My name is Amanda. I live in Tallahassee, Florida in the United States.
Sometimes I draw things. Sometimes I post things that are not as funny as I thought they were. Mostly I just reblog Carl Sagan related gibberish. Also, banjos are cool.
Prepare for randomness and geekery.
"MY ARTES"
THINGS I MADE AKA MINE
DOCTOR WHO
CARL SAGAN
trolls are trolling this tumblr.
awesomepeoplehangingouttogether:
Bill Nye the Science Guy and the Mythbusters.
this makes me cry. just. all of this.
there’s just so much science all packed into this one post
SCIENCE.
(via scottishbitch)
Sort of crazy that guy even got a show when we all know stars are just the holes in Satan’s cape letting in Jesus rays.
Stanford’s Carol S. Dweck on how the two different mindsets, Fixed and Growth, pave different pathways to success and lead to a deterministic view of the world or a greater sense of free will, respectively. From Taschen’s Information Graphics.
(Source: , via moloweez)
![thevalidfallacy:
contemplatingmadness:
10 of the Most Surprising Findings from Psychological Studies
Psychology has a reputation for being the science of common sense, or a field that simply confirms things we already know about ourselves.
One way of battling this misconception, explains Jeremy Dean — a PhD candidate in psychology and master of ceremonies at the always-awesome PsyBlog — is to “think about all the unexpected, surprising, and just plain weird findings that have popped out of psychology studies over the years.” Here are ten of his favorite examples.
10. Cognitive dissonance This is perhaps one of the weirdest and most unsettling findings in psychology. Cognitive dissonance is the idea that we find it hard to hold two contradictory beliefs, so we unconsciously adjust one to make it fit with the other.
In the classic study, students found a boring task more interesting if they were paid less to take part. Our unconscious reasons like this: if I didn’t do it for money, then I must have done it because it was interesting. As if by magic, a boring task becomes more interesting because otherwise I can’t explain my behaviour.
The reason it’s unsettling is that our minds are probably performing these sorts of rationalisations all the time, without our conscious knowledge. So how do we know what we really think?
9. Hallucinations are common Hallucinations are like waking dreams, and we tend to think of them as markers of serious mental illness. In reality, however, they are more common amongst ‘normal’ people than we might imagine. One-third of us report having experienced hallucinations, with 20% experiencing hallucinations once a month, and 2% once a week (Ohayon, 2000).
Similarly, ‘normal’ people often have paranoid thoughts, as in this study I reported previously in which 40% experienced paranoid thoughts on a virtual journey. The gap between people with mental illness and the ‘sane’ is a lot smaller than we’d like to think. [Illustration by S. Stalkfleet]
8. The placebo effect Perhaps you’ve had the experience that a headache improves seconds after you take an aspirin? This can’t be the drug because it takes at least 15 minutes to kick in.
That’s the placebo effect: your mind knows you’ve taken a pill, so you feel better. In medicine it seems strongest in the case of pain: some studies suggest a placebo of saline (salty water) can be as powerful as morphine. Some studies even suggest that 80% of the power of Prozac is placebo.
The placebo effect is counter-intuitive because we easily forget that mind and body are not separate.
7. Obedience to authority
Most of us like to think of ourselves as independently-minded people. We feel sure that we wouldn’t harm another human being unless under very serious duress. Certainly something as weak as being ordered to give someone an electric shock by an authority figure in a white coat wouldn’t be enough, would it?
Stanley Milgram’s famous study found it was. Sixty-three percent of participants kept giving electric shocks to another human being despite the victim screaming in agony and eventually falling silent. [The test setting is illustrated in the figure shown here, via]
Situations have huge power to control our behaviour, and it’s a power we don’t notice until it’s dramatically revealed in studies like this.
6. Fantasies reduce motivation One way people commonly motivate themselves is by using fantasies about the future. The idea is that dreaming about a positive future helps motivate you towards that goal.
Beware, though, psychologists have found that fantasising about future success is actually bad for motivation. It seems that getting a taste of the future in the here and now reduces the drive to achieve it. Fantasies also fail to flag up the problems we’re likely to face on the way to our goals.
So what’s a better way to commit to goals? Instead of fantasising, use mental contrasting.
