Reasons Why I Claim To Learn Latin:

Since I get asked a lot about where to learn more about the human brain and behaviour, I’ve made a masterpost of books, websites, videos and online courses to introduce yourself to that piece of matter that sits between your ears.

Books

The Brain Book  by Rita Carter

The Pyschology Book (a good starter book)  by DK

Thinking, Fast and Slow  by Daniel Kahneman

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking  by Susan Cain

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat  by Oliver Sacks

The Brain: The Story of You  by David Eagleman

The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science  by Norman Doidge

This Is Your Brain on Music  by Daniel Levitin

The Autistic Brain by Richard Panek and Temple Grandin (highly reccomended)

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind  by Yuval Noah Harari (not really brain-related, but it is single handedly the best book I have ever read)

Websites

@tobeagenius (shameless self-promotion)

How Stuff Works

Psych2Go

BrainFacts

Neuroscience for Kids (aimed at kids, but it has some good info)

New Scientist

National Geographic

Live Science

Videos & Youtube Channels

Mind Matters series by TedEd

Crash Course Psychology

SciShow Brain

Psych2Go TV

asapSCIENCE

Brain Craft

Its Okay To Be Smart

Online Courses

The Addicted Brain

Visual Perception and The Brain

Understanding the Brain: The Neurobiology of Everyday Life

Pyschology Of Popularity

Harvard Fundamentals Of Neuroscience

Now if you were like me, this might come to you as a huge surprise because whenever one thinks about Jupiter one is not used to visualizing it with rings around it, but rather as a huge gas giant.

The rings are not prominent

Unlike Saturn’ rings which are bright, the discovery of Jupiter’s wings had to wait till 1979.

This is so because the rings are faint and are only visible only when viewed behind Jupiter and lit up by the sun.

How are they formed ?

Jupiter’s rings are formed from dust particles hurled up by micro-meteor impacts on Jupiter’s small inner moons and captured into orbit.

If the impacts on the moons were any larger, then the larger dust thrown up would be pulled back down to the moon’s surface by gravity (meaning that the dust would not have enough velocity to escape the surface).

The main and halo rings consist of dust ejected from the moons Metis, Adrastea, and other unobserved parent bodies as the result of high-velocity impacts

The rings must constantly be replenished with new dust from the moons to exist.

Actually, there are quite a bit about these rings that we are still in the dark about. And hopefully these would become clearer in the upcoming years.

Have a great day!

“Because in the end to learn a language, to feel connected to it, you have to have a dialogue, however childlike, however imperfect.”

— Jhumpa Lahiri, Teach Yourself Italian (via kxowledge)

When the eyes move, the eardrums move, too

Gruters found that when the eyes moved, both eardrums moved in sync with one another, one side bulging inward at the same time the other side bulged outward. They continued to vibrate back and forth together until shortly after the eyes stopped moving. Eye movements in opposite directions produced opposite patterns of vibrations.

Simply moving the eyes triggers the eardrums to move too, says a new study by Duke University neuroscientists.

The researchers found that keeping the head still but shifting the eyes to one side or the other sparks vibrations in the eardrums, even in the absence of any sounds.

Surprisingly, these eardrum vibrations start slightly before the eyes move, indicating that motion in the ears and the eyes are controlled by the same motor commands deep within the brain.

Continue Reading.

The dollhouses of death that changed forensic science. 

It’s #InternationalWomensDay! Here are twelve pioneering female chemists. Larger image & downloadable poster: http://wp.me/p4aPLT-2ra

Important Terms

For approaching Religious and Anthropological Studies:

Cultural Relativism:

“The ability to view the beliefs and customs of other peoples within the context of their own cultures rather than one’s own; or, describing another culture from its own point of view without imposing one’s own cultural values.” Look at what people BELIEVE, not whether or not what they believe is “true.”

Ethnocentrism (the opposite of cultural relativism):

“The tendency to judge the customs of other societies by the standards of one’s own; combines the belief in the superiority of one’s own culture with the practice of judging other cultures by the standards and values of one’s own culture.”

Harnessing ethnocentric ideas when approaching religious and cultural studies will hinder one from truly being able to learn and understand other peoples and their cultures. 

Fibonacci all day, every day [http://bit.ly/2jiUBF6]