I believe that one of the most common wishes is simply to feel more confident in various situations in life. But how?

"Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the face."
Helen Keller

"Whatever we expect with confidence becomes our own self-fulfilling prophecy."
Brian Tracy

"Confidence is courage at ease."
Daniel Maher

I believe that one of the most common wishes is simply to feel more confident in various situations in life.

But how?

Confident friends may say: "Well, just be confident, man!". However, to a person that doesn't feel that confident this piece of advice may not be very helpful. At all.

Here are however some time-tested and timeless advice. I hope you will find is useful to improve and maintain your own levels of confidence.

1. Take action. Get it done.

"Having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all costs of tedium and distaste. The gain in self-confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labor is immense."
Thomas A. Bennett

"Nothing builds self-esteem and self-confidence like accomplishment."
Thomas Carlyle

"Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy."
Dale Carnegie

The most important step in building self confidence is simply to take action. Working on something and getting it done. Sitting at home and thinking about it will just make you feel worse. Simple. But not always easy to do. To make it a bit easier, here are a three of my favourite ways to make it easer to take action:

• Be present. This will help you snap out of over thinking and just go and do whatever you want to get done. This is probably the best tip I have found so far for taking more action since it puts you in a state where you feel little emotional resistance to the work you'll do. And it puts you in state where the right actions often just seem to flow out of you in a focused but relaxed way and without much effort. One of the simplest ways to connect with the present moment is just to keep your focus on your breathing for a minute or two.
• Lighten up. One way to dissuade yourself from taking action is to take whatever you are about to do too seriously. That makes it feel too big, too difficult and too scary. If you on the other hand relax a bit and lighten up you often realize that those problems and negative feelings are just something you are creating in your own mind. With a lighter state of mind your tasks seems lighter and become easier to get started with.
• Really, really want it. Then taking action isn't something you have to force. Taking action becomes a very natural thing. It's something you can't wait to do.

2. Face your fear.

"The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear."
William Jennings Bryan

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do."
Eleanor Roosevelt

Look, I could tell you to do affirmations or other exercises for months in front of your mirror. It may have a positive effect. Just like preparing yourself it may help you to take action with more confidence.

But to be frank, if you don't listen to the quotes above and face your fears you won't experience any better self confidence on a deeper and more fundamental level. Having experiences where you face your fear is what really builds self confidence. There is no way around it.

However, there are ways to face your fears that do not include that much shaking of the knees. There are ways to make it easier for yourself.

• Be curious. When you are stuck in fear you are closed up. You tend to create division in your world and mind. You create barriers between you and other things/people. When you shift to being curious your perceptions go SWOOSH! and the world just opens up. Curiosity is filled with anticipation and enthusiasm. It opens you up. And when you are open and enthusiastic then you have more fun things to think about than focusing on your fear. How do you become more curious? One way is to remember how life has become more fun in the past thanks to your curiosity and to remember all the cool things it helped you to discover and experience.
• Realize that fear is often based on unhelpful interpretation. As humans we like to look for patterns. The problem is just that we often find negative and not so helpful patterns in our lives based on just one or two experiences. Or by misjudging situations. Or through some silly miscommunication. When you get too identified with your thoughts you'll believe anything they tell you. A more helpful practise may be to not take your thoughts too seriously. A lot of the time they and your memory are pretty inaccurate.

3. Realize that failure or being wrong will not kill you.

"Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong."
Peter T. Mcintyre

"I quit being afraid when my first venture failed and the sky didn't fall down."
Allen H. Neuharth

Again, you have to face your fear. Because it is only then that you discover the thing that billions of people throughout history have discovered before you. Failure won't kill you. Nor will being wrong. The sky will not fall down. That's just what people that haven't faced their fear yet think.

The thing is to reframe failure from being something that makes your legs shake to something useful and important for the growth of your self confidence and your overall growth as a human being. Here are four ways that failure can help you out:

• You learn. Instead of seeing failure as something horrible you can start to view it more as a learning experience. When standing in the middle of a failure, you can ask yourself questions like: What's awesome about this situation? What can I learn from this situation?
• You gain experiences you could not get any other way. Ideally, you probably want to learn from other people's mistakes and failures. That's not always easy to do though. Sometimes you just have to fail on your own to learn a lesson and to gain an experience no one can relate to you in mere words.
• You become stronger. Every time you fail you become more accustomed to it. You realize more and more that it's not the end of the world. And, again, you get desensitized. You can handle things that would have been very hard to handle a few years back. Failing can also a have an exhilarating component because even though you failed you at least took a chance. You didn't just sit on you hands doing nothing. And that took quite a bit of courage and determination.
• Your chances of succeeding increases. Every time you fail you can learn and increase your inner strength. So every failure can make you more and more likely to succeed.

And remember, the world doesn't revolve around you. You may like to think so. But it doesn't. People really don't care that much about what you do. They have their own life, problems and worries that the world revolves around them to focus on. They don't think that much about you or are constantly monitoring what you do wrong or when you fail.

Maybe a disappointing thought. But a liberating and relieving one too because now you can let go of that worry that everyone is watching you.

Copyright 2006-2011 Henrik Edberg

http://www.positivityblog.com/
Hällskriftsgatan 8B, Gothenburg, 02 41726, SWEDEN


This is quite possibly the simplest and most Zen flowchart I’ve ever seen.

What Does the "G" in G-String stands for?

For decades I’ve been asking girls “What does the G in G-strings stands for”. Finally while I was perusing through the world wide web, I’ve stumbled upon the answer.

The "G" in G-string may have originated in the Philippines.

Beyond referring to the string on a violin, the earliest known mention of the G-string comes from Americans in the Philippines in the 1800s, who described the native loincloths as "gee strings."

By 1878, Americans were applying the term to the loincloths worn by American Indians. Since the etymology is not known with certainty, the G could also stand for "groin" or "genitals."

The origins of "thong" are far clearer; the term derives from the Old English word for a flexible piece of leather, a thong.

Las night I slept like a little baby, because I finally found the answer to my eternal question. I finally know what the “G” stands for. Thank you my sensational world wide web.

Stephen Hawking: "Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution"

Although It has taken homo sapiens several million years to evolve from the apes, the useful information in our DNA, has probably changed by only a few million bits. So the rate of biological evolution in humans, Stephen Hawking points out in his Life in the Universe lecture, is about a bit a year.

"By contrast," Hawking says, "there are about 50,000 new books published in the English language each year, containing of the order of a hundred billion bits of information. Of course, the great majority of this information is garbage, and no use to any form of life. But, even so, the rate at which useful information can be added is millions, if not billions, higher than with DNA."

