Smart Mrs Dragonfly

In order to avoid males of the species bothering them for sex, female dragonflies fake their own deaths, falling from the sky and lying motionless on the ground until the suitor goes away.

 

A study by Rassim Khelifa, a zoologist from the University of Zurich is the first time scientists have seen odonates feign death as a tactic to avoid mating, and a rare instance of animals faking their own deaths for this purpose. Odonates is the order of carnivorous insects that includes dragonflies and damselflies.

But you can read the article here – http://www.newsweek.com/female-dragon-flies-fake-death-avoid-sex-evolution-591494

Reminds me of :-

Thought from the Greatest Living Scottish Thinker–Billy Connolly.  “If women are so bloody perfect at multitasking, How come they can’t have a headache and sex at the same time?”

Three Cheers for the University of Google

Now any wannabe psychologist can do a profile on somebody they hate.

And grateful thanks to the internet so we can all join in to cyber bullying.After all our information comes from the media does it not? And you can always trust the media, can’t you? (so btw here is a nice example of how bullying works – https://www.ted.com/talks/monica_lewinsky_the_price_of_shame)  Do watch it!

Journalists may be eloquent as far as use of language is concerned but they are often weak on facts. FACTS COUNT OPINIONS DON’T!

 

Beware of Amber Valley…

Pietermaritzburg – The Amber Valley body corporate in Howick wants Mr Cat out, but the ageing feline’s owner is determined to keep him – even if it means going to court to stay his eviction.

The 15-year-old cat is at the centre of a legal spat, after lawyers representing the body corporate sent a letter of demand to Penny Reid giving her two weeks to “remove” her companion.

An online petition to stop the body corporate forcing Reid to remove her cat has gone viral, receiving nearly 10 000 signatures in under a week.

You can read here:- http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Claws-out-in-fight-over-retirement-village-cat-20150216

Sounds like a real witch hunt to me!

But the 5 star comment came from Don Clark who wrote

MORON OF THE MONTH
My first message is to the people at Amber Valley, Howick who complained about 88-year-old Sylvia Reid’s 15-year-old cat. Although you are elderly, it is clear that your hearts have died long before the rest of your organs. Are your lives really so small that a visit from an old cat takes on the proportions of an invasion of man-eating tigers?! When you gaze out your windows in that beautiful environment are your old souls so full of bitterness and bile that you notice only a single cat instead of the wonderful birds, plants and rolling green lawns? Have you nothing better to do than plot the murder of an old feline and the subsequent murder of an old woman’s soul? Why don’t you just clean your dentures more often or sharpen your kitchen knives? Are you not aware that there are people starving to death out there, children dying in wars, people being murdered for their possessions, and millions living with AIDS or dying from Ebola? No, probably not. The biggest problem in your tiny, useless little lives is a visiting pet cat!
Shame on you, and shame on you again. May your callous, heartless, petty actions render you sleepless at night. And should you manage to dream, may they be filled with the sobs of a heartbroken old woman and the smell of pentobarbital; the solution used by vets to euthanise animals.
My second message is to the Body Corporate of Amber Valley. You decision to evict Sylvia Reid’s cat was not based on rules per se. You have made it clear that residents are allowed pets, but that it’s a privilege, not a right. So it would seem that Sylvia Reid’s “privilege” was violated on the strength of her neighbour’s complaint. And this complaint was precipitated by the cat simply “visiting” them.
At the end of the day, what I would like to know is whether the “pain” of a cat visiting them could possibly exceed the pain of an old lady being permanently separated from what may be her only loving companion? Did you even bother to take that into account? This is a moral and ethical situation, not a legislative one. I do hope you searched your consciousnesses deeply before making such a dreadful decision. 
So, to the cruel neighbours for their pedantic, overbearing attitude towards an old cat, and the Amber Valley Body Corporate for taking the easy way out, you are quite deservedly my morons of the month.

Masters of the Game

A really enjoyable film was The Imitation Game –

The Bletchley Park codebreakers depicted in the film The Imitation Game (this year’s Oscar winner for Best Adapted Screenplay) worked around the clock to crack the secret of Nazi communications during World War II. Based on the book ‘Alan Turing: The Enigma’ by Andrew Hodges

The fascinating difference between fact and fiction you can read here:- http://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/imitation-game/

But it is true that the  codebreakers could crack the secret of Nazi communications was kept a secret for 50 years Amazing!

But now I read in mental_floss that these guys were not just excellent codebreakers they also were skilled at palindromes.

A palindrome is a word, phrase, number, or other sequence of characters which reads the same backward or forward. Allowances may be made for adjustments to capital letters, punctuation, and word dividers.

 

As the author says It makes sense that those with a talent for uncovering meaning from patterns in strings of symbols would have a knack for creating palindromes. (A nut for a jar of tuna).

