Fiberopticgal

"While Cole discovered that loneliness could hasten death in sick people, Cacioppo showed that it could make well people sick—and through the same method: by putting the body in fight-or-flight mode."

The Science of Loneliness | New Republic (via kateoplis)

Oh great. No point in trying to be well.

Now, where did I put those donuts.

(via amassofhumanity)

All kidding aside: it’s a long read, but well worth it. An absolutely amazing article on the biological impacts of loneliness, touching on its roots in evolutionary biology and the larger societal/economic ramifications as well. This is the most interesting thing I’ve read in a long time.

(via scholvin)

To have the interaction of the physical and mental explained on the genetic level is fascinating. Profoundly interesting. And directly relevant to what often feels like my most important or effective role as a teacher: 

At a deeper level, though, loneliness research forces us to acknowledge our own extraordinary malleability in the face of social forces. This susceptibility is both terrifying and exhilarating. On the terrifying side is the unhappy fact that isolation, especially when it stems from the disenfranchisement of the underprivileged, creates a bodily limitation all too easily reproduced in each successive generation. Given that we have been scaling back the kinds of programs that could help people overcome such disadvantages and that many in Congress, mostly Republicans, have been trying to defund exactly the kind of behavioral science research that could yield even better programs, we have reason to be afraid. But there’s something awe-inspiring about our resilience, too. Put an orphan in foster care, and his brain will repair its missing connections. Teach a lonely person to respond to others without fear and paranoia, and over time, her body will make fewer stress hormones and get less sick from them. Care for a pet or start believing in a supernatural being and your score on the UCLA Loneliness Scale will go down. Even an act as simple as joining an athletic team or a church can lead to what Cole calls “molecular remodeling.” “One message I take away from this is, ‘Hey, it’s not just early life that counts,’ ” he says. “We have to choose our life well.” 

(via allisonunsupervised)

(via iamlittlei)

"The way we try to recruit girls into STEM fields is all wrong. We typically compare them to some great woman or someone that has gone before them. We are saying, “Hey, you can be like Madam Curie or Sally Ride.” It is recruiting by intimidation. We need to change that message. We need to recruit by appealing to WHY we need them in STEM. We NEED you to help make the world a better place We NEED you to help discover the cure for cancer. We NEED you because you have the ability to change the course of humanity for the better."

Tim Holt on why we still see the number of females in STEM fields fall way behind their male counterparts. Also see how geography paved the way for women in science.

(↬ gender and science)

(Source: explore-blog, via iamlittlei)

historicalheroines:

To learn more, follow these links!

(via gender-and-science)

wildcat2030:

Space Oddity (by Chris Hadfield) , How can you not like this..? watch and enjoy

Can’t post this enough

"

A new species of philosophers is coming up: I shall venture to baptize them with a name that is not free of danger. As I unriddle them, insofar as they allow themselves to be unriddled, for it belongs to their nature to want to remain riddles; these philosophers of the future may have a right, it might also be a wrong, to be called “tempters.” This name itself is in the end a mere attempt and, if you will, a temptation.

Are these coming philosophers new friends of “truth”? That is probable enough, for all philosophers so far have loved their truths. But they will certainly not be dogmatists. It must offend their pride, also their taste, if their truth is supposed to be a truth for every man—which has so far been the secret wish and hidden meaning of all dogmatic aspirations. “My judgment is my judgment: no one else is easily entitled to it”—that is what such a philosopher of the future may perhaps say of himself. One must shed the bad taste of wanting to agree with many. “Good” is no longer good when one’s neighbor mouths it. And how should there be a “common good”! The term contradicts itself: whatever can be common always has little value. In the end it must be as it is and always has been: great things remain for the great, abysses for the profound, nuances and shudders for the refined, and, in brief, all that is rare for the rare.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (via ludimagister)

(via wildcat2030)

theparisreview:

“A thinking woman sleeps with monsters.” —Adrienne Rich, from “Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law.” The American poet and essayist was born on this day in 1929.

Art Credit Daniel Hopfer

smarterplanet:

Google and NASA Launch Quantum Computing AI Lab

Quantum computing took a giant leap forward on the world stage today as NASA and Google, in partnership with a consortium of universities, launched an initiative to investigate how the technology might lead to breakthroughs in artificial intelligence.

The new Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab will employ what may be the most advanced commercially available quantum computer, the D-Wave Two, which a recent study confirmed was much faster than conventional machines at defeating specific problems. The machine will be installed at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Facility at the Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley and is expected to be available for government, industrial, and university research later this year.

Google believes quantum computing might help it improve its web search and speech recognition technology. University researchers might use it to devise better models of disease and climate, among many other possibilities. As for NASA, “computers play a much bigger role within NASA missions than most people realize,” says quantum computing expert Colin Williams, director of business development and strategic partnerships at D-Wave.

(via proofmathisbeautiful)

mothernaturenetwork:

9 female trailblazers in science

Meet some the women who are changing the face of modern science.

(via gender-and-science)

freshphotons:

“Van der Waals heterostructures comprise a new class of artificial materials formed by stacking atomically thin planar crystals. Here, we demonstrate band structure engineering in a van der Waals heterostructure composed of a monolayer graphene flake coupled to a rotationally aligned hexagonal boron nitride substrate. In our samples, [an] interplay between short- and long-wavelength effects resulted in a band structure described by isolated superlattice minibands and an unexpectedly large band gap at charge neutrality. This picture is confirmed by our observation of fractional quantum Hall states at ±5/3 filling and features associated with the Hofstadter butterfly at ultrahigh magnetic fields.” Via.

theparisreview:

Stills from Erró’s Mecamorphosis.