This means Hawking says that we have entered a new phase of evolution. "At first, evolution proceeded by natural selection, from random mutations. This Darwinian phase, lasted about three and a half billion years, and produced us, beings who developed language, to exchange information."

But what distinguishes us from our cave man ancestors is the knowledge that we have accumulated over the last ten thousand years, and particularly, Hawking points out, over the last three hundred.

"I think it is legitimate to take a broader view, and include externally transmitted information, as well as DNA, in the evolution of the human race," Hawking said.

In the last ten thousand years the human species has been in what Hawking calls, "an external transmission phase," where the internal record of information, handed down to succeeding generations in DNA, has not changed significantly. "But the external record, in books, and other long lasting forms of storage," Hawking says, "has grown enormously. Some people would use the term, evolution, only for the internally transmitted genetic material, and would object to it being applied to information handed down externally. But I think that is too narrow a view. We are more than just our genes."

The time scale for evolution, in the external transmission period, has collapsed to about 50 years, or less.

Meanwhile, Hawking observes, our human brains "with which we process this information have evolved only on the Darwinian time scale, of hundreds of thousands of years. This is beginning to cause problems. In the 18th century, there was said to be a man who had read every book written. But nowadays, if you read one book a day, it would take you about 15,000 years to read through the books in a national Library. By which time, many more books would have been written."

But we are now entering a new phase, of what Hawking calls "self designed evolution," in which we will be able to change and improve our DNA. "At first," he continues "these changes will be confined to the repair of genetic defects, like cystic fibrosis, and muscular dystrophy. These are controlled by single genes, and so are fairly easy to identify, and correct. Other qualities, such as intelligence, are probably controlled by a large number of genes. It will be much more difficult to find them, and work out the relations between them. Nevertheless, I am sure that during the next century, people will discover how to modify both intelligence, and instincts like aggression."

If the human race manages to redesign itself, to reduce or eliminate the risk of self-destruction, we will probably reach out to the stars and colonize other planets. But this will be done, Hawking believes, with intelligent machines based on mechanical and electronic components, rather than macromolecules, which could eventually replace DNA based life, just as DNA may have replaced an earlier form of life.

Casey Kazan

Article from The Daily Galaxy

We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.

Stephen Hawking, Der Spiegel, 1989

Don't read this. Danger. Back away. This story is toxic. Badder than bad. Not another word. We really mean it. Stop. This. Instant!

By Ken MacQueen

Still with us? Well then, maybe Danish marketing guru Martin Lindstrom is on to something with his latest book, Buy·ology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy. The book is the result of a US$7-million exploration of neuromarketing and the messy, unsettling and irrational processes that can determine votes, purchases and cigarette cravings. Do people, for example, smoke despite, or because of, health warning labels? Unlike the pseudoscientific supposition behind most marketing texts, Lindstrom went to the source: the human brain. He placed more than 2,000 volunteers in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanners to measure what ideas light up which parts of the brain.

For instance, most smokers claim tobacco health warning labels cause them to smoke less. Their brains, though, say otherwise. When locked in an fMRI and shown those labels, blood rushed to the brain's "craving spot." They wanted a smoke. "Warning labels intended to curb smoking, reduce cancer, and save lives had instead become a killer marketing tool for the tobacco industry," Lindstrom concludes.

A great self-marketer, his book pushes all the buttons. Does sex sell? No, but the controversy over sexy ads does. Is product placement in movies and TV effective? Rarely. Are focus groups useful? Not when what we say is trumped by our subconscious. And, yes, advertisements are still seeded with hidden subliminal messages. Scary stuff.

Lindstrom has just embarked on a 50-nation speaking tour to reveal "the brain's deepest secrets." Neuromarketing, he says, will "send shock waves throughout the advertising industries and businesses worldwide." You've been warned. Like that does any good.



Article from Macleans

 

Local artist Leah Hicks travels to Florence Italy to showcase work.

Leah Hicks a contemporary artist from Smiths Falls Ontario and co-owner of Compositions was invited to Florence Biennale 2011 8th Edition Dec. 3 to 11, 2011 to showcase her art

Leah's form of art initially began when she was attending art class during her teenage years. She took graphic design in college and continued to take various art classes to help develop her skills. Her favourite tools are probably her hands. Creating paintings with a wide range of mediums has led her to showing her work in many juried exhibitions such as Ottawa Artisans Guild, Ottawa Art Expo's, and La Petite Mort Gallery. Stories born of her travels coast onto canvas taking strong direction from the ebb and flow of her materials.

She says: "I don't try and force my will with a brush. We work together with the material."

The Florence Biennale show was founded in 1997 as a global convocation of artists with all their diversity. By the late 1990s, contemporary art was at a cross road. The old assumptions - that art came in waves, each named with an 'ism' by the end, that auction prices equal the value received, that painting was 'dead' and so on - were collapsing. Suddenly it was obvious that art was alive, thriving, and as varied as humanity. Artists are everywhere. Around that time, in the old Florence, something new was stirring. A committee of Italian artists and curators proposed a biennial where talented and recognized artists could exhibit their latest work. The artists would decide how they would exhibit their work. The risks were enormous: there had never been a show on this scale with a direct connection between artists' studios and the exhibition walls. The evaluation of unfiltered results would be assigned to an international jury. In 1997, with hardly any publicity, the invitations were sent. The response was impressive: 317 artists from 17 different countries. By 2003, the 4th Florence Biennale had grown into the world's most comprehensive exhibition of contemporary art, showing more than 800 artists from 70 different countries. This year's 8th Biennale builds on those numbers and broadens its horizons.

Artists at every stage of their careers, including the most eminent artists, play key roles at the Biennale. Their presence is the confirmation that the garden of art yields wondrous fruit when tilled by many hands.

The Biennale believes in promoting respect and tolerance among the world's artists. In 2001, the Biennale was recognized by the United Nations as an official partner in its program, Dialogue among Civilizations. In 2005 features its collaborative association with the Triennale of India, the most important contemporary art exhibition in Asia, and in 2003 with the Turku Biennale in Finland. The interaction of art and science is an ongoing theme of the Biennale. FB03 presented exhibitions of the Vatican Museums Conservation Laboratory and historic Ferrari racing cars. Streamlined speed was again seen in this 2005 show of classic motorcycles by Harley Davidson.

Leah Hick is one of only 6 Canadian artist was selected for going to this year event .

Louis Tremblay co-owner of Compositions in Smiths Falls and president of the newly formed Smiths Falls & District Arts & Culture Council (SFDACC) say's, "I am so happy and honoured to be part of Leah's amazing Journey, and Smiths Falls and the district should also be proud. It shows that anything is possible if you follow your dreams. It wasn't easy, but, as wise people say: "Anything worth while is never easy.""