 

As for Birdman winning the Oscar, I had to go and read up all about it on the internet.  It was either a superb version of superhero films or a big batch of self congratulatory nonsense!

 

BUT MY FAVORITE Actor must be!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hollywood superstar Joaquin Phoenix is using his voice to help more people learn about how dogs are bludgeoned and killed so their skins can be turned into leather items to be sold around the world. http://petauk.org/b393

 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/joaquin-phoenix-stars-peta-dog-778087

Tim’s retirement Plan

Tim’s Retirement Plan!

 

There is a new diet on the market at least once a week I guess and still the numbers of obese people are increasing. I am sure the want for magic has been with humans forever. But if there was this magic pill everybody would be slim. Look at Oprah, all the money in the world but…..

Saw this article http://m.news24.com/health24/Columnists/Too-much-too-soon-Tim-Noakes-20150109,

So many specialists (Noakes is a sport specialist please do not confuse!) have warned people, but I should have listened will come too late. Pretoria University has spoken out so many times, but  it seems to fall on deaf ears.  He has followers I am telling you, more than some prophets.

Banting is quite similar to the Dr Atkins diet, and do you know what he died from? And how much he weighed in the end?

Spoke to a gastroenterologist who said she has had to take several patients off this diet because of serious complications.

Of course Noakes will tell you this diet is not for everyone – he has to cover his arse.

Please read the article. And this one too http://www.health24.com/Diet-and-nutrition/News/Tim-Noakes-backtracks-on-dairy-20141020

We are so addicted to processed food, the easy way out. And if you don’t like animals and you don’t care how they are slaughtered sure eat meat 7 days a week and don’t cut the fatty bits off.

In the mean time Tim must be laughing all the way to the bank.

Is this a CONSPIRACY?

 

Interesting article about conspiracy theorists. I have always said and I am saying it again,  they  conspiracy theorists, hav e an (interesting ) not so balanced psychological profile with a ‘ touch of ‘ paranoia of course. No point arguing with them either.I have known a  few, say no more!

 

Once you buy into the first conspiracy theory, the next one seems that much more plausible.

To believe that the U.S. government planned or deliberately allowed the 9/11 attacks, you’d have to posit that President Bush intentionally sacrificed 3,000 Americans. To believe that explosives, not planes, brought down the buildings, you’d have to imagine an operation large enough to plant the devices without anyone getting caught. To insist that the truth remains hidden, you’d have to assume that everyone who has reviewed the attacks and the events leading up to them—the CIA, the Justice Department, the Federal Aviation Administration, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, scientific organizations, peer-reviewed journals, news organizations, the airlines, and local law enforcement agencies in three states—was incompetent, deceived, or part of the cover-up.

Conspiracy theory psychology is becoming an empirical field with a broader mission: to understand why so many people embrace this way of interpreting history. As you’d expect, distrust turns out to be an important factor. But it’s not the kind of distrust that cultivates critical thinking.

The common thread between distrust and cynicism, as defined in these experiments, is a perception of bad character. More broadly, it’s a tendency to focus on intention and agency, rather than randomness or causal complexity. In extreme form, it can become paranoia. In mild form, it’s a common weakness known as the fundamental attribution error—ascribing others’ behavior to personality traits and objectives, forgetting the importance of situational factors and chance. Suspicion, imagination, and fantasy are closely related.

Read it for yourself!

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/11/conspiracy_theory_psychology_people_who_claim_to_know_the_truth_about_jfk.single.html

 

 

Is there a ghost in the House?

Is there a ghost in the house!

Why O! Why in this day and age are there zillions of people so gullible that they believe in psychics and ghosts?

Is it due to Conmen? One who gains the trust, or “confidence”, of his victims (often called marks) in order to manipulate, steal from, or otherwise predate upon them.

Or is it just plain stupidity?

Or maybe both?

Interesting article about James Randi in the New York Times. Now as you  probably know Randi has a million dollar challenge to anybody who can prove supernatural… and up to now nobody has been able to claim the prize!!! A million dollars, I could do with a million dollars!

And the likes of John Edwards did not even go there: Surprise! surprise!

But here is a link to the Randi article (and of course Uri Geller who has been calles a psychopath also figures). http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/09/magazine/the-unbelievable-skepticism-of-the-amazing-randi.html?_r=0

Love the last paragraph

 

In July last year, Randi came closer than ever to the end. He was hospitalized with aneurysms in his legs and needed surgery. Before the procedure began, the surgeon showed Peña scans of Randi’s circulatory system. “Very challenging, a very difficult situation,” the surgeon told him. “But he lived a good life.” The operation was supposed to take two hours, but it stretched to six and a half.

