Sit a while and listen

antieuclid:

“Hokey Pokey” available from http://antieuclid.com/misc/what-it-s-all-about-2-25-round-button-magnet-keychain-mirror.html

omocat:

i wrote something about me

This summarize my childhood as well!

Yay, I found a new label for myself.

fan-nerd:

Stoics perceive everything as contemptible like the cynic does, or that they perceive everything to be questionable like the Skeptic does. It is that there is very little that is of much importance. A Stoic finds the world bland, uninspiring and drab, perhaps even dreary — “things are tough all over”. This has the advantage that Stoics are not easily upset because they can put up with much negativity. It is as if they were insulated from it. Nor are they deceived by false hopes.

unknownskywalker:

Portugal and Paris

European lights seen by ESA astronaut André Kuipers from the International Space Station. Portugal is to the right of the image, and Paris is the glowing light on the left of the image.

huffingtonpost:

The updated web portal, unveiled Monday, features the full inventory of the Einstein archives, publicizing for the first time the entirety of what’s inside the collection and giving scholars a chance to request access to items they previously never knew existed.

“Knowledge is not about hiding. It’s about openness,” said Menachem Ben Sasson, president of the Hebrew University.

Einstein, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist whose theory of relativity revolutionized science, was one of the founders of the university. He contributed the original manuscript of his famed theory to the university when it was founded in 1925, four years after he was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics. He bequeathed the rest of his papers – and the rights to the use of his image – to the university upon his death in 1955.

The portal now offers a close look at an initial 2,000 documents, or 7,000 pages total, from Einstein’s personal and public life up to the year 1921. In the coming years, archivists will slowly upload the remainder of the collection.

The online project is part of an initiative with Princeton University and the California Institute of Technology to publish annotated scholarly work on all of Einstein’s papers.

Albert Einstein Archive To Be Posted Online By Hebrew University Of Jerusalem

expose-the-light:

Why Do We Yawn? It May Keep Us From Getting Hot-Headed

Yawning may activate a sinus “pump” that ventilates our brains.

In the Image: Chinese paramilitary police officers in Beijing.

Yawning may help you keep a cool head—literally, a new study suggests. The findings might hold some hope for sufferers of insomnia, migraines, and even epilepsy.

Though scientists have put forth various theories for yawning—from fatigue to lack of oxygen—none have held up to scrutiny.

“We can put a man on the moon, but we do not understand what the function of yawning is,” said study co-author Gary Hack, of the University of Maryland School of Dentistry in Baltimore.

Now, Hack and co-author Andrew Gallup, of Princeton University, propose that yawning causes the walls of the maxillary sinus to expand and contract like a bellows, pumping air onto the brain, which lowers its temperature. Located in our cheekbones, the maxillary are the largest of four pairs of sinus cavities in the human head.

Sinus Solution?

In addition to potentially solving the mystery of yawning, the study may also reveal why we have sinuses, whose existence has also stumped scientists.

It’s a “unified theory tying yawning, sinus ventilation, and brain cooling into a neat little package,” Hack said.

Ryan Soose—an ear, nose, and throat doctor as well as director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Division of Sleep Surgery—added, “The hypothesis that these two relatively unknown things may be directly related, to me, is very intriguing.”

Cadaverous Clues

In 2002 study co-author Hack and his team were dissecting a cadaver when they discovered that the back wall of the maxillary sinus was much thinner—and therefore more flexible—than described in many medical textbooks.

“I’d always kept that in the back of my mind, because yawning was an exaggerated jaw movement that would have an impact on this previously undescribed pump in humans,” Hack said.

Later, he came across the postdoctoral research of Princeton’s Gallup, who in 2007 had become the first to suggest the brain-cooling theory for yawning.

Yawning Theory May Influence Medicine

Overall, understanding yawning could be a useful tool for diagnosing certain medical conditions, such as epilepsy and migraines, which are both preceded by excessive yawning, the scientists say.

Credits:

Christine Dell’Amore

National Geographic News

Published November 15, 2011