You can see some of Leah Hicks art work at Compositions Art Gallery on 47 Main Street East.

also follow th following link to see more of her art.




The story was published in 6 different newspaper

10 Small Ways to Make the World a Better Place (and one of them is an amazing sex secret)

An important part of our growth and motivation as people lies in contributing to the greater good, being part of something greater than ourselves. While “making the world a better place” often calls to mind images of great leaders at the head of mighty social movements, white-coated researchers developing new medicines or energy sources, or geniuses dreaming up theories that explain the world around us, there is plenty of room for less lofty acts that create small measures of happiness in the lives of those around us. Little gestures can create or strengthen our sense of community and of shared humanity, lightening our burdens for just a moment and giving us something to smile about. And that’s no small matter.

Here are ten little gestures, all of them easily within our grasp, that can spread goodwill in our own communities, as well as increase our own sense of mindfulness about the people around us and our relationship to them.

1. Tip generously: As often as you can afford, leave a tip of 25%, 50%, 100%, or even more. (Obviously this applies mostly in countries where 15% tips are the norm.) Unless the service was simply awful – and even then, it might pay to consider what your server goes through – leaving as large a tip as you can afford not only puts a little extra extra money in your servers’ pocket, it tells them that they’re appreciated, a message that often slips our minds in our demanding, service-now society.

2. Compliment someone: Tell someone how much you like the job they’re doing, their outfit or new haircut, their singing voice – whatever. Be honest and sincere. I like to practice “drive-by compliments”, sending an out-of-the-blue email to someone whose website, post, or comment on a post I really liked. Don’t expect anything in return, just let someone know that something they’re doing works and move on.

3. Be totally open with someone: Let someone know exactly how you feel about something on your mind (though not something negative about them – there’s a different “protocol” for that sort of thing). We often keep too much to ourselves; letting someone into your confidence can be a great way to show your trust and appreciation of them. Of course, you have to judge what is and isn’t appropriate – it is possible to move past openness to dragging others into your problems, and that’s not making the world a better place.

4. Give someone a book you’ve read: Making a gift of something you’ve read and enjoyed is more than just a nice gesture, it’s a way of showing someone that a) you think of them, b) you understand them, and c) you want to share something with them. The moment doesn’t end when they take the book – once they’ve read it, you can talk about your reactions together. Don’t do this with people around you who don’t read, though – you’ll build up an obligation that will be painful for them to discharge.

5. Make something for someone: Bake an extra batch of cookies, draw a picture, decorate an extra Christmas ornament, and give it to someone for no good reason. Like giving someone a book, it tells them that you were thinking about them and wanted to do something nice for them, and that it’s something you made adds a nice touch. Give without expectations – whether they return the favor or not, whether they like it or not, whether they’re nice to you or not, these are all irrelevant.

6. Send a letter, email, tweet, or text message out of the blue: Email someone you haven’t spoken with for a while, or text someone you see every day just to be nice. Maybe they’ll respond, maybe not – it’s beside the point. They just need to know that they’re important to you.

7. Commend an employee to their manager: It’s one thing to tip or compliment someone for their service, it’s another to contact their manager and tell them what a great job they’ve done. If you don’t have time at the time of service, note the employees name and call, email, or write a letter later.

8. Teach someone how to do something: Share your skill or talent with someone by showing them how to do something. Not so they won’t bother you with it, but so they can move a little bit towards improved mastery of the world around them. Have patience and respect for the person you’re helping – you’re giving them a gift, not compensating for some lack in their character.

9. Let someone shine: Put a spotlight on someone else’s talents by letting them take over a presentation, deferring to their wisdom, asking them advice, or otherwise flex their “talent muscles”. Especially if they are junior to you, giving them a chance to strut their stuff shows that you trust them and appreciate them, as well as allowing them to get the attention they deserve (and which might often be obscured by your own shadow).

10. Connect like minds: Introduce two friends or colleagues who you feel have something to gain from each other. You’ll be letting them know you value them – and maybe creating a partnership that will make everyone better off.

You’ve probably heard the saying “Practice random acts of kindness”, and that’s basically what I’m talking about here. Anything that shows people you care about them – something we can be mighty stingy about most of the time – has the potential to make the world, or your small corner of it, a better place.

Do you have anything to add? What little gestures do you do, or have others done for you, that have brightened the world even just a little bit? Let us know in the comments.


article fromLifehack

 

I Know, I Know, and I'm sorry. There was no sex secret in this article, but I had to trick you facebook Nation to read... you know who you are... I promise I will not do it again

Please do leave a comment, but don't let people know about our little secret.

10 Golden Rules to Keep you Computer runnin Smoothly

Computing habits often have an effect on how well your computer runs. If you’re aware of what can hurt your computer’s performance, you can save yourself some aggravation by cutting down the time you have to wait for software to load or for Windows to boot. Here are ten ways to help your computer run smoothly!

1) Don't install Every Anti-Spyware and Anti-Virus Application You Can Find

If one is good, several have to be better, right? Some people think so. If you’re one of those people, this could be a very good reason why it takes forever to start the computer, open up your browser, or open up a Word document.

So, trim the fat. All you really need is one firewall, one anti-virus package, and a couple anti-spyware applications .I recommended kind that does not hog resources, such as Ad-Aware

Spybot

2) Don't Install Every Widget You Can Find

Widgets are cool. They can tell you the weather, they can tell you CPU utilization, they can display pictures of your family and friends, or they can even show you a map. But after a while, they tend to add up if you start to have a fair number of them all running at the same time (and especially if you have so many installed that you don’t really know what they’re for anymore), it’s time to get rid of a few.

3) Don't Have All Your Programs Run at Startup

It’s convenient to have everything load up when Windows starts. After all, you use Real Player, QuickTime, MSN, Y!, AIM, Steam, Office, and many more programs all the time. Unfortunately, you have to make 3 trips for coffee by the time you can actually see and use your desktop.

All the little icons you see in the system tray in the lower right near the clock load at start-up. You can either go to Start > Run > and type “msconfig” (without quotes) and go to the “Start-up” tab. Once there, stretch out the file patch. That should give a good hint as to what each program is. If you’re still stumped, do a Google search for the file name.

If a program still boots with Windows after taking it out of msconfig, hunt around in each program’s settings or preferences to turn off the option “automatically start when Windows starts” (or words to that effect).

4) Don't Visit Every Known Warez

and Pornography Site on the Internet (Especially Without Protection)

Nothing wrong with downloading some *cough* free stuff, right?

