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The Science of Stress, Orgasm and Creativity: How the Brain and the Vagina Conspire in Consciousness

The Science of Stress, Orgasm and Creativity: How the Brain and the Vagina Conspire in Consciousness
“The more closely we analyze what we consider ‘sexy,’” philosopher Alain de Botton argued in his meditation on sex, “the more clearly we will understand that eroticism is the feeling of excitement we experience at finding another human being who shares our values and our sense of the meaning of existence.” But in his attempt to counter the reductionism that frames human sexuality as a mere physiological phenomenon driven solely by our evolutionary biology, de Botton overcompensates by reducing in the opposite direction, negating the complex interplay of brain and biology, psychology and physiology, that propels the human sexual experience. That’s precisely what Naomi Wolf, author of the 1991 cultural classic The Beauty Myth, examines in Vagina: A New Biography (public library) — a fascinating exploration of the science behind the vastly misunderstood mind-body connection between brain and genitalia, consciousness and sexuality, the poetic and the scientific. Wolf writes:

30 Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Die {Via studioflowerpower on etsy} “Rather than money, than fame, than love…give me truth.” ~ Thoreau I woke up this morning and my life clock marked 30. My first sleep-deprived idea was to pack a small suitcase, get on the first train, move to another country, change my name, change my hair color (or get plastic surgery if needed), and start from scratch. When I don’t know how to deal with life, I hide sometimes. And others, I fight it. By now, I’m good at both: fighting and disappearing. A true warrior doesn’t feel forced to do either, but moves through and with and for life, like water. So after I washed my face and considered the costs of running and those of fighting, I decided to do neither and have some juice instead. {Alkaline Espresso / Click for recipe.} We are a constant process, an event, we’re change. As such, our smaller houses, our temporary homes can only be made of cards. Loving the questions means to love yourself. How much have you loved? You. Comments

Neuroscience For Kids The smell of a flower - The memory of a walk in the park - The pain of stepping on a nail. These experiences are made possible by the 3 pounds of tissue in our heads...the BRAIN!! Neuroscience for Kids has been created for all students and teachers who would like to learn about the nervous system. Discover the exciting world of the brain, spinal cord, neurons and the senses. Use the experiments, activities and games to help you learn about the nervous system. There are plenty of links to other web sites for you to explore. Can't find what you are looking for? Portions of Neuroscience for Kids are available in Spanish, Slovene, Portuguese, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Serbian, Russian, Slovak, Romanian, Polish, Albanian, Czech, Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, Punjabi, Indonesian, Malay, Norwegian, Ukranian and Turkish. "Neuroscience for Kids" is maintained by Eric H.

Women Who Have Children Older, Live Longer Between 1970 and 2006, the number of women who were age 35 or older when giving birth to their first child increased nearly eight times. There are a variety of factors involved with this, including advanced fertility assistance techniques. However, a study led by Thomas Perls of Boston University School of Medicine has indicated that a natural ability to have children later in life are more likely to live to be 95 or older. The study was in partnership with the Long Life Family Study, which analyzes the genetics and other factors of people with exceptional longevity. "Of course this does not mean women should wait to have children at older ages in order to improve their own chances of living longer," Perls said in a press release. The researchers speculate that the reason is genetic. "If a woman has those variants, she is able to reproduce and bear children for a longer period of time, increasing her chances of passing down those genes to the next generation," Perls continued.

On the Origin of Truly Innovative Ideas Last week, I wrote about increasing innovation in your company. This week, in Part 2, we'll talk about how to create the right environment and incentives for innovation to flourish. Today's post outlines a few key ideas and strategies I've found to be extremely effective. Fear of Failure = Fear of Innovation The day before something is truly a breakthrough, it's a crazy idea. But few companies actually try crazy ideas — especially the most successful ones. Fear of failure paralyzes creativity, stops risk-taking, and ultimately slows innovation down to a halt. Why do people fear failure? Three principal reasons… Fear impacting their reputation: “If I fail, I won’t get the promotion.”Fear of losing time: “I’ve invested two years of my life, we can’t fail now!” How do you minimize fear of failure? The right environment and the right incentives. The 5-5-5 Program Here's the basic idea: Teams of 5: Break your company (division, group, etc.) into teams of five people. Why 5 people? Peter Diamandis Dr. Dr.

Internal Time: The Science of Chronotypes, Social Jet Lag, and Why You’re So Tired by Maria Popova Debunking the social stigma around late risers, or what Einstein has to do with teens’ risk for smoking. “Six hours’ sleep for a man, seven for a woman, and eight for a fool,” Napoleon famously prescribed. In fact, each of us possesses a different chronotype — an internal timing type best defined by your midpoint of sleep, or midsleep, which you can calculate by dividing your average sleep duration by two and adding the resulting number to your average bedtime on free days, meaning days when your sleep and waking times are not dictated by the demands of your work or school schedule. The distribution of midsleep in Central Europe. Roenneberg traces the evolutionary roots of different sleep cycles and argues that while earlier chronotypes might have had a social advantage in agrarian and industrial societies, today’s world of time-shift work and constant connectivity has invalidated such advantages but left behind the social stigma around later chronotypes. (Thanks, Jalees.)

Stockholm syndrome Stockholm syndrome, or capture-bonding, is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending and identifying with the captors. These feelings are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, who essentially mistake a lack of abuse from their captors for an act of kindness.[1][2] The FBI's Hostage Barricade Database System shows that roughly 8 percent of victims show evidence of Stockholm syndrome.[3] Stockholm syndrome can be seen as a form of traumatic bonding, which does not necessarily require a hostage scenario, but which describes "strong emotional ties that develop between two persons where one person intermittently harasses, beats, threatens, abuses, or intimidates the other. History[edit] Stockholm syndrome is named after the Norrmalmstorg robbery of Kreditbanken at Norrmalmstorg in Stockholm, Sweden. Similarly named syndromes[edit]

Common Science Myths That Most People Believe There are a number of old wives’ tales out there regarding some basic scientific principles. Though most of them were refuted years ago, these rumors just won’t go away. Here are some of the top myths floating around out there that just aren’t true: We only use 10% of our brains. It's true that there’s a great deal we don’t know about the brain, but we certainly do know that we use our entire brain. Additionally, there is no evidence that someone was ever diagnosed with a brain tumor but was told: “Great news! While you might not be using every bit of your brain at all times, but you do use the entire brain over the course of the day. There is a dark side of the moon. Oh, Pink Floyd, how you have led us all astray. From our perspective on Earth, we are able to view about 59% of the moon’s surface (though not all at the same time). This confusion is due to tidal locking, which makes it seem as if the moon isn’t rotating. The full moon affects behavior. Sugar makes children hyperactive.

Artists 'have structurally different brains' 17 April 2014Last updated at 05:35 ET By Melissa Hogenboom Science reporter, BBC Radio Science Brain scans revealed artists have more grey matter in parts of their brains Artists have structurally different brains compared with non-artists, a study has found. Participants' brain scans revealed that artists had increased neural matter in areas relating to fine motor movements and visual imagery. The research, published in NeuroImage, suggests that an artist's talent could be innate. But training and environmental upbringing also play crucial roles in their ability, the authors report. As in many areas of science, the exact interplay of nature and nurture remains unclear. Lead author Rebecca Chamberlain from KU Leuven, Belgium, said she was interested in finding out how artists saw the world differently. In their small study, researchers peered into the brains of 21 art students and compared them to 23 non-artists using a scanning method called voxel-based morphometry. Alice Shirley - artist

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