///////////////The Importance of Being FrightenedScienceNOW News June 16, 2008*************************Emotional facial expressions confera survival advantage, University ofToronto researchers have found,using vision and breathing tests.(J. Susskind and A.Anderson/University of Toronto) Afearful visage improves peripheralvision, speeds up eye movement, andboosts air flow, potentiallyallowing a person to more quicklysense and...http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8914&m=33138
//////////////BTO-KOSM-AMIDOS-BTKAT-120 L
////////////////I quit being afraid when my first venture failed and the sky didn't fall down.
— Allen H. Neuharth
— Allen H. Neuharth
//////////////////////////ART OF FRUGAL LIVING
Frugality and thrift allow us to emphasize those things that are most important in our lives. When we restrict our spending on the unimportant, we’re able to indulge ourselves on the things that matter most.
And what about sacrificing now when the future is so uncertain? I think this is a fallacy on a couple of levels. First of all, spending is not happiness. If it is, there’s something wrong. Second, most of us are likely to live a long time. Which would you rather do?
Prepare for a long life by saving and investing, but then die tomorrow.
Spend money you don’t have now, and then be unable to afford what you need when you’re older.
I’d prefer the former. Kris and I make sacrifices, but we’re not miserable. In fact, frugal folks are some of the happiest people I know. They spend money on the things that are important, and they save for the future.
And what about sacrificing now when the future is so uncertain? I think this is a fallacy on a couple of levels. First of all, spending is not happiness. If it is, there’s something wrong. Second, most of us are likely to live a long time. Which would you rather do?
Prepare for a long life by saving and investing, but then die tomorrow.
Spend money you don’t have now, and then be unable to afford what you need when you’re older.
I’d prefer the former. Kris and I make sacrifices, but we’re not miserable. In fact, frugal folks are some of the happiest people I know. They spend money on the things that are important, and they save for the future.
///////////////////SAY ,DONT SPRAY IT
////////////////////YOUNG ME -NOW ME
///////////////////////ABANDON RESPONSIBILITY-ACCEPT FRIVOLITY
//////////////////YOUR PRIORITY-THEIR OPTION
//////////////////Sarcasm Seen as Evolutionary Survival Skill
By Meredith F. Small, LiveScience's Human Nature Columnist
posted: 20 June 2008 09:42 am ET
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Meredith F. Small is an anthropologist at Cornell University and is also the author of "Our Babies, Ourselves; How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent" and "The Culture of Our Discontent; Beyond the Medical Model of Mental Illness." Her Human Nature column appears each Friday on LiveScience.
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Meredith F. Small is an anthropologist at Cornell University and is also the author of "Our Babies, Ourselves; How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent" and "The Culture of Our Discontent; Beyond the Medical Model of Mental Illness." Her Human Nature column appears each Friday on LiveScience.
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Humans are fundamentally social animals. Our social nature means that we interact with each other in positive, friendly ways, and it also means we know how to manipulate others in a very negative way.
Neurophysiologist Katherine Rankin at the University of California, San Francisco, has also recently discovered that sarcasm, which is both positively funny and negatively nasty, plays an important part in human social interaction.
So what?
I mean really, who cares? Oh for God's sake. Don’t you have anything better to do that read this column?
According to Dr. Rankin, if you didn’t get the sarcastic tone of the previous sentences you must have some damage to your parahippocampal gyrus which is located in the right brain. People with dementia, or head injuries in that area, often lose the ability to pick up on sarcasm, and so they don’t respond in a socially appropriate ways.
Presumably, this is a pathology, which in turn suggests that sarcasm is part of human nature and probably an evolutionarily good thing.
How might something so, well, sarcastic as sarcasm, be part of the human social toolbox?
Evolutionary biologists claim that sociality is what has made humans such a successful species. We are masters at what anthropologists and others call "social intelligence." We recognize and keep track of hundreds of relationships, and we easily distinguish between enemies and friends.
More important, we run our lives by social calculation. A favor is mentally recorded and paid back, sometimes many years later. Likewise, insults are marked down on the mental score card in indelible ink. And we are constantly bickering and making up, even with people we love.
Sarcasm, then, is a verbal hammer that connects people in both a negative and positive way. We know that sense of humor is important to relationships; if someone doesn't get your jokes, they aren't likely to be your friend (or at least that's my bottom line about friendship). Sarcasm is simply humor's dark side, and it would be just as disconcerting if a friend didn’t get your snide remarks.
It's also easy to imagine how sarcasm might be selected over time as evolutionarily crucial. Imagine two ancient humans running across the savannah with a hungry lion in pursuit. One guy says to the other, "Are we having fun yet?" and the other just looks blank and stops to figure out what in the world his pal meant by that remark. End of friendship, end of one guy's contribution to the future of the human gene pool.
Fast forward a few million years and the network of human relationships is wider and more complex, and just as important to survival. The corporate chairman throws out a sarcastic remark and those who "get" it laugh, smile, and gain favor. In the same way, if the chair never makes a remark, sarcastic people are making them behind his or her back, forming a clique by their mutually negative, but funny, comments. Either way, sarcasm plays a role in making and breaking alliances and friendship.
Thanks goodness, because life without out sarcasm would be a dull and way too nice place to be, if you ask me.
By Meredith F. Small, LiveScience's Human Nature Columnist
posted: 20 June 2008 09:42 am ET
var URI = escape(document.URL);
var url = escape('/history/080620-hn-sarcasm.html');
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Meredith F. Small is an anthropologist at Cornell University and is also the author of "Our Babies, Ourselves; How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent" and "The Culture of Our Discontent; Beyond the Medical Model of Mental Illness." Her Human Nature column appears each Friday on LiveScience.