Chances are good that these sites are infested with viruses, Trojans, spyware, malware, and whatever else these guys can dream up. Your weakness for sites with these free goodies is your loss and their gain. Especially if you have no firewall, AV software, or spyware utilities installed (although, note Step #1 about overdoing it). It’s even more embarrassing when the neighborhood teenage techie tells you what caused the problems. Moral of the story? Be careful about wandering around in the Internet’s red light and underground districts.

Editor’s Note: If you do choose to lead this lifestyle, don’t use Internet Explorer. Porn sites are known to have secret ActiveX downloads that sneak onto your computer. Let’s call it a STD on the internet. The easy way to avoid the ActiveX problems is to use a browser that does not support ActiveX (Opera, Firefox). Earlier this week, I cleaned a machine with over 100 viruses on it. Let’s just say my customer had been doing some naughty things and his computer was watching.

5)Don't Install Every Piece of Shareware and Freeware You Can Find

Lots of people have software on their PCs to do all sorts of things. Some have many pieces of software that do the same thing. All these pieces of software confuse and confound your poor PC.

When you’re no longer using a piece of software; uninstall it - especially if you have other applications that do the same thing. Most programs come with an uninstaller that appears in the Start > Programs menu next to the program’s shortcut. If not, you can always go into the Control Panel and go to Add/Remove Programs (or Programs and Features in Windows Vista). Having too many odd-ball programs installed tends to clog up the works (and even some choice well-known ones do as well).

6)Don't Leave 90 Tabs Open, Use Bookmarks/Favorites

I was actually guilty of this one. Any page I wanted to reference that I recently visited, I left open in a browser tab to go back to later. As a result, my browser took about 2 trips of coffee to open.

Organize your favorites using folders and sub-folders, name the bookmarks according to what makes sense to you, and not what the title of the webpage says, and close tabs when you’re done with them. Your browser will then happily load up within a few seconds, which will be especially beneficial on slower Internet connections.

7)Don't Put to Many Files and Folders on the Desktop

Some people store their pictures of their pets, their MP3s, or even their downloads right on their desktop. Pretty soon that adds up to be quite a lot of data (several gigs worth in many cases).

The first thing your PC tries to do when it finally boots up is load the desktop, and that means everything on it. As you can imagine, going through a large number of files (especially if they’re large) will increase the amount of time it takes for everything to fully load.

So, make use of the Windows file system, shortcuts, and possibly folders to group some of those shortcuts together (Audio, Video, Graphics, Games, Chat, etc.). Remember, you can also create shortcuts of almost anything by right clicking on the file or folder > “Send To” menu > “Desktop”. That will create a shortcut icon on the desktop.

8) Empty Your Recycle Bin

Out of sight, out of mind right? Once you delete a file, it just disappears into some black hole never to be seen again. Not quite. When deleted, most files end up in the Recycle Bin, and while there are files there, they still take up disk space. So it’s good to empty it every once in a while by right clicking on the Recycle Bin icon > Empty Trash.

9) Delete Your Temporary Files

Temporary files are just that–temporary. These are files that are created through the course of normal operations on your PC, but most of the time, just get left behind after a program is done using them. So, it’s good to clean them out every so often since the accumulation of them tends to clog up the works a bit.

To get rid of them, go into “My Computer” and right click on your C drive and click “Properties”. Click “Disk Cleanup”. This can take anywhere between 10 seconds and 30 minutes to load, depending on how many of these files are kicking around and if you addressed some of the previous steps for clogging up your computer.

Once loaded, you can check anything with the word “temporary” in it, as well as “Office Setup Files”, and “Recycle Bin” (yes, you can empty the recycle bin more than one way). It’s best to leave the other items unchecked unless you know what they are. A quick Google search will most likely reveal what they are.

10)Defrag Your Hard Drive

Over time when more and more files get saved to a drive, they get split up into different pieces, so instead of a nice mosaic floor, you end up with a bunch of jumbled puzzle pieces that your computer needs to figure out how to put back together for the files you want.

This is where defragging comes in. It reorganizes all those loose pieces and puts them all back together in sequential order, helping to speed up access time, thus making your computer run a bit better.

You can run the Windows Defrag utility about once a month (or more frequently if you have a lot of disk activity) in Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter. There are many other ways and pieces of software to defrag a drive, so this is by no means the best or fastest method–just the most easily accessible.

If @ any point if you have any troubles or question, don't be shy to ask, or call

Is Head-Banging Bad for the Brain?

Bianca Nogrady, ABC Science Online


Led Zeppelin's immortal song 'Dazed and Confused' might well have been a clinical observation on the state of their audience's brains, say Australian researchers who have found over-enthusiastic head-banging can cause mild brain injury.

In a study published in the British Medical Journal this week, two University of New South Wales (UNSW) researchers concluded that head-banging to a typical heavy metal tempo could cause mild traumatic brain injury or concussion, and neck injury, particularly as the tempo of the music and angle of movement increased.

"Clearly it's a serious issue," said Associate Professor Andrew McIntosh, co-author and professor of biomechanics at UNSW.

"If you observe people after concerts they clearly look dazed, confused and incoherent, so something must be going on and we wanted to look into it."

After careful observation of the behaviour of heavy metal concert-goers, McIntosh and honours student Declan Patton constructed a theoretical head-banging model to better understand the mechanics of the practice.

They also spoke to a focus group of local musicians to identify ten popular songs to head-bang to.

"These songs had an average tempo of 146 beats per minute, and at this tempo we predict that head banging can cause headaches and dizziness if the range of movement of the head and neck is greater than 75 degrees," the researchers wrote.

Several songs were selected as controls against which to compare the risk of heavy metal head-banging, including Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You."

But McIntosh says attempts to find control cases of head-banging at alternative venues, such as Andre Rieu concerts, were unsuccessful.

Unfortunately for McIntosh, who confesses to not being a heavy metal fan, the research involved attending several heavy metal concerts of bands including Motley Crue, Ozzy Osbourne and Motorhead to identify the most popular head-banging techniques and better understand the biomechanics of the movement.

Despite being an observational study only, McIntosh says there were considerable occupational health and safety issues involved for researchers, including the risk of hearing damage, and the potential adverse outcomes of dealing with excited patrons who may have been "under the influence of things".

Professor McIntosh, whose research focuses on the biomechanics of head injury

 

and concussion, says this type of temporary, mild brain injury was generally poorly understood, but was unlikely to lead to any more serious symptoms than headaches and dizziness.

Article from Discovery Channel

 

The Ultimate social media recipes to easily cross post your updates.

22 social media recipes to easily cross post your updates.