5. Choice blindness We all know the reasons for our decisions, right? For example, do you know why you’re attracted to someone? Don’t be so sure. In one study, people were easily tricked into justifying choices they didn’t actually make about who they found attractive. Under some circumstances, we exhibit what is known as choice blindness: we seem to have little or no awareness of choices we’ve made and why we’ve made them. We then use rationalisations to try and cover our tracks.
This is just one example of the general idea that we have relatively little access to the inner workings of our minds. [Photo by Pablo Perez]
4. Two (or three, or four…) heads are not always better than one Want to think outside the box? Do some blue sky thinking? Want to… [insert your own least-favourite cliché here].
Well, according to psychological research, brainstorming doesn’t work. People in groups tend to be lazy, likely to forget their ideas while others talk, and worry about what others will think (despite the rule that ‘there are no bad ideas’).
It turns out it’s much better to send people off to think up new ideas on their own. Groups then do better at evaluating those ideas.
3. Trying to suppress your thoughts is counterproductive When you’re down or worried about something, people often say: “hey, try not to think about it; just put it out of your mind!”
This is very bad advice. Trying to suppress your thoughts is counter-productive. Like trying as hard as you can not to think about pink elephants or white bears. What people experience when they try to suppress their thoughts is an ironic rebound effect: the thought comes back stronger than before. Looking for distractions is a much better strategy.
2. Incredible multi-tasking skills Despite all the mind’s limitations, we can train it to do incredible things. Take our multitasking abilities, for example — did you know that, with practice, people can actually read and write at the same time?
One study of multitasking trained two volunteers over 16 weeks until they could read a short story and categorise lists of words at the same time. Eventually they could perform as well on both tasks at the same time as they could on each task individually before the study began.
Read a full description of the study, along with potential criticisms, here.
1. In life, it’s all about the little things We tend to think that the big events in our lives are the most important: graduation, getting married, or the birth of a child.
But major life events are often not as directly important to our well-being as the little hassles and uplifts of everyday life; major events, on the other hand, mainly affect us through the daily hassles and uplifts they produce. The same is true at work, where job satisfaction is strongly hit by everyday hassles.
What most affects people’s happiness are things like quality of sleep, little ups and downs at work and relationships with our friends and family. In other words: it’s the little things that make us happy.
Great List!](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m15j71ToRv1qcyo2po1_500.jpg)
10 of the Most Surprising Findings from Psychological Studies
Psychology has a reputation for being the science of common sense, or a field that simply confirms things we already know about ourselves.
One way of battling this misconception, explains Jeremy Dean — a PhD candidate in psychology and master of ceremonies at the always-awesome PsyBlog — is to “think about all the unexpected, surprising, and just plain weird findings that have popped out of psychology studies over the years.” Here are ten of his favorite examples.
10. Cognitive dissonance
This is perhaps one of the weirdest and most unsettling findings in psychology. Cognitive dissonance is the idea that we find it hard to hold two contradictory beliefs, so we unconsciously adjust one to make it fit with the other.In the classic study, students found a boring task more interesting if they were paid less to take part. Our unconscious reasons like this: if I didn’t do it for money, then I must have done it because it was interesting. As if by magic, a boring task becomes more interesting because otherwise I can’t explain my behaviour.
The reason it’s unsettling is that our minds are probably performing these sorts of rationalisations all the time, without our conscious knowledge. So how do we know what we really think?
9. Hallucinations are common
Hallucinations are like waking dreams, and we tend to think of them as markers of serious mental illness. In reality, however, they are more common amongst ‘normal’ people than we might imagine. One-third of us report having experienced hallucinations, with 20% experiencing hallucinations once a month, and 2% once a week (Ohayon, 2000).Similarly, ‘normal’ people often have paranoid thoughts, as in this study I reported previously in which 40% experienced paranoid thoughts on a virtual journey. The gap between people with mental illness and the ‘sane’ is a lot smaller than we’d like to think. [Illustration by S. Stalkfleet]
8. The placebo effect
Perhaps you’ve had the experience that a headache improves seconds after you take an aspirin? This can’t be the drug because it takes at least 15 minutes to kick in.That’s the placebo effect: your mind knows you’ve taken a pill, so you feel better. In medicine it seems strongest in the case of pain: some studies suggest a placebo of saline (salty water) can be as powerful as morphine. Some studies even suggest that 80% of the power of Prozac is placebo.
The placebo effect is counter-intuitive because we easily forget that mind and body are not separate.
