Simply Attached

Attachment is one example of how biological and environmental processes are codependent on each other.  First, we has humans are biologically predisposed to become attached to significant others. Second, culture defines the appropriate way to engage in this activity.  Interestingly, during ontogeny, cultural processes may become embodied in our biological structures; these epigenetic processes have been termed biological embedding.  In other words, early experience may guide brain development.  For examples neuroscience has demonstrated that experience plays a much larger role in cognitive development than has previously been thought.  In fact, it has the potential to demonstrate the importance of experience-induced brain plasticity; one major finding is that genes are not static and experience plays a major role in gene expression.  For example, maternal behavior can act as a mechanism that alters gene expression.

An interesting question is, How has research demonstrated the importance of love? 

Get Involved & Save American Kids: Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution

p://www.jamieoliver.com/campaigns/jamies-food-revolution/petition

Recipes for Schools

Recipes which Jamie and his school team have developed in Huntington, WV. Cooked from scratch with fresh ingredients by the lunch ladies, they meet school meal nutrition standards and the local budget. Watch out! They’re catering portions.

sign the petition http://www.jamieoliver.com/campaigns/jamies-food-revolution/petition

Jamie Olivers Food Revolution

The unhealthiest city in America gets the Jamie Oliver beat down: “this is the fat consumed by a school for an entire year…the disgusting, slippery, saturated fat.”

Physiology “Sciencified” Psychology

For half of the twentieth century, psychology was dominated by behaviorism.  Ivan Pavlov in the early 1900s, Watson in the 1920s, and Skinner in the late 1940s directed the field and focused explicitly on how behaviors were learned through rewards and punishments.  Nevertheless, psychologists were questioning the zeitgeist of that particular period of history; Tolman in 1948 and Bandura in 1961 diverged from the norm.

The aforementioned authors were part of a handful of studies that changed psychology: Pavlov launched psychology into a true science, Watson demonstrated where emotions can come from, skinner gave us radical behaviorism, Bandura showed that behaviors can be shaped by simply observing and imitating the behaviors of others, and Tolman demonstrated that mental processes, such as cognitive learning, could be studied.  The latter two are important because most of psychology up until that point focused on behaviorism; in other words, observable behavior.  However, Tolman devised a study that helped him investigate the mind—hitherto, was rejected as a subject matter for scientific investigation.

Google Maps Launch and Iterate: Bike Routes

Need biking directions? Google just reported “the most requested addition to Google Maps” will be added during the National Bike Summit in Washington, D.C.

[Google] “The best part about this new dataset is that we’ve been able to add a lot of new, detailed information to Google Maps – information that helps people better explore and get around the real world. For example, college students will be pleased to see maps of many campuses; and cyclists will now find many more trails and paths to explore. Soon we even plan on providing you with biking directions to take advantage of this new data. Of course, in the true Google spirit of “launch and iterate,” we plan to work with more data sources to add new features in the map.”

Life Cycle of the Sun

Dont let the opportunity pass you by: it will never be the same

It is important that you observe novel environments as immediately as possible and with the greatest possible detail because never again will you experience the setting as so utterly unfamiliar.

The Bell Curve: Banks and Risk

Have you wondered why math class is so important in high school? Well, it is to prepare you for the real world. If I had to guess, financial institutions struggled with statistics 101. The short video is in regards to the vulnerability banks put themselves in and what needs to change to reduce future risk.

Minute-by-Minute Coverage: Noam Chomsky introduced by Amy Goodman: Obama Administration and The U.S. Foreign Policy

12:15pm
[Amy Goodman takes stage]
12:20pm
Forgiving Haiti’s financial debt: It is America who should seek forgiveness from Haiti, not the other way around.
12:29pm
Amy Goodman: it’s interesting what one lecture from Noam Chomsky will provide compared to 24 hours 7 days a week of mass media–who knows so little about so much.
12:32pm
Being in power with information–that is what Noam Chomsky gives us everyday.
12:34pm
[Noam Chomsky takes stage]
12:35pm
Obama has a grand vision–contrary to Bush–but has had limited success in practice
12:40pm
In 2007 the majority of Americans were ok with Iran building nuclear energy. After several years if propoganda, that may have changed.
12:42pm
Leaders in U.S. express (in regards to Iran) “We must keep all options open”–which is a threat of force (contrary UN regulations).

Campus Technology

Who’s Pushing New Technology?