With a number of social media platforms available to consumers, we are always searching for ways to minimise our workload, and in order to do so, it often makes sense to want to connect together accounts so a distributed message can be sent out from one place. The following post provides just a few of the recipes available for the interconnection of accounts and with a bit of creative thinking you should be able to chain many of these together to suit your needs and reach a bigger audience.

Connect Google+ to Twitter 
URL: http://manageflitter.com/plus

ManageFlitter offers a number of tools for the better management of your Twitter account. One of which is the functionality to link Google+ to your Twitter account. Postings on Google+ automatically can be sent through to Facebook.

Connect Facebook to Twitter
URL: http://www.facebook.com/twitter/

Facebook offer this functionality out of the box for their users. With this app, if you manage a Facebook Page, you will be able to decide whether to share updates with your Twitter followers, and you also will be able to control what type of updates to share: status updates, links, photos, notes, events or all of them.

Connect Tumblr to Twitter
URL: https://www.tumblr.com/login?redirect_to=%2Fsettings%3Ftwitter

Tumblr provide functionality out of the box for microblogging your recent Tumblr post direct to Twitter, and also allow you to keep up to date with your Twitter friends’ posts within the Tumblr dashboard.

Connect WordPress to Twitter
URL: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-to-twitter/

With the WP-to-Twitter plugin, you can ensure that once you’ve published a new post on your WordPress blog, it will automatically get republished direct to Twitter.

Connect Google+ to Facebook 
URL: https://plus.google.com/u/0/105657782253842840543/posts/GPFUPEobgDL

Alexander Müller came up with this Facebook application that can receive messages from Google+ in three easy steps.
Browse to http://c0ff33.de/twitterAuthenticate your Twitter account with the app.Add the supplied e-mail address to a new circle. Alternatively you can use the share by email feature as detailed here by Joe Hall to create a circle that you can share to Facebook.

 Connect Twitter to Facebook 
URL: http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/

The official Twitter application within Facebook allows you to connect your Facebook account to your Twitter account,. Tweets will appear directly on your profile page and your Twitter username will be displayed for your Facebook friends to see.

Connect Tumblr to Facebook 
URL: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=48119224995

The above link takes you direct to the application within Facebook, however to enable posting, you have to login into your Tumblr account, click “Settings” and check the Facebook checkbox to enable posting Tumblr information direct to your news feed. Once you’ve authorised your account, you can also select a Facebook fan page to begin posting to.

Connect WordPress to Facebook 
URL:  http://wordbooker.tty.org.uk

Good WordPress to Facebook integration is hard to come by. I provided a solution a while back for a complete application which could pull post through to a Fan page along with associated styling. However, often I’m asked how to integrate WordPress blog posts as wall posts within that application. The wordbooker plugin for WordPress does exactly that, and can also post to Facebook Fan Page walls and Group Walls if you are an administrator for that fan page or Group.

 Connect Twitter to WordPress 
URL: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-news-feed/

If you want to go the reverse direction, there are ways to bring tweets directly into WordPress posts. The above listed plugin does the heavy lifting for you, using a combination of the Twitter Search API and RSS to import unique tweets for specified users into WordPress. Alternatively the Tweet Import plugin allows you to only import hashtagged posts.

 Connect Facebook to WordPress 
URL: http://www.facebook.com/feeds/page.php?id=19040221057&format=rss20

The above URL demonstrates that you can extract data from public pages out of Facebook. Simply click on the “Receive updates  via RSS” on any fan page, and you can receive an RSS feed out. It is then a trivial matter to setup a RSS Import plugin to continue to feed your WordPress blog with the content contained within Facebook.

 Connect Google+ to WordPress 
URL: http://ifttt.com/

If this then that – available at the above URL is a remarkably simple web application for creating macros. In the context of cross posting from one service to another, it is an absolute godsend.  First signup for an account, Activate the WordPress Channel then turn on the Google+ to WordPress task recipe. Optionally you can choose a keyword that fires off this task from within Google+, so you can filter the operation.

 Connect Tumblr to WordPress 
URL: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-rss-poster/

Want to send tumblr posts into WordPress? Firstly, there is a way to generate an RSS feed out of any Tumblr blog. Simply put ‘/rss’ on the end of the URL. For example Tumblr Staff’s blog rss is here: http://staff.tumblr.com/rss - once you’ve got that done. Setup a RSS Import plugin to continue to integrate your WordPress blog with the content in your tumblr account.

Connect Google+ to Tumblr 
URL: http://ifttt.com/recipes/6147

Ifttt does the heavy lifting for us again with this recipe for posting directly from Google+ through to Tumblr. Simply replace replace the id number in the feed url with your Google+ id number and you’ll be autoposting direct to tumblr in no time.

Connect WordPress to Tumblr 
URL: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tumblrize/

Setting up WordPress to autopost through to Tumblr is a breeze with this plugin. It integrates directly with Tumblr’s API, and also includes support for Posterous. Unlike some other plugins out there, Tumblrize maintains links between the two platforms synchronising changes.

Connect Twitter to Tumblr 
URL: http://tweettoemail.com

The easiest way to send your Twitter updates to Tumblr, is via email. First of go to “Settings” in Tumblr, and find the email address specified. It will be unique per user. Then visit the Tweet to Email service, and set it up, specifying the Tumblr unique email address. Now when you tweet to email, it will automatically be sent to Tumblr.

 Connect Facebook to Tumblr
URL: http://ifttt.com/recipes/4132

 - New Status update > New text post URL: http://ifttt.com/recipes/3623

 - Facebook Link > New link post in Tumblr URL: http://ifttt.com/recipes/1821

 - Facebook Image > New image post in Tumblr

Getting information out of Facebook isn’t much fun, ifftt has again rode into town and delivered the goods. As you can see from the recipes above, there are a variety of scenarios that you can avail of to get exactly what you want.

Connect [service] to Google+ 
URL: http://ifttt.com/recipes/2136

With Google+ not yet supporting a full API, you’ll find it hard to push information into your stream. However, whilst we wait for that support, a number of enterprising people have come up with a few loopholes. For example, it is possible to find out an email address to post into the service – and once you have that you can pretty much work out a way to send from other places.  Note. This only seems to work for US / India users who can use Google SMS.

Connect [service] by Voice call.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just connect to the web with a simple telephone call? Well you can, thanks to the telephone connector available inside Tumblr. Once you’ve set that up, take a look at the Tumblr to [service] recipes to see what the potential is. There is also a telephone service inside ifttt.com and http://www.twilio.com offers a voice based API in both the US and Europe for those of you who can sling code at the problem.

