Closed blinds

This upcoming home of seriously epic proportions, has been waking me up at 7 am every morning (even my sleep-in/allowed hangover saturdays). It is pretty huge, and I must admit I would be way more nervous if the owners were not from Denmark. I will post more pics as it unfolds. I know the lighting is shite, but so is the camera I am currently working with.

Symbiosis

Bees are basically responsible for sustaining human life, which makes them awesome. They pollinate 1/3 of everything we eat, display complex social behaviours and the hives are ruled by chicks. They also do this crazy jedi-mindtrick thing where they dance around and inform other hive members of the location of beloved nectar. There is only one group of individuals who could rival bees.... 

I'm kidding, no drama. Only pure love. Bees and the Wu-Tang Clan work together to make this world a beautiful place. 

too controversial for religious america?

give me a break. I think even Americans deserve more credit than that (even if they say things like this sometimes). Although the "Creation" trailer looks slightly cheesy, there lies potential for a meaningful and intelligent film.  Watch it here. All this attention is likely garnered to attract hype and stir-up dialogue. I have no idea how many distributers there are in the US but my guess would be lots, so hold onto your bibles. 

OG?

This guy wrote a bio on my boy Paul, check him out if you have not heard of him. Interesting dude to say the least. Makes one think about the precursors for being considered a genius. Males are more likely to be at the low and high ends of intelligence spectrums, while females gravitate towards the middle. Some individuals with developmental disorders have been shown to exhibit well above average abilities in certain capacities, yet lack some of the most basic social behaviours. Although I suppose the overwhelming majority of social interactions today concern no aspect of intelligence or creative thought at all. Just sayin. 

Dreamcatcher

In a recent study Voss and colleagues decided to investigate the electrophysiological correlates of lucid dreaming. They attempted to train 20 undergraduate students in the art of lucid dreaming via pre-sleep autosuggestions over a four month period and were able to successfully train 6. These subjects then spent a few nights at a sleep lab hooked up to an EEG machine, and half were able to experience lucid dreaming during their stay. It was found that during lucid dreaming there was a shift in EEG power, especially in the 40hz range and in the frontal regions of the brain. This may suggest that the change in brain physiology is somehow associated with the lucid dreamer's ability to self-reflect and gain volitional control; activities absent in regular REM dreaming. Basically, lucid dreaming involves features of both REM sleep and waking, categorizing it as a "hybrid state". It is hypothesized that "lucidity arises when wake-like frontal lobe activation is associated with REM-like activity in posterior structures".

Whoa. I had no idea this was such an elusive experience. As you are probably not aware of, I have long suffered from extremely graphic and violent nightmares. I have since been able (about 75% of the time) to wake myself up from these eloquent experiences by commanding consciousness and focusing on escape (fuck leiko, wake the FUCK up!). Personally, I find that sometimes waking up in an abrupt and agitated state can be far worse than sleeping through the dream itself. It may feel like a complete collapse, but at least you wake up knowing it was merely a fabrication. Snapping out of a terrifying situation without having experienced it, can lead to a lingering feeling of despair that may prove to be hard to shake. 

The Singularity

Robots are cool as fuck and since they will be masters of the universe  (hopefully?) in the not too distant future, I figure they deserve some recognition. They exist in a wide variety of materials, and employ an endless number of functions and capabilities.  This guy even made one with a delicious brain. His robot was born after spreading rat neurons onto an array of electrodes, which began to form connections with one another. He continued to feed the brain a magical liquid full of nutrients and minerals (pbr’s prolly), and once the neurons established a network sufficiently capable of responding to electrical inputs from the electrode array, he connected the newly formed brain to a simple robot body consisting of two wheels and a sonar sensor. Initially the robot was way dumb, but with practice it improved the connections between the active neurons and was wheelin’ around in no time. 

Eternal sunshine?

When faced with traumatic events that threaten survival, our brains form memories that linger long after the threat is gone. These unshakable recollections can express themselves as anxiety, phobias, and post-traumatic stress disorder. In early March, a team of Canadian researchers announced that they’d made progress on this front.  By first isolating the part of the amygdala in rats’ brains where fearful memories are housed, they were able to inject a diphtheria toxin into fear-storing neurons and effectively delete bad memories. Although the application is not at all safe for use in humans, the promise of erasing a painful past is alluring.

Convenient maybe, but doesn’t this interfere with the normal processes of recovery? What sense of purpose and emotional regulation have we gained? Is ignorance bliss? No big deal – it’s also available through hypnosis  (only $47!) and a morning after pill.