"The key to learning a new motor skill - such as playing the piano or mastering a new sport - isn't necessarily how many hours you spend practising, but the way you practise, according to new research. Scientists have found that by subtly varying your training, you can keep your brain more active throughout the learning process, and halve the time it takes to get up to scratch." Science Alert
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Wow, Australian birds of prey may deliberately help fires to spread in order to hunt more easily
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The world can be divided into 4 rough clusters of countries on the basis of mutual visa-free travel, with China the outsider
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Amazing. Pretty much any academic paper that has ever been published, readily available, FOR FREE!
How it works and the motivation behind it is explained here
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Huge trigger warning for racism, colonialism, slavery
This is really horribly grim, but needs to be reckoned with.
"But to think about American slaves merely as coerced and unpaid laborers is to misunderstand the institution. Slaves weren’t just workers, the Sublettes remind the reader—they were human capital. The very idea that people could be property is so offensive that we tend retroactively to elide the designation, projecting onto history the less-noxious idea of the enslaved worker, rather than the slave as commodity. Mapping 20th-century labor models onto slavery spares us from reckoning with the full consequences of organized dehumanization, which lets us off too easy: To turn people into products means more than not paying them for their work."
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TW: racism, violence
I'm going to post this on its own because just so horribly fucking grim... Basically, "The Star Spangled Banner" contains a verse promising to murder slaves who turn on their masters. Unsurprisingly, this verse is not usually sung these days, nor is it much talked about
"No refuge could save the hireling and the slave
From the terror of night or the gloom of the grave
Oh, say, does that star spangled banner yet wave"
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Have seen quite a few shares of the "microcephaly is being caused by a pesticide, not by Zika virus" claims, which smells strongly of a conspiracy theory ("Monsanto is peripherally involved, clearly there's a cover-up!"). Here's a good debunking
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The simple fact is that there's now very good evidence that MDMA and psychedelics can be highly effective in therapeutic settings.
"When MAPS’s first PTSD study in the USA was published in 2011, the results were eye-opening. After two psychotherapy sessions with MDMA, 10 out of 12 participants no longer met the criteria for PTSD. The benefits were still apparent when the patients were followed up three to four years after the therapy." Vice
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Well, this is heartening
"The events also revealed that the two more recent plutocratic dynasties – the Motsepes and the Guptas – are increasingly at daggers drawn as they vie for influence over the ANC. Deputy President Ramaphosa is backed for the succession by the Motsepes. He is married to Patrice Motsepe’s sister Tshepo but is trailing Zuma’s former wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, in the succession stakes. She is backed by her former husband and the Guptas. Motsepe’s other sister, Bridgette, a billionaire in her own right, is married to Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe, a Ramaphosa ally."
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UNAIDS reaffirms that the decriminalisation of sex work (alongside other marginalised activities) is essential if HIV/AIDS is to be tackled effectively
>>><<<
Wow, Australian birds of prey may deliberately help fires to spread in order to hunt more easily
>>><<<
The world can be divided into 4 rough clusters of countries on the basis of mutual visa-free travel, with China the outsider
>>><<<
Amazing. Pretty much any academic paper that has ever been published, readily available, FOR FREE!
How it works and the motivation behind it is explained here
>>><<<
Huge trigger warning for racism, colonialism, slavery
This is really horribly grim, but needs to be reckoned with.
"But to think about American slaves merely as coerced and unpaid laborers is to misunderstand the institution. Slaves weren’t just workers, the Sublettes remind the reader—they were human capital. The very idea that people could be property is so offensive that we tend retroactively to elide the designation, projecting onto history the less-noxious idea of the enslaved worker, rather than the slave as commodity. Mapping 20th-century labor models onto slavery spares us from reckoning with the full consequences of organized dehumanization, which lets us off too easy: To turn people into products means more than not paying them for their work."
>>><<<
TW: racism, violence
I'm going to post this on its own because just so horribly fucking grim... Basically, "The Star Spangled Banner" contains a verse promising to murder slaves who turn on their masters. Unsurprisingly, this verse is not usually sung these days, nor is it much talked about
"No refuge could save the hireling and the slave
From the terror of night or the gloom of the grave
Oh, say, does that star spangled banner yet wave"
>>><<<
Have seen quite a few shares of the "microcephaly is being caused by a pesticide, not by Zika virus" claims, which smells strongly of a conspiracy theory ("Monsanto is peripherally involved, clearly there's a cover-up!"). Here's a good debunking
>>><<<
The simple fact is that there's now very good evidence that MDMA and psychedelics can be highly effective in therapeutic settings.
"When MAPS’s first PTSD study in the USA was published in 2011, the results were eye-opening. After two psychotherapy sessions with MDMA, 10 out of 12 participants no longer met the criteria for PTSD. The benefits were still apparent when the patients were followed up three to four years after the therapy." Vice
>>><<<
Well, this is heartening
"The events also revealed that the two more recent plutocratic dynasties – the Motsepes and the Guptas – are increasingly at daggers drawn as they vie for influence over the ANC. Deputy President Ramaphosa is backed for the succession by the Motsepes. He is married to Patrice Motsepe’s sister Tshepo but is trailing Zuma’s former wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, in the succession stakes. She is backed by her former husband and the Guptas. Motsepe’s other sister, Bridgette, a billionaire in her own right, is married to Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe, a Ramaphosa ally."
>>><<<
UNAIDS reaffirms that the decriminalisation of sex work (alongside other marginalised activities) is essential if HIV/AIDS is to be tackled effectively