 Connect YouTube to Twitter 
URL: http://www.techfeb.com/2011/03/auto-tweet-when-you-upload-video-on-youtube/

YouTube is a force to be reckoned with in the marketing world. If you aren’t doing video marketing in some capacity or another, you are missing a wealth of opportunity. For those of you that are engaging visitors on the YouTube platform, this recipe offers a way to autotweet when you  upload video.

Connect YouTube to Facebook 
URL: http://www.techfeb.com/2011/03/auto-tweet-when-you-upload-video-on-youtube/

In the same vein, it’s easy to also connect YouTube to Facebook as YouTube offer integration out of the box. Simply connect up your accounts in the same way as detailed above, and you’ll be autoposting to your Facebook stream in no-time.

Connect YouTube to Tumblr 
URL: http://ifttt.com/recipes/125

If you blog on the Tumblr platform, this recipe available at ifttt.com will allow you to send all of your YouTube Favourites directly to Tumblr as video posts. It’s as simple as clicking the heart icon on a video, and away it goes.

 Connect YouTube to WordPress 
URL: http://www.ternstyle.us/products/plugins/wordpress/wordpress-automatic-youtube-video-posts

How great would it be to automatically create a new video post in WordPress when you perform an action inside YouTube? This WordPress plugin synchronises the two, automating the process of adding a video to WordPress when it is added to a particular YouTube account.

Social Aggregation Services
 
As well as roll your own approaches such as the solutions posted above, a number of social media aggregators exist to populate the services that you want with information.

http://ping.fm/

– Twitter, Facebook (including Pages), WordPress, Tumblr, LinkedIn, TypePad and others.


http://hootsuite.com/

– Twitter, Facebook (including Pages), MySpace,  Mixi, LinkedIn, WordPress and Foursquare


http://feedblitz.com/

– RSS Feed to email


http://www.feedmyinbox.com/

– RSS Feed to email


http://hellotxt.com/

– Offers a variety of social networks, and is available on mobile platforms.


http://www.tubemogul.com/solutions/oneload/overview

– If you have video content and want to syndicate it various channels. TubeMoguls Oneload service is a free solution to achieve that.  Veoh, iTunes, Flickr, Dailymotion, Metacafe, Vimeo amongst others

. Have you any difficulty getting content from one platform to another? Hit me up in the comments and I’ll see if I can’t come up with a solution.

22 social media recipes to easily cross post your updates.is a post from: Webdistortion

Posted: 19 Nov 2011 03:48 AM PST

Which Came First? Eggs Before Chickens, Scientists Now Say

LiveScience.com
jeanna Bryner
senior Writer


A rare fossilized dinosaur nest helps answer the conundrum of which came first, the chicken or the egg, two paleontologists say.

The small carnivorous dinosaur sat over her nest of eggs some 77 million years ago, along a sandy river beach. When water levels rose, Mom seems to have fled, leaving the unhatched offspring.

Researchers have now studied the fossil nest and at least five partial eggs. The nest is a mound of sand that extends about 1.6 feet (half a meter) across and weighs as much as a small person, or about 110 pounds (50 kg).

"Some characteristics of the nest are shared with birds, and our analysis can tell us how far back in time these features, such as brooding, nest building, and eggs with a pointed end, evolved - partial answers to the old question of which came first, the chicken or the egg," said researcher Francois Therrien, curator of dinosaur paleoecology at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Alberta, Canada.

The answer?

Well, its still unclear whether chicken eggs or chickens came first (the intended question in the original riddle), said Darla Zelenitsky, a paleontologist of the University of Calgary in Alberta who was the first scientist to closely analyze the dinosaur nest.

But interpreted literally, the answer to the riddle is clear. Dinosaurs were forming bird-like nests and laying bird-like eggs long before birds (including chickens) evolved from dinosaurs.

"The egg came before the chicken," Zelenitsky said. "Chickens evolved well after the meat-eating dinosaurs that laid these eggs."

So the original riddle might now be rephrased: Which came first, the dinosaur or the egg? Meanwhile, the new nest provides some of the strongest evidence in North America in favor of the bird-like egg over the chicken.

Rare dino nests

The fossil nest was collected in the 1990s and kept at Canada Fossils Limited in Calgary, Alberta. Thats where Zelenitsky first spotted the remains, which were labeled at first as belonging to a duck-billed dinosaur, an herbivore. (In 2007, the fossil was acquired by the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in Alberta.)

Zelenitsky realized that the nest and eggs actually belonged to a small theropod, a meat-eating dinosaur. In particular, the egg-layer was likely a maniraptoran, the group of theropods that paleontologists think birds derived from some 150 million years ago during the Jurassic Period.

"Nests of small theropods are rare in North America and only those of the dinosaur Troodon have been identified previously," said Zelenitsky. "Based on characteristics of the eggs and nest, we know that the nest belonged to either a caenagnathid [a family of maniraptorans] or a small raptor, both small meat-eating dinosaurs closely related to birds."

She added, "Either way, it is the first nest known for these small dinosaurs."

The only other egg clutch identified to date from a maniraptoran in North America belonged to Troodon formosus.

Egg-laying behaviors

The analysis of the nest, detailed in the latest issue of the journal Palaeontology, provides paleontologists with information about egg-laying in this particular dinosaur and others, along with the evolution of various egg-laying behaviors, Therrien said.

"Our research tells us a lot about the dinosaur that laid the eggs and how it built its nest," he said.

For instance, the position and spacing of the eggs suggest the original clutch contained at least 12 eggs arranged in a ring around the mounds flat top, where the theropod would have sat and brooded its clutch. The eggs were about 5 inches (12 cm) long and, like bird eggs, they were pointed at one end.

The analysis also suggests the dinosaur laid its eggs two at a time on the sloping sides of the mound. Thats unlike, say, crocodiles, which lay all their eggs at once, and more like birds, which lay one egg at a time. (The ancestors of crocodiles gave rise to dinosaurs and later on, birds.)

As if figuring out the chicken-egg puzzle werent enough, the researchers also have another objective: "To find the same kind of nest with babies inside," Zelenitsky told LiveScience. "There are dinosaur eggs from North America with baby bones preserved inside of them. Its entirely possible, but again these types of nests (from small meat-eating dinosaurs) are fairly rare."

The research was funded by Richard and Donna Strong, the Alberta Ingenuity Fellowship Fund and the Killam Fellowship Fund.


Slideshow: Fossilized Dinosaur Nest

Starting Out As an Artist? Here is a list of what you need to know

Bookmark this resource

New links are being added to this site on a regular basis.

