Tears

Posted on by Jeff Cassman

From Tom Scarrella:

Someone recently told me that emotions are chemical levels in your brain and your body is constantly trying to maintain equilibrium. So if one emotion sky rockets, that chemical becomes flagged and signals the tear duct to open as an exit to release that emotion packaged neatly within a tear. It’s why we feel more stable after crying, as if whatever emotion we were feeling had been released and we were refreshed. This is also why tears from different emotions look different under an electron microscope. They’re literally made up of different things.

According to Joseph Stromberg of the Smithsonian’s College of Arts and Sciences, happy tears are structurally different than sad tears than angry tears than overwhelmed tears etc. Different types of tears have distinct molecules. Emotional tears have protein-based hormones including the neurotransmitter leucine enkephalin, which is a natural painkiller that is released when we are stressed. (Photography by Rose-Lynn Fisher https://www.rose-lynnfisher.com/tears.html…… Read the rest

Dad’s Special Thanksgiving Turkey Recipe

Posted on by Jeff Cassman

Dad’s Special Thanksgiving Turkey, guaranteed to please picky children and even people who don’t generally like turkey.

Ingredients 

  • 1 whole bone-in turkey breast, 6 1/2 to 7 pounds
  • 1 tablespoon minced garlic (3 cloves)
  • 2 teaspoons dry mustard
  • 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary leaves
  • 1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage leaves
  • 1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme leaves
  • 2 teaspoons kosher salt
  • 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 tablespoons good olive oil
  • 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 1 cup dry white wine

Instructions 

Pour yourself a glass of wine.  A full-bodied chardonnay would work with this turkey, or a Pinot Noir.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Have a responsible kid place the turkey, skin side up, on a rack in a roasting pan.  This is a good time to say a prayer to your guardian angel for help.

Instruct a pre-adolescent child to combine the garlic, mustard, herbs, salt, pepper, olive oil, and lemon juice in a small bowl to make a paste.

Tell the responsible child to Loosen the skin from the meat gently with his fingers and smear half of the paste directly on the meat. Massage it gently into the skin for several minutes. This is good for angsty teenagers.  Spread the remaining paste evenly on the skin..  Pour the dry white wine into the bottom of the roasting pan.  Pour yourself another glass of chardonnay or Pinot Noir.

Roast the turkey for 1 3/4 to 2 hours, until the skin is golden brown.  Tell the … Read the rest

Odd Increase in Excess Deaths Not Related to the Wuhan

Posted on by Jeff Cassman

“Have you wondered why more people died this year of Covid than in all of 2020? According to Johns Hopkins, Covid killed 353, 000 people in the United States in 2020. But in just 10 months in 2021, 390,000 people have died. How can that be? After all:

  1. Many of the extremely vulnerable have already died
  2. The experts say Delta is not as lethal as the original Wuhan infection
  3. 100 million people (according to the CDC) have already survived Covid and now have natural immunity
  4. And 190 million people have been double-vaxxed

These are four reasons why deaths should be decreasing. But they’re not decreasing, they’re increasing.

Why?”

Read more here.… Read the rest

Universe 25

Posted on by Jeff Cassman
Jeremy Yager writes:

The “Universe 25” experiment is one of the most terrifying experiments in the history of science, which, through the behavior of a colony of mice, is an attempt by scientists to explain human societies.

The idea of ​​”Universe 25″ Came from the American scientist John Calhoun, who created an “ideal world” in which hundreds of mice would live and reproduce. More specifically, Calhoun built the so-called “Paradise of Mice”, a specially designed space where rodents had an Abundance of food and water, as well as a large living space.
In the beginning, he placed four pairs of mice that in a short time began to reproduce, resulting in their population growing rapidly. However, after 315 days their reproduction began to decrease significantly. When the number of rodents reached 600, a hierarchy was formed between them and then the so-called “wretches” appeared. The larger rodents began to attack the group, with the result that many males begin to “collapse” psychologically.
As a result, the females did not protect themselves and in turn, became aggressive towards their young. As time went on, the females showed more and more aggressive behavior, isolation elements, and lack of reproductive mood. There was a low birth rate and, at the same time, an increase in mortality in younger rodents.
Then, a new class of male rodents appeared, the so-called “beautiful mice”. They refused to mate with the females or to “fight” for their space. All they cared about was food and sleep. At
… Read the rest

How to Learn Anything Faster and Retain It Longer

Posted on by Jeff Cassman

From a great article at Doist:

  1. Choose a concept to learn. Select a topic you’re interested in learning about and write it at the top of a blank page in a notebook.
  2. Teach it to yourself or someone else. Write everything you know about a topic out as if you were explaining it to yourself. Alternately, actually teach it to someone else.
  3. Return to the source material if you get stuck. Go back to whatever you’re learning from – a book, lecture notes, podcast – and fill the gaps in your knowledge.
  4. Simplify your explanations and create analogies. Streamline your notes and explanation, further clarifying the topic until it seems obvious. Additionally, think of analogies that feel intuitive.

A lot of the strategies are easily implemented with ToDoist.

 … Read the rest