Yom HaShoah 2019

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Facts about the human brain everyone gets wrong

Strange as it is to think about, the most important part of your identity is the squishy ball of grey matter squeezed into your skull. Everything you understand about the universe around you, from the color of the sky to the smell of the sunflowers to that wonky Plato paper you wrote in college, can all be credited to your favorite little cognitive organ. When it comes down to it, you are your brain.

Just because you understand everything using your brain, though, doesn’t mean you understand anything about it. Despite the fact that humans spend every waking moment firing up their little think-nuggets, there are a lot of misconceptions about how the brain works, to the point where outright falsehoods are spouted as facts nearly every day. Don’t be one of those people. Whether you want to use your left brain or your right brain or just go all in, it’s time to expand your mind with the truth…READ MORE.

Syrian Refugee Camps Battered by Flooding

Syrian Refugee Camps Battered by Flooding

Originally posted by Nicholas Conley on Inquisitr.com

Over 40,000 displaced persons, across 14 refugee camps, were battered by the recent flooding in northern Syria’s Idlib province, resulting in destroyed shelters, lost possessions, and at least two deaths, reports The National.

The thousands of refugees living in these camps, having already survived mortar attacks, bombings, and other violence, have been unable to return home due to the continuing war. This past weekend, the region was pummelled by heavy rains. Knee-high mud water flooded into the camps, and tents were severely damaged… READ MORE.

Costa Rica – 2019

Hello, everybody!

Happy to say I just returned from Costa Rica, the land of sun, greenery, renewable energy, and sloths. We split out trip between the sunny coastline and the lush mountainous environments of Monteverde, and while we didn’t spot any of the world’s favorite slow-moving xenarthans, our stay in the rainforest did produce run-ins with coati, agouti, capuchin monkeys, toucans, macaws, opossum, lizards, armadillos, scorpions, snakes, and just about any other animal you can think of.

A particular highlight of this trip was the tour of the coffee plantation at the Ecological Sanctuary in Santa Elena, where a local family — wonderful hosts, who were kind enough to have us stay at their place — is currently developing some truly amazing coffee with a self-sustaining, fair trade, organic setup. Pura vida!

The Benefits of Daily Reading

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”

– Stephen King

Hey, King said it best.

Recently, I was asked by Carmen Jacob of UpJourney for my opinions on the benefits of daily reading, as someone who reads quite a bit. It’s a cool article, with thoughts from 26 daily readers from various walks of life, including authors, speakers, lawyers, and entrepreneurs. My answer is the third one down, but yes—the whole piece is worth adding to today’s daily read. Check it out:

The Benefits of Reading (According to 26 People Who Read Every Day)

Fictional Movie and TV Languages You Can Learn to Speak

Klingon, sure. Dothraki, of course. But what about Barsoomian, Na’vi or… Lapine?

Fictional movie and TV languages you can actually learn to speak

If Arrival taught the world anything, it’s that whenever spaceships do finally touch down on Earth, linguists will save the world. Seriously, if they’re not around, we’ll be depending on some handy universal translator to drop out of the sky. No matter what sort of weird mumbles, beamed images, or telepathic messages the real little green men use for communication, it definitely won’t be the sloppy, haphazard series of sounds we call English.

With that in mind, it’s no surprise that real linguists have played a pretty huge role in sculpting the fictional languages of your favorite science fiction and fantasy worlds. For every badass Dothraki chant or Klingon speech that you’ve ever heard, there’s been a hardworking linguist who spent years developing a real, complex language with its own grammar, slang, and unique metaphors. These constructed languages — called “conlangs,” for short — are often so developed that if you have some time to kill, you can impress your next date with a newfound fluency in Barsoomian… READ MORE

I thought I could fix my Alzheimer’s patients. I learned to help them instead.

My first day in a nursing home was one of the most traumatic events of my life. I’d taken all the classes. I’d done the required clinical internship. I had the knowledge and the firsthand experience. But nothing prepared me for that first day on the floor.

It was a madhouse. Nurses were scrambling everywhere. Residents were constantly calling for help, ringing their call bells, but the workers were too busy jumping between patients to answer them. Many patients were unable to help themselves, even in small ways. Personal hygiene wasn’t optimal.

It wasn’t because the nurses were apathetic or incompetent. Trust me when I say that the people I worked with were some of the kindest, most giving people I’ve ever met. But the whole system is a chaotic mess; the result of a structure meant to warehouse people, where patient interests and business interests are often in conflict … READ MORE.