If you like this site please feel free to

• create a bookmark or link within various social network sites
• add a link to it on your website
• e-mail this site and share it with your friends

STARTING OUT - what do you need to know?

source Squidoo

A variety of information for those minded to pursue an angle within the art business. I suggest you start with the two Alan Bamberger articles which address questions like the ones below and then go on from there

Don't forget to check out the other sections of this site - on separate pages. (coming soon)

• Artist Tips to be Famous and Make Lots of Money
• Make Money; Be Successful - Artist Questions Answered
• Making a Mark: The "stickability' factor
• Making a Mark: Will you be a success if you blog your paintings daily?
• Making a Mark: What increases your artistic productivity? 
• Making a Mark: Feedback on what increases your artistic productivity
• Self Discipline for Artists by Nita Leland
• About.com: Developing Your Career as an Artist
• The Painter's Keys Community :: The Most Comprehensive (Free) Resource For Artists Worldwide
• Art Blogs at absolutearts.com - "Rejection/Perseverance" by Paul Dorrell
• Making a Mark: Maggie Stiefvater - two of everything
• Making a Mark: From ACEOs to powerseller
• Making a Mark: Six secrets of success - more butt-kicking advice from Maggie Stiefvater
• Art Blogs at absolutearts.com - "Posterity or Prosperity — Can Artists Have It Both Ways?" by Barney Davey?" 
• "Making their Mark" - an audit of visual artists
• Paul Dorrell's Blog - Friday Tips For Artists : Index
• Art Biz Blog: Ask for what you want--the right way
• Art Calendar | 25 Golden Rules of Success by By Renee Phillips, The Artrepreneur Coach
• Artists Who Sell: How to Write a Killer Sales Page (and why) - The Abundant Artist

  Bookmark this resource

• 
  New links are being added to this site on a regular basis.\  If you like this site please feel free to
  create a bookmark or link within various social network sites add a link to it on your website or e-mail this site and share it with your friends

  DISCLAIMER

  Please note that I am not engaged in offering professional advice and I take no responsibility for and have no liability in relation to your reliance on any of the information offered by the sites listed here. I'm just sharing what I've found. Most of the people writing on the internet are sharing their experiences and offering their opinions. It's up to you to make sure your research is thorough enough for your purposes. If you need professional advice then I suggest you contract with the appropriate professional.

The Art Business for Artists

Do you want to know more about the business side of being an artist? Or maybe you're looking for a particular piece of business information for artists?

Whether you are an emerging or experienced artist, this site provides you with a link to information and advice about professional development, marketing opportunities and other matters relevant to the business of being a visual artist.

Much of the advice is generic and applicable to all artists no matter where they live. Where information is country-specific, it tends to focus on on the UK. It also provides information relevant to the US market  

You can find out about....................

just click on a link to go straight to that topic

THIS SITE IS ORGANIZED IN SECTIONS - There's a lot more in each of the sections below

1. ART BUSINESS FOR THE EMERGING ARTIST
2. TECHIE TIPS FOR ARTISTS
3. HOW TO MARKET AND SELL YOUR ART
4. Charity Events
5. ARTIST WEBSITES AND BLOGS
6. COPYRIGHT FOR ARTISTS
7. PENSIONS AND THE ARTIST'S ESTATE
8. TIPS: SPECIFIC COUNTRIES
9. Comments and suggestions
10. More Resources for Artists

Bookmark this resource

New links are being added to this site on a regular basis.

If you like this site please feel free to

• create a bookmark or link within various social network sites
• add a link to it on your website
• e-mail this site and share it with your friends

DISCLAIMER

Please note that I am not engaged in offering professional advice and I take no responsibility for and have no liability in relation to your reliance on any of the information offered by the sites listed here. I'm just sharing what I've found. Most of the people writing on the internet are sharing their experiences and offering their opinions. It's up to you to make sure your research is thorough enough for your purposes. If you need professional advice then I suggest you contract with the appropriate professional.

PRICING YOUR ART... HOW???

 



 I think the question above is the most difficult questions we as artists ask ourselves. Unfortunately, there is no easy answer. Of course you need to consider your expenses which include materials, rent, utilities etc. as well as the number of hours put into creating a particular work of art. You also have to consider how well known you are as an artist. You may feel that one of your paintings is worth $800.00 but you don't have that much notoriety or experience under your belt to fetch much more than say $200.

If you would like more information please follow the following links:

•  The Ten Commandments of Art Pricing

•  How To Price your art work (Youtube Video)

• Don’t Sell Yourself Short: Price Your Art for What it’s Worth

  
  

Women Can Smell A Man's Intentions.

It's not hard to tell when a guy is "happy to see you."

The twinkle in his eye, his swagger, that sexy smile — all are clear signs he's in the mood.

 

And, at least subconsciously, a woman can also tell by the scent of his sweat, according to new research.

Scientists have long debated whether humans, like animals, use chemical signals called pheromones

to communicate sexual interest to potential mates. Problem is, the effects of pheromones are thought to be subconscious — meaning that if we do communicate using them, we sure don't know it. It's also hard to know what these pheromones might be and how we sense them, so researchers understand little about them.

But if human pheromones are going to be anywhere, they're going to be in sweat, right? Denise Chen, a psychologist at Rice University in Houston, and her colleagues devised an experiment to compare how women respond to different forms of male sweat

— sweat produced in everyday situations versus that produced when a man is turned on.

The researchers speculated that if humans do produce and respond to sweat pheromones, then a woman should respond to a guy's sexual sweat differently than she does to his normal sweat.

Chen and her colleagues asked 20 heterosexual guys to stop wearing deodorant and scented products for a few days. Then they told the men to put small pads in their armpits as they watched pornographic videos and became aroused (the researchers confirmed, using electrodes, that the images did the job). Later, the guys were asked to exchange those pads for fresh pads to collect the sweat they produced when they weren't aroused.

Then the researchers recruited 19 brave women to smell the men's pads while undergoing brain scans.

The investigators used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a technique that reveals the brain regions a person is using at any given time — even if their brain activity is subconscious.

Sure enough, the women's brains responded very differently depending on which sweat they sniffed. (And no, none of them passed out.) The sexual sweat, but not the normal sweat, activated the right orbitofrontal cortex and the right fusiform cortex, brain areas that help us recognize emotions and perceive things, respectively. Both regions are in the right hemisphere, which is generally involved in smell, social response, and emotion.

The findings bolster the idea that humans do communicate via subconscious chemical signals, notes Chen in her study, which was published in the Dec. 31 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

Our sexual intentions, in other words, may be a lot clearer than we ever intended them to be. That crush you have on your co-worker? She may already know — at least subconsciously. This article was fromLive Science

Facebook Profiles Can Be Used To Detect Narcissism

 


A new University of Georgia study suggests that online social networking sites such as Facebook might be useful tools for detecting whether someone is a narcissisist

.