7. Obedience to authority
Most of us like to think of ourselves as independently-minded people. We feel sure that we wouldn’t harm another human being unless under very serious duress. Certainly something as weak as being ordered to give someone an electric shock by an authority figure in a white coat wouldn’t be enough, would it?
Stanley Milgram’s famous study found it was. Sixty-three percent of participants kept giving electric shocks to another human being despite the victim screaming in agony and eventually falling silent. [The test setting is illustrated in the figure shown here, via]
Situations have huge power to control our behaviour, and it’s a power we don’t notice until it’s dramatically revealed in studies like this.
6. Fantasies reduce motivation
One way people commonly motivate themselves is by using fantasies about the future. The idea is that dreaming about a positive future helps motivate you towards that goal.Beware, though, psychologists have found that fantasising about future success is actually bad for motivation. It seems that getting a taste of the future in the here and now reduces the drive to achieve it. Fantasies also fail to flag up the problems we’re likely to face on the way to our goals.
So what’s a better way to commit to goals? Instead of fantasising, use mental contrasting.
5. Choice blindness
We all know the reasons for our decisions, right? For example, do you know why you’re attracted to someone? Don’t be so sure. In one study, people were easily tricked into justifying choices they didn’t actually make about who they found attractive. Under some circumstances, we exhibit what is known as choice blindness: we seem to have little or no awareness of choices we’ve made and why we’ve made them. We then use rationalisations to try and cover our tracks.This is just one example of the general idea that we have relatively little access to the inner workings of our minds. [Photo by Pablo Perez]
4. Two (or three, or four…) heads are not always better than one
Want to think outside the box? Do some blue sky thinking? Want to… [insert your own least-favourite cliché here].Well, according to psychological research, brainstorming doesn’t work. People in groups tend to be lazy, likely to forget their ideas while others talk, and worry about what others will think (despite the rule that ‘there are no bad ideas’).
It turns out it’s much better to send people off to think up new ideas on their own. Groups then do better at evaluating those ideas.
3. Trying to suppress your thoughts is counterproductive
When you’re down or worried about something, people often say: “hey, try not to think about it; just put it out of your mind!”This is very bad advice. Trying to suppress your thoughts is counter-productive. Like trying as hard as you can not to think about pink elephants or white bears. What people experience when they try to suppress their thoughts is an ironic rebound effect: the thought comes back stronger than before. Looking for distractions is a much better strategy.
2. Incredible multi-tasking skills
Despite all the mind’s limitations, we can train it to do incredible things. Take our multitasking abilities, for example — did you know that, with practice, people can actually read and write at the same time?One study of multitasking trained two volunteers over 16 weeks until they could read a short story and categorise lists of words at the same time. Eventually they could perform as well on both tasks at the same time as they could on each task individually before the study began.
Read a full description of the study, along with potential criticisms, here.
1. In life, it’s all about the little things
We tend to think that the big events in our lives are the most important: graduation, getting married, or the birth of a child.But major life events are often not as directly important to our well-being as the little hassles and uplifts of everyday life; major events, on the other hand, mainly affect us through the daily hassles and uplifts they produce. The same is true at work, where job satisfaction is strongly hit by everyday hassles.
What most affects people’s happiness are things like quality of sleep, little ups and downs at work and relationships with our friends and family. In other words: it’s the little things that make us happy.
Great List!
(via project-argus)
I see no reason for this to end badly.Woolly mammoth cloning deal signed.
A joint research deal was signed yesterday between North-Eastern Federal University of the Sakha Republic in Russia and South Korea’s Sooam Biotech Research Foundation, marking the beginning of a project to clone cells from woolly mammoth remains recovered from Siberian permafrost.
As previously reported here, a mammoth could be born in five years if successful. The team will replace the nuclei of Indian elephant egg with the cloned mammoth DNA. The fertilised egg will then be placed in the womb of the Indian elephant for 600 day gestation period and birth.
While cloning extinct animals is controversial enough already, the team also includes Hwang Woo-Suk, who was found to have falsified data in a past stem cell research “breakthrough”.
(Source: ibtimes.com, via thehighestkite)
Terrence McKenna would love this.What’s the largest living organism?
