Jellied brains

Jellied brains
http://livescience.com/17800-preserved-brains-mental-disorders.html
Hundreds of canning jars full of yellow liquid and chunks of human
brains have been sitting on a shelf in the Indiana Medical History
Museum. The specimens were collected during autopsies between
1896 to 1938 when the museum use to be the Central Indiana
Hospital for the Insane. Medical pathologist George Sandusky
started studying the brains during the summer of 2010 looking
for genes that contribute to mental disorders. These brain
samples are not tainted by modern psychiatric drugs. The samples
are preserved in celloidin and it took the team a year to figure out
how to extract DNA from the tissues. Sandusky is working on
screening the DNA for genetic glitches associated with
schizophrenia. If the technique works, old collections around the
country could be studied.

working with old brains seems a little creepy, all alone in a lab filled with jars of seventy year old brains is just creepy and would freak me out

Males and females equal in math

Males and females equal in math
http://www.sciencedaily.eom/releases/2011/12/111212153123.html
A new study of international data on school mathematics
performance debunks the myth that males are better
than females at math due to biology. The researchers state
that the differences in math scores are due to sociocultural
factors that differ among countries. The study was published
in Notices of the American Mathematical Society Dec. 12, 2011,
authored by Janet Mertz, PhD and Jonathan Kane, PhD from the
University of Wisconsin. The study used data from 86 countries
from the 2007 Trends in International Mathematics and Science
Study and the 2009 Programme in International Student Assessment.
The researchers found that boys and girls tend to do better in
countries where females have better equality. The United States
only ranked 31st in the 2009 Programme in International Student
Assessment, below most Western and East-Asian countries.
The researchers recommended increasing the number of mathcertified
teachers in middle and high schools, decreasing the
number of children living in poverty and ensuring gender equality.
It seems like the U.S. should have ranked higher than 31, but the
U.S. also ranked 31st in the 2009 Global Gender Gap Report.
It would be interesting to see where the US students rank today now
that the US has improved to 19 in the Global Gender Gap Report.
The researchers felt gender inequality was the main reason for
poorer math scores for both sexes.

Rats demonstrate empathy

Rats demonstrate empathy
www.livescience.com/17378-rats-show-empathy,html
A study published in the December 8, 2010, issue of Science by
neuroscientist Peggy Mason from the University of Chicago found
rats exhibit empathy. The research team housed pairs of rats for two
weeks to let them create a friendly bond. Then they were placed in a
closed test arena daily with one rat free to roam and the other
enclosed in a clear tube that could only be opened from the outside.
The free rat was able to suppress its natural response or emotional
contagion to the caged rat's fear and began exploring the arena.
After an average of seven days, the free rat learned to free its friend
from the tube without any rewards involved. The free rat even released
the captive rat if it led into a separate arena. To the researchers surprise,
when the free rat was presented with a rat-holding container and a container
holding chocolate, the rat opened both containers and shared its
favorite snack. Empathy has been associated with humans and other
primates, but now research shows that rats are also capable of helping
other rats. Mason is not sure if the rats are acting to relieve their own
distress or the distress of their cage-mates, but would like to study
it further and determine if the rats would behave the same if they
were not cage-mates first.

Forgetting

Resource: http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/tp/explanations-for-forgetting.htm

There are a few ways that we as people will forget certain things. The best question is to ask why do we forget? Well there are four explanations. The first one is retrieval failure. Retrieval failure may stem from one of the forgetting theories called decay theory. This basically explains that if one does not spend practice or need the use of the information, it soon will decay and disappear from memory. The second way to forget is interference. This basically means that another memory or piece of information is bothering with your learning or recall. There are specifically two types, proactive interference and retroactive interference. Proactive means it is difficult to remember a new memory because something that you learned before is bother you. Retroactive means the opposite in which a new memory is blocking the way for an old memory to be remembered. The third time is a basic one. Sometimes it is a failure to store information that stops someone from remembering. The final type of forgetting is motivated forgetting. This speaks of suppression which is a conscious form and repressed is a unconscious form. It could be it is a traumatic event that makes this person motivated to forget the memory that haunts them.

Memories can be helpful or damaging. This little article gave me the basic information necessary to complete my curiosity, but if I were more interested I would need more information. Knowing the ways to forget can help us change reverse the effects and may be make sure we remember.

Personality Types

Resource: http://www.personalitypathways.com/type_inventory.html

There have been ways to organize and build personality types. One of these ways is utilized by the Meyers Briggs Personality Test. It is called the Cognitive Style Inventory. They are a combination of four letter which create one type of personality, there are sixteen types of personality. One of the letter is Extraverted (E) vs Introverted (I). Extraverted is getting stimulus or energy from outside activities such as socializing, and Introverted is the opposite where getting energy is from one's ideas or thoughts. The second pair of choices is Sensing (S) vs Intuitive (N). Sensing is knowing what is there, and Intuitive is trying to understand why is it there. Basically sensing is taking it in and intuitive is an understanding trait. The third pair of letters is Thinking (T) vs Feeling (F). Thinking is when the part of us wants to deduce and use reason rather than feeling where our opinions and impacts from others may be used to make the decision. The last pair of letters is the Judging (J) vs Perceiving (P). Judging is a person who will more likely stay with a plan and stick to a hard schedule while the perceiving will be able to improvise or change or make something a long the way.

I found this website very interesting. Not only am I a fanatic about personality, but it interests me to see that personality can be organized. This knowledge may help someone get to the correct career for them. This can utilized to find a way to look for one's ups and downs, and then he or she can take advantage of a job where it will be easier for them. It can also be helpful for pointing who can be compatible, even just as friends and tell us why it seems like there the worst enemies of all time. Overall it can very interesting to know your personality.

Death & Dying

Death is something that will hit every person at some point in their life. Although some of us will die in ways out of our control, and most of us will not expect the moment of someones death. Still, death and dying can be seen in a healthy way. Understanding that people are different in how they think about death and dying, and respecting those differences, can create a peaceful death and a healthy manner of dying.

When someone dies it is most likely for family or friends to fulfull the dying person's wishes. If the person is dying from an illness, ideally, they will have already made decisions about how to live and die. If the requests they have asked for is made and does not seem practical to the caregiver, options should be raised with the dying individual to try to come up with anther request and still provide good care. If the dying individual has not been able to participate in making final plans, you should strive to do what this person would want.

If the individual is in a hospice, they might just want a natural death. In this situation, they will try to be there for them as much a possible for their final days and moments of life. Comforting family and friends around them and making each last moment the best will make the best kind of ending for them and will move toward a more natural kind of death.

B Vitamins and the Brain

Vitamin B is an excellent vitamin for improving brain function, growth, and even decrease the rate of brain damage. Certain varieties of B vitamins have shown to decrease the rate of brain damage in people with memory issues by roughly half, which is obviously a great ability. The only issue here is that B vitamins usually only affects mild memory disorders, although it does show some potential in Alzheimer's treatment, or at least can delay the precursor to Alzheimer's, since mild memory loss is a frequent sign of the disease. B vitamins are great ways to stay healthy mentally, along with many other vitamins.