We found that people who are narcissistic use Facebook in a self-promoting way that can be identified by others, said lead author Laura Buffardi, a doctoral student in psychology who co-authored the study with associate professor W. Keith Campbell.

The researchers, whose results appear in the October issue of the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, gave personality questionnaires to nearly 130 Facebook users, analyzed the content of the pages and had untrained strangers view the pages and rate their impression of the owner's narcissism

The researchers found that the number of Facebook friends and wallposts that individuals have on their profile pages correlates with narcissism Buffardi said this is consistent with how narcissists behave in the real-world, with numerous yet shallow relationships. Narcissism are also more likely to choose glamorous, self-promoting pictures for their main profile photos, she said, while others are more likely to use snapshots.

Untrained observers were able to detect narcissism, too. The researchers found that the observers used three characteristics quantity of social interaction, attractiveness of the individual and
 degree of self promotion in the main photo to form an impression of the individual's personality. People aren't perfect in their assessments, Buffardi said, but our results show they're somewhat accurate in their judgments.

Narcissism is a trait of particular interest, Campbell said, because it hampers the ability form healthy, long-term relationships. Narcissism might initially be seen as charming, but they end up using people for their own advantage, Campbell said. They hurt the people around them and they hurt themselves in the long run.

The tremendous growth of social networking sites Facebook now has 100 million users, for example has led psychologists to explore how personality traits are expressed online. Buffardi and Campbell chose Facebook because it's the most popular networking site among college students and because it has a fixed format that makes it easier for researchers to compare user pages.

Some researchers in the past have found that personal Web pages are more popular among narcissists, but Campbell said there's no evidence that Facebook users are more narcissistic than others.

Nearly all of our students use Facebook, and it seems to be a normal part of people's social interactions, Campbell said. It just turns out that narcissists are using Facebook the same way they use their other relationships for self promotion with an emphasis on quantity of over quality.

Still, he points out that because narcssist tend to have more contacts on Facebook, any given Facebook user is likely to have an online friend population with a higher proportion of narcissist than in the real world. Right now it's too early to predict if or how the norms of online self-promotion will change, Campbell said, since the study of social networking sites is still in its infancy.

We've undergone a social change in the last four or five years and now almost every student manages their relationships through Facebook something that few older people do, Campbell said. It's a completely new social world that we're just beginning to understand.
---------------

Adapted from materials provided by University of Geo

Pain is Partly in Your Mind

Robert Roy Britt
Editorial Director


Pain may not be all in your mind, but some of it is.


A bizarre new study of people with chronically achy hands

found that how subjects literally saw their hands changed their perception of pain.

Researchers had 10 subjects watch their own hands while performing a 10-step test that caused pain

every time. Participants each did the test four ways: looking as normal with their own eyes, looking through binoculars with no magnification, looking through binoculars that doubled the apparent size of subjects' arms, and looking through inverted binoculars that reduced the apparent size of subjects' arms.

The pain increased more when participants viewed a magnified image of their arm during the movements. When they did the movements while watching through inverted binoculars, the pain was reported to be less, and actual measurable swelling was less, too.

The scientists don't know for sure what's going on. They think it might have to do with how our brain perceives danger: "If it looks bigger, it looks sorer and more swollen," said G. Lorimer Moseley of the Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute in Australia. "Therefore, the brain acts to protect it." That does not necessarily mean the pain is actually greater, Moseley said.

Scientists do not fully understand how pain works.

But the new finding, published in the Nov. 25 issue of the journal Current Biology, might lead to new ways to treat chronic pain, which affects about 75 million U.S. residents.

"The brain is capable of many wonderful things based on its perception of how the body is doing and the risks to which the body seems to be exposed," Moseley said.

Article From Yahoo! News

Origin of Sex Pinned Down

LiveScience.com jeanna Bryner
senior Writer

We all came from hermaphrodites , organisms with both male and female reproductive organs. And though the origin traces back more than 100 million years, biologists have scratched their heads over how and why the separate male and female sexes evolved.

Now, research on wild strawberry plants is providing evidence for such a transition and the emergence of sex

, at least in plants. And the results, which are detailed in the December issue of the journal Heredity, likely apply to animals like us, the researchers say.

The study showed that two genes located at different spots on a chromosome

can cast strawberry offspring as a single sex, a hermaphrodite or a neuter (neither male nor female, and essentially sterile). The researchers suspect the two genes could be responsible for one of the earliest stages of the transition from asexual to sexual beingsk

.

"All of the animals and plants that are bi-sexual, or have two sexes, are theorized to have evolved according to a particular set of steps," said researcher Kim Lewers, a plant geneticist at the USDAs (United States Defense Attaché System
)Genetic Improvement of Fruits and Vegetables Lab in Maryland. "Until now, no example had been found of the very earliest steps. Therefore, those steps were undemonstrated to be true."

She added, "Finding this example of the very earliest stage allowed us to say the theory is probably right."

Sex chromosomes, which are the cellular basis for the male and female sexes, for placental mammals (a group that includes humans) and marsupials likely originated between 166 million and 145 million years ago.

Flowering plants

(plants equipped with reproductive organs) werent around until about 140 million to 180 million years ago. "Within flowering plants, separate sexes is thought to have evolved from hermaphroditism independently and repeatedly among lineages," said researcher Rachel Spigler, a postdoctoral student at the University of Pittsburgh, "so there is no one specific date for the evolution of sex chromosomes in plants."

Lewers, Spigler and their colleagues spotted the genetic mutation in a wild strawberry species, Fragaria virginiana, in which the evolution of separate sexes is not complete. So in addition to male and female strawberry plants, there are also some hermaphrodites and neutered individuals.

Through lab work, including genetic mapping, the researchers figured out how the wacky mix of sexes, or no-sexes, worked.

The plants each have two proto-sex chromosomes. Two spots on each proto-sex chromosome contain sex-determining genes, one that controls sterility and fertility

in males and another that does the same in females.

Offspring that inherit both fertility versions are hemaphrodites and can self-breed, while plants that inherit one fertility and one sterility version become either male or female. (A female would result from a sterile male and fertile female combination of genes.) Those that get both sterility versions of the genes are considered neuters and cant reproduce, so they ultimately die out.

While the two sex-determining genes are close to one another on the proto-sex chromosomes, the researchers say they are not completely linked. Thats why the strawberry offspring can get such a wild mix of the genes.

On our sex chromosomes, for instance, this mixing and matching is not possible (or at least very rare), because the female chromosome is one unit and so is the male sex chromosome