The elephant? The blue whale? The T-Rex? No. The largest ever living organism is a mushroom. And not even a particularly rare one. The Armillaria ostoyae or ‘Honey fungus’ is very common, and is probably in your garden as we speak. However, lets hope it doesn’t grow as large as the largest ever recorded specimen, in Malheur National forest, in Oregon. It covers 2,200 acres (890 hectares)!! And is between 2,000 and 8,000 years old!! The majority of the organism is under ground, in the form of a massive mat of tentacle-like mycelia (the mushroom’s equivalent of roots). The giant honey fungus was originally thought to grow in different clusters around the forest, but researches have confirmed it is in fact one very, very large single organism.
(via nellymirikitani)
DMT: The Spirit Molecule
I watched this documentary this week. It provided a wealth of information on DMT. From the science of how it works, to it’s uses throughout history and various cultures, to accounts of those that have experimented with it first hand. I highly recommend this to anyone that has ever wanted to know more about DMT and how it can effect the human brain and “spirit”.
It’s on netflix streaming. Check it out!
Time LordMan with two hearts survives double-sized attackAt first there didn’t seem to be anything unusual about the man who, in 2010, reported to a Verona, Italy emergency room. He was short of breath, sweating, and had low blood pressure – cardiovascular trouble, no doubt. E.R. doctors see similar symptoms all the time.
But this man was very different indeed. He had two hearts.
“We haven’t ever seen anything similar to this case before,” Dr. Giacomo Mugnai said in an email.
It turned out that a few years earlier, the man had undergone a procedure known as a heterotopic heart transplant. Unlike an orthotopic transplant, in which one organ is removed and another put in its place, a heterotopic transplant pairs a new organ with a diseased one.
“We see this in cardiac patients or kidney patients, sometimes,” explained Dr. Rade Vukmir, professor of emergency medicine at Temple University and a spokesman for the American College of Emergency Physicians. “Surgeons might leave a kidney in place if it’s too much trouble to take out, or if there is hope for recovery of a kidney, or a heart, after a period of time” of being helped by the new organ.
In the case of the ailing Italian, reported in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, the transplant team had mated his new heart with his malfunctioning old one. Chambers and blood vessels of the two hearts were married so that the new heart could support the old one….
(via thealmightykatt)
![cwnl:
whatihavefoundtoday:
From Wikipedia - Lynn Margulis (March 5, 1938 – November 22, 2011[1]) was an American biologist and University Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.[2] She is best known for her theory on the origin of eukaryotic organelles, and her contributions to the endosymbiotic theory, which is now generally accepted for how certain organelles were formed. She is also associated with the Gaia hypothesis, based on an idea developed by the English environmental scientist James Lovelock.
—
I first heard about Margulis in my Introduction to Plant Biology class. Like any good scientist, she put her neck out there and stirred up some controversy; her death is a loss to everyone.
Even though it was last month, it still makes me pretty sad whenever I hear news of a scientist passing away. We severely need more women like Lynn, passionate about her work while inciting ideas that really make people think about life.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lv7o3sNY5o1qbi1ivo1_400.jpg)
cwnl:
From Wikipedia - Lynn Margulis (March 5, 1938 – November 22, 2011[1]) was an American biologist and University Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.[2] She is best known for her theory on the origin of eukaryotic organelles, and her contributions to the endosymbiotic theory, which is now generally accepted for how certain organelles were formed. She is also associated with the Gaia hypothesis, based on an idea developed by the English environmental scientist James Lovelock.
—
I first heard about Margulis in my Introduction to Plant Biology class. Like any good scientist, she put her neck out there and stirred up some controversy; her death is a loss to everyone.
Even though it was last month, it still makes me pretty sad whenever I hear news of a scientist passing away. We severely need more women like Lynn, passionate about her work while inciting ideas that really make people think about life.
(via ikenbot)
cwnl:
Great surprise for both all of you and myself included! Nick Sagan just agreed to do the Q&A interview for this blog! I am beyond excited and happy right now.
Basically I wanted to ask him some questions revolving science, sci-fi, and the role these two have in our culture as well as what more can they do for it and our society. Of course, I’m going to want your help in picking out questions to ask him, so to be fair, I’m going to ask him exactly 10 questions. 5 of these questions will be of my own, and the other 5 will be picked out from the best suggestions you guys make right here.
To help you and your suggestions try this, think up 5 of your own questions. Then pick out the one that stands out most to you that you’d want to ask. And remember to please keep it relevant to the subjects mentioned. And also remember that while Nick is the son of Carl Sagan, he is his own person and has different interests.
So guys, what would you like to ask Nick Sagan?
(Source: ikenbot)
