Fun Time! LEGO Architecture Studio!

If you follow this blog, you know I love LEGO toys. Not just for kids, LEGO can spur the imagination and creative skills of almost anyone. This great new kit is designed to unleash the inner architect in you. It contains more than 1200 white and clear pieces and a 272 page guidebook with lots of ideas from real architects for the budding building designer. $149 available directly from LEGO.

AsapSCIENCE

Every week AsapSCIENCE produces an informative, easy to understand animated video about a science subject. Their videos are especially useful for young students.

They've covered human mating, whether or not we could stop an asteroid about to hit the Earth and the chicken and egg controversy. They've even done a video on the poop cycle. I've run several of their videos on this blog.

Here's a video on the Science of AsapSCIENCE. Here's a link to their Facebook and Twitter pages.

Is Human Language Half A Million Years Old?

A recent study suggests that human language might be much older than is currently thought, perhaps dating back as far as half a million years.

"In sum, the evidence points to modern speech capacities in the common ancestor of Neandertals and modern humans. The auditory specializations for speech on the modern bandwidth are present, the morphology of the larynx looks modern, and air sacs have been replaced by a finely controlled pulmonic airstream mechanism for vocalization. In addition, the gene that is known to be involved in the fine motor control necessary for speech, FOXP2, has its modern form (although possibly not all of its modern regulatory environment)."

In fact, Authors Dan Dediu and Stephen C. Levinson argue that Neanderthals had significant language capability and probably influenced modern human language in ways that we can detect today.

I have often contemplated that human civilization is much older than thought and the beginnings of language would be one hint. Maybe this isn't just all talk.

Travel Photo of the Week

Monticello, Charlottesville, Virginia

Birth Of A Book

I was surprised at how much was still done by hand. I found this on Lloyd's Blog.

Portraits Painted With Coffee On Century-Old Ledger Paper By Michael Aaron Williams

There's more at the website Colossal.

America, The Mentally Ill

In discussions with my wife (who is a psychologist), I have often said that I believe 85% of the American population is mentally ill. It looks like I may have lowballed it.

From the article "Living in America will drive you insane — literally" on Salon....

"For many of us, society has become increasingly alienating, isolating and insane, and earning a buck means more degrees, compliance, ass-kissing, shit-eating, and inauthenticity. So, we want to rebel. However, many of us feel hopeless about the possibility of either our own escape from societal oppression or that political activism can create societal change. So, many of us, especially young Americans, rebel by what is commonly called mental illness."

"The tally of those who are so disabled by mental disorders that they qualify for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) increased nearly two and a half times between 1987 and 2007—from 1 in 184 Americans to 1 in 76. For children, the rise is even more startling—a thirty-five-fold increase in the same two decades."

"We discovered two astonishing things about the rate of depression across the century. The first was there is now between ten and twenty times as much of it as there was fifty years ago. And the second is that it has become a young person’s problem. When I first started working in depression thirty years ago. . . the average age of which the first onset of depression occurred was 29.5. . . .Now the average age is between 14 and 15."

"In 2011, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that antidepressant use in the United States has increased nearly 400% in the last two decades, making antidepressants the most frequently used class of medications by Americans ages 18-44 years. By 2008, 23% of women ages 40–59 years were taking antidepressants."

The article goes on to point out unreasonable expectations, over-diagnosis of psychiatric disorders and attendant over-medication, social isolation and the pathologizing of normal behaviors as driving this epidemic.

We have a problem. What are we going to do about it? Use the opportunity to profit financially, as we're doing now, or fix it.

Fun Time! Bear Take Out!

The first video shows a bear searching through a dumpster and deciding there are so many goodies inside that acquisition of the entire haul is necessary. The next video shows said bear coming back for seconds.

Rising Global Temperatures = More Violence

According to a new study in the journal Science, a warming planet is related to an increase of civil violence. Drawing from archaeology, criminology, economics, geography, history, political science, and psychology the study's author's shows that when the temperature goes up, so do the tempers. They found that for every degree of temperature rise there is a 4% rise in interpersonal violence and that poorer populations are more vulnerable to this effect.

Why would this be? The answer seems to be that shifts in climate influence agricultural and economic productivity and especially food prices. The study also notes that there are "mental and physical responses to rising temperatures, which need further scientific investigation" and that "climatic events may alter individuals' ability to reason and correctly interpret events, possibly leading to conflicts triggered by misunderstandings."

Will this have any effect on the climate change denying, hotheaded, Tea Party Republicans? It might might be inferred that it already has.

World's Best Ecolodges

Nice view, huh?

Want to go on a vacation? Tired of seeing the waste and environmental degradation caused by theme parks, cruise ships? Why not take your next vacation at an ecolodge?

What's an ecolodge?

An ecolodge is a vacation spot that has very little ecological impact on it's surroundings. Many engage the vacationer to improve the communities in which they are located.

This link will take you to a listing of the 25 best ecolodges as rated by National Geographic.

Tread lightly on the Earth that future generations may enjoy it's beauty and splendor.