Full Size
1 of 1
Meredith F. Small is an anthropologist at Cornell University and is also the author of "Our Babies, Ourselves; How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent" and "The Culture of Our Discontent; Beyond the Medical Model of Mental Illness." Her Human Nature column appears each Friday on LiveScience.
var related_images = new related_module();
Humans are fundamentally social animals. Our social nature means that we interact with each other in positive, friendly ways, and it also means we know how to manipulate others in a very negative way.
Neurophysiologist Katherine Rankin at the University of California, San Francisco, has also recently discovered that sarcasm, which is both positively funny and negatively nasty, plays an important part in human social interaction.
So what?
I mean really, who cares? Oh for God's sake. Don’t you have anything better to do that read this column?
According to Dr. Rankin, if you didn’t get the sarcastic tone of the previous sentences you must have some damage to your parahippocampal gyrus which is located in the right brain. People with dementia, or head injuries in that area, often lose the ability to pick up on sarcasm, and so they don’t respond in a socially appropriate ways.
Presumably, this is a pathology, which in turn suggests that sarcasm is part of human nature and probably an evolutionarily good thing.
How might something so, well, sarcastic as sarcasm, be part of the human social toolbox?
Evolutionary biologists claim that sociality is what has made humans such a successful species. We are masters at what anthropologists and others call "social intelligence." We recognize and keep track of hundreds of relationships, and we easily distinguish between enemies and friends.
More important, we run our lives by social calculation. A favor is mentally recorded and paid back, sometimes many years later. Likewise, insults are marked down on the mental score card in indelible ink. And we are constantly bickering and making up, even with people we love.
Sarcasm, then, is a verbal hammer that connects people in both a negative and positive way. We know that sense of humor is important to relationships; if someone doesn't get your jokes, they aren't likely to be your friend (or at least that's my bottom line about friendship). Sarcasm is simply humor's dark side, and it would be just as disconcerting if a friend didn’t get your snide remarks.
It's also easy to imagine how sarcasm might be selected over time as evolutionarily crucial. Imagine two ancient humans running across the savannah with a hungry lion in pursuit. One guy says to the other, "Are we having fun yet?" and the other just looks blank and stops to figure out what in the world his pal meant by that remark. End of friendship, end of one guy's contribution to the future of the human gene pool.
Fast forward a few million years and the network of human relationships is wider and more complex, and just as important to survival. The corporate chairman throws out a sarcastic remark and those who "get" it laugh, smile, and gain favor. In the same way, if the chair never makes a remark, sarcastic people are making them behind his or her back, forming a clique by their mutually negative, but funny, comments. Either way, sarcasm plays a role in making and breaking alliances and friendship.
Thanks goodness, because life without out sarcasm would be a dull and way too nice place to be, if you ask me.
//////////////////////
This map shows the occurrence of fire activity in sub-Saharan Africa, determined by detection of the fire scar, for a seven year period 2000-2007. The frequency of fire occurrence is shown in the map, colour coded from regions that burnt once in the seven year period shown in green to regions that burnt during every year of the project shown in purple.A geographer from the University of Leicester has produced for the first time a map of the scorched Earth for every year since the turn of the Millennium.
Dr Kevin Tansey, of the Department of Geography, a leading scientist in an international team, created a visual impression of the fire scars on our planet between 2000 and 2007. The work was funded by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.
The map reveals that between 3.5 and 4.5 million km2 of vegetation burns on an annual basis. This is an area equivalent to the European Union (EU27) and larger than the country of India that is burnt every year.
This map shows the occurrence of fire activity in sub-Saharan Africa, determined by detection of the fire scar, for a seven year period 2000-2007. The frequency of fire occurrence is shown in the map, colour coded from regions that burnt once in the seven year period shown in green to regions that burnt during every year of the project shown in purple.A geographer from the University of Leicester has produced for the first time a map of the scorched Earth for every year since the turn of the Millennium.
Dr Kevin Tansey, of the Department of Geography, a leading scientist in an international team, created a visual impression of the fire scars on our planet between 2000 and 2007. The work was funded by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.
The map reveals that between 3.5 and 4.5 million km2 of vegetation burns on an annual basis. This is an area equivalent to the European Union (EU27) and larger than the country of India that is burnt every year.
This map shows the occurrence of fire activity in sub-Saharan Africa, determined by detection of the fire scar, for a seven year period 2000-2007. The frequency of fire occurrence is shown in the map, colour coded from regions that burnt once in the seven year period shown in green to regions that burnt during every year of the project shown in purple.A geographer from the University of Leicester has produced for the first time a map of the scorched Earth for every year since the turn of the Millennium.
Dr Kevin Tansey, of the Department of Geography, a leading scientist in an international team, created a visual impression of the fire scars on our planet between 2000 and 2007. The work was funded by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.
The map reveals that between 3.5 and 4.5 million km2 of vegetation burns on an annual basis. This is an area equivalent to the European Union (EU27) and larger than the country of India that is burnt every year.
This map shows the occurrence of fire activity in sub-Saharan Africa, determined by detection of the fire scar, for a seven year period 2000-2007. The frequency of fire occurrence is shown in the map, colour coded from regions that burnt once in the seven year period shown in green to regions that burnt during every year of the project shown in purple.A geographer from the University of Leicester has produced for the first time a map of the scorched Earth for every year since the turn of the Millennium.
Dr Kevin Tansey, of the Department of Geography, a leading scientist in an international team, created a visual impression of the fire scars on our planet between 2000 and 2007. The work was funded by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.
The map reveals that between 3.5 and 4.5 million km2 of vegetation burns on an annual basis. This is an area equivalent to the European Union (EU27) and larger than the country of India that is burnt every year.
////////////////// witty saying proves nothing. Voltaire
All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God. Voltaire
//////////////////////
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