoid, which reduces cancer risk and cardiovascular disease. "This also has a Mediterranean cultural tie-in," says registered dietitian Susan Bowerman of California Polytechnic State University. And when it comes to salads, don't choose low-fat dressings. Oatmeal & Orange Juice
Sea Creature Self-Portrait 150 Million Years in the Making Dr. Phil Wilby and his team were thrilled to find the famed Victorian dig site in Wiltshire that had been lost for nearly 170 years. But when they dug in and examined an ordinary-looking rock, they found something they never expected: a perfectly preserved, 150 million-year-old ink sac. (image via: GNN) The entire site was a treasure trove of the remarkably intact sea creatures. Normally only the hard parts of animals are fossilized, like bones and shells.
SPACE Gallery Half a world away from Cairo’s Tahrir Square, an ageing American intellectual shuffles around his cluttered terrace house in a working-class Boston neighbourhood. His name is Gene Sharp and for the world’s dictators his ideas can be the catalyst for the end of their regime. Few people outside the world of academia have ever heard his name, but his writings on nonviolent revolution (most notably ‘From Dictatorship to Democracy’, a 93-page, 198-step guide to toppling dictators, available free for download in 40 languages) have inspired a new generation of protesters living under authoritarian regimes who yearn for democratic freedom. His ideas have taken root in places as far apart as Burma, Thailand, Bosnia, Estonia, Iran, Indonesia, Zimbabwe, Venezuela and now in Syria, Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East as old orders crumble amidst the protests of their disgruntled citizens. This new film HOW TO START A REVOLUTION reveals how Gene’s ideas work in action. Followed by discussion.
An opening against Alzheimer’s Under normal circumstances, the tau protein is a hard-working participant in memory and brain functioning. But in Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases, tau not only ceases to play a productive role in brain health, but actually undergoes a Jekyll-and-Hyde transformation to become a misshapen villain that destroys brain cells. “Since Alzheimer’s disease takes at least a decade to develop, the major challenge to halt memory loss is to identify the initial period when the tau protein is transformed from ‘good guy’ to ‘bad guy,’” said co-senior author Kun Ping Lu (left), BIDMC investigator, who along with co-senior author Xiao Zhen Zhou, did the research. Photo by Bruce Wahl/BIDMC Media Services The most common form of dementia in older individuals, Alzheimer’s affects 5.4 million Americans and 30 million people worldwide. To read the full release, visit www.bidmc.org.
Brain Explorer The brain is actually wired like a chess board and a new scanner reveals how in stunning detail By Ted Thornhill Published: 10:04 GMT, 30 March 2012 | Updated: 15:31 GMT, 30 March 2012 For a long time it was thought that the brain was a mass of tangled wires, but researchers recently found that its fibers are actually set up like a chess board, crossing at right-angles. What’s more, this grid structure has now been revealed in amazing detail as part of a brain imaging study by a new state-of-the-art magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. Van Wedeen, of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), who led study, said: ‘Far from being just a tangle of wires, the brain's connections turn out to be more like ribbon cables - folding 2D sheets of parallel neuronal fibers that cross paths at right angles, like the warp and weft of a fabric. Curvature in this image of a whole human brain turns out to be folding of 2D sheets of parallel neuronal fibers that cross paths at right angles ‘This grid structure is continuous and consistent at all scales and across humans and other primate species.’