The Differences Between Men's and Women's Brains

How Men's Brains Are Wired Differently Than Women's

Male brains have more connections within hemispheres to optimize motor skills, whereas female brains are more connected between hemispheres to combine analytical and intuitive thinking.

Brain networks showing significantly increased intra-hemispheric connectivity in males (Upper) and inter-hemispheric connectivity in females (Lower). Intra-hemispheric connections are shown in blue, and inter- hemispheric connections are shownImage: agini Verma et al, University of Pennsylvania

Men aren't from Mars and women aren't from Venus, but their brains really are wired differently, a new study suggests.

The research, which involved imaging the brains of nearly 1,000 adolescents, found that male brains had more connections within hemispheres, whereas female brainswere more connected between hemispheres. The results, which apply to the population as a whole and not individuals, suggest that male brains may be optimized for motor skills, and female brains may be optimized for combining analytical and intuitive thinking.

"On average, men connect front to back [parts of the brain] more strongly than women," whereas "women have stronger connections left to right," said study leader Ragini Verma, an associate professor of radiology at the University of Pennsylvania medical school. But Verma cautioned against making sweeping generalizations about men