When Randi began to come to, heavily dosed with painkillers, he looked about him in confusion. There were nurses speaking in hushed voices. He began hallucinating. He was convinced that he was behind the curtain before a show and that the whispering he could hear was the audience coming in. The theater was full; he had to get onstage. He tried to look at his watch, but he found he didn’t have it on. He began to panic. When the hallucinations became intensely visual, Peña brought a pen and paper to the bedside. It could prove an important exercise in skeptical inquiry to record what Randi saw as he emerged from a state so close to death, one in which so many people sincerely believed they had glimpsed the other side. Randi scribbled away; his observations, Peña thought, might eventually make a great essay. Later, when the opiates and the anaesthetic wore off, Randi looked at the notes he had written.

They were indecipherable.

 

 

And then of course an interesting experiment. You can see ghosts if you really want to! Here is how!

http://io9.com/test-subjects-made-to-see-ghosts-in-disturbing-lab-ex-1655906924

 

Alzheimer’s in a Petri dish

This is fiction but very good fiction from a very talented author

Neuroscientist and debut novelist Genova mines years of experience in her field to craft a realistic portrait of early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Alice Howland has a career not unlike Genova’s—she’s an esteemed psychology professor at Harvard, living a comfortable life in Cambridge with her husband, John, arguing about the usual (making quality time together, their daughter’s move to L.A.) when the first symptoms of Alzheimer’s begin to emerge. First, Alice can’t find her Blackberry, then she becomes hopelessly disoriented in her own town. Alice is shocked to be diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s (she had suspected a brain tumor or menopause), after which her life begins steadily to unravel. She loses track of rooms in her home, resigns from Harvard and eventually cannot recognize her own children.

 

But this is fact!

Breakthrough Replicates Human Brain Cells for Use in Alzheimer’s Research

 

For the first time, and to the astonishment of many of their colleagues, researchers created what they call Alzheimer’s in a Dish — a petri dish with human brain cells that develop the telltale structures of Alzheimer’s disease. In doing so, they resolved a longstanding problem of how to study Alzheimer’s and search for drugs to treat it; the best they had until now were mice that developed an imperfect form of the disease.

The key to their success, said the lead researcher, Rudolph E. Tanzi ofMassachusetts General Hospital in Boston, was a suggestion by his colleague Doo Yeon Kim to grow human brain cells in a gel, where they formed networks as in an actual brain. They gave the neurons genes for Alzheimer’s disease. Within weeks they saw the hard Brillo-like clumps known as plaques and then the twisted spaghetti-like coils known as tangles — the defining features of Alzheimer’s disease.

The work, which also offers strong support for an old idea about how the disease progresses, was published in Nature on Sunday. Leading researchers said it should have a big effect.

You can also read more here:-

 

 

 

Do you still remember

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?

This is what is used to be

 

And this is the updated version

 

(from I Fuckin Love Science)

 

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” in Psychological Review.^[2] Maslow subsequently extended the idea to include his observations of humans’ innate curiosity. His theories parallel many other theories of human developmental psychology, some of which focus on describing the stages of growth in humans. Maslow used the terms Physiological, Safety, Belongingness and Love, Esteem, Self-Actualization and Self-Transcendence needs to describe the pattern that human motivations generally move through.

Maslow studied what he called exemplary people such as Albert Einstein, Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Frederick Douglass rather than mentally ill or neurotic people, writing that “the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy.”^[3] Maslow studied the healthiest 1% of the college student population.^[4]

Maslow’s theory was fully expressed in his 1954 book Motivation and Personality.^[5] While the hierarchy remains a very popular framework in sociology research, management training^[6] andsecondary and higher psychology instruction, it has largely been supplanted by attachment theory in graduate and clinical psychology and psychiatry.^[7][8]

 

 

Judging People

http://time.com/3221995/character-values-judge/

 

Amusing ? article. Yes we do judge people although we like to deny it. But how and according to what?

 

The following remark  I found interesting and I can relate to (some of) this

Social media. Quote!

I learn more about people I have known my whole life long on Facebook / blogs than I have pieced together over the entire length of our relationship. When someone writes, it becomes relatively easy to see what their angle is. Are they an attention whore? Do they self promote? Do they reciprocate when people interact with them and their content? What are their photographs like? Are they all selfies? Do they hide their spouse and family from the world in order to appear ‘available’? Do they go out of their way to hide how they really look? Do they just play mindless games all day? Do they share popular content in order to get praised?

This does not work if they do not write online, or if they only use social media sparingly, but reading someone’s words is a way straight into their personality if you care to pay attention.

I have also found a vast difference – generally speaking – between my English and Afrikaans friends. Also with what type of food they eat. But I suppose this is cultural? Or what?