the eye of Nova's mind

Cyber self-harm: Why do people troll themselves online? -- "9% [of students] had anonymously cyberbullied themselves."

Love hormone 'helps autistic brain' -- oxytocin

Sounds are sound among dyslexics, but access may lag, study finds -- "[T]he white matter tracts connecting the phoneme area to a part of the brain that contains the Broca's area, which regulates the conversion of language to speech, was weaker for the dyslexics as a group[.]"

Women With Big Butts Are Smarter And Resistant To Chronic Illnesses -- I like big butts & I can't deny.

Healthier Diets Cost About $550 More Per Year Than Unhealthy Options -- This is a real issue. I spend my food-stamp dollars on nutritious food. This means I have less per month for food bulk. I buy few canned goods but instead invest in fresh food, which is liable to spoil. It's better for me but more likely to rot. What do you think most families will do? They will attempt to stretch their food dollar (which, apparently, to me is a luxury). This is one of the factors making it difficult for low-income youths to catch up with their more-monied counterparts. (Let's not even get into how hunger affects attention spans for school-aged children, shall we?)

Marijuana Use Puts Men At Risk of "Moobs", Plastic Surgeon -- From what I understand, one plastic surgeon came to this conclusion after examining the data. I would like more voices on this subject; an actual experiment designed to detect this would be the best. The bestest, even.

MIT Devise World's Toughest Tongue Twister to Link Speech Errors to Brain -- "Pad kid poured curd pulled cod"? That is not difficult to me in the least. Do the volunteers have a stopwatch where they need to say the phrase in a certain amount of time? Do you, any of my followers, have difficulty?

1.34-million-year-old human ancestor had 'massive' arm bones for climbing trees -- Paranthropus boisei

How Birds and Babies Learn to Talk -- I swear I'd seen a similar study two or more years ago, where the scientists played disjointed bird "syllables" to isolated chicks. Once introduced back amongst the general population, the chicks could not communicate with the others because their songs were so different. I guess that isn't about movable grammar but rather about static syllabic memory.

The Problem with the Neuroscience Backlash

Tiny Channels Take Salt From Seawater -- This doesn't address microorganisms, however, in terms of creating potable water.

Forget the Sweet Tooth, Eyes Reveal a Taste for Sweets: Sugary treats cause a surge of dopamine, which can be measured in the eyes

FDA approves an antidepressant for hot flashes -- Paxil, of all things.

Dinosaurs 'crawled like toddlers'

Hashimoto's thyroiditis can affect quality of life: Even when thyroid gland function is normal -- "[Researchers] report that women with higher levels of anti-thyroid antibody had a significantly higher number of symptoms, even though their levels of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH)--a measure of thyroid function--did not differ from TSH levels measured in women with lower antibody levels."

Listening to music is biological -- "[S]everal behavioral features in listening to music are closely related to attachment: lullabies are [sung] to infants to increase their attachment to a parent, and singing or playing music together is based on teamwork and may add group cohesion."

Advancing delirium care through research -- "Delirium is a state of confusion in which the individual has undergone a sudden alteration of mental status. Delirium is not dementia, but individuals with dementia are more susceptible to developing delirium during hospitalization than individuals without dementia. [...] For vulnerable older adults developing a urinary tract infection or taking an over-the-counter drug with anti-cholinergic effects (including many popular brands of sleeping pills) may lead to delirium."

Language Patterns Are Roller-Coaster Ride During Childhood Development -- "Research from North Carolina State University on African-American children presents an unexpected finding: language use can go on a roller-coaster ride during childhood as kids adopt and abandon vernacular language patterns. [...] Vernacular English is defined here as culturally specific speech patterns that are distinct from standard English; in this case, the vernacular is African-American English[.]"

. . . made a hilarious verbal misstep.

Instead of 'Sarah Palin', her tongue made an alveolar lateral & produced . . . Sailor Palin!

I think she'd fit right in! Give her some pigtails & a 5" skirt. She can use her old flute as a baton. She knows how to wink aggressively (no lessons needed there), & she may already own a tiara.

Also, if you thought Serena made some ditzy comments . . . .

Ancient tribal language becomes extinct as last speaker dies: Death of Boa Sr, last person fluent in the Bo language of the Andaman Islands, breaks link with 65,000-year-old culture (thanks, davidfcooper)

Interval training can cut exercise hours sharply: Intense, brief workouts twice as effective as other regimens, experts say

Heart disease tied to mom's number of births: Giving birth to five or more children greatly increased risk, study finds

Physical fitness linked to academic success: Fit students perform better on standardized tests, study shows

Superwoman syndrome fuels pill-pop culture: Overwhelmed overachievers turn to prescription drugs for an edge

Libby sentenced to 30 months in prison

NASA chief regrets remarks on global warming

Honda to discontinue hybrid Accords

The roots of grammar: New study shows children innately prepared to learn language (thanks, dsgood)

Cancer drug enhances long-term memory -- histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors (thanks again, dsgood)

Forgetting May Be Part of the Process of Remembering

The Universe, Expanding Beyond All Understanding

These are all courtesy of dsgood:

Why do males and females of some species look so different?: In beetles, sex-based differences in appearance generated by loss of feature once shared by both sexes

The message in advertising is irrelevant, new research shows: Creativity and emotion are what makes advertising successful, not the message it is trying to get over -- not surprising, yet interesting

Synthetic Cannabinoid May Aid Fertility in Smokers

US teen pregnancy rates decline as result of improved contraceptive use -- sounds like a "duh," but in the environment of pushing abstinence even on adults, this is important

Genetically engineered blood protein can be used to split water into oxygen and hydrogen

New study suggests speakers of different languages perceive rhythm differently -- very interesting, from a poetic point-of-view

Surprise for Linguists: Nouns and Verbs Sound Different (thanks, dsgood)

Grammar revealed in a whale’s love song

To the casual human listener, the love song of a humpback whale sounds magnificently free-flowing and improvised.

But fresh mathematical analysis of the song shows there are complex grammatical rules. Using syntax, the whales combine sounds into phrases, which they further weave into hours-long melodies packed with information.

Although the researchers say these songs don't meet the linguistic rigor necessary for a true language, this is the first evidence that animals other than humans use a hierarchical structure of communication. Whales have also been found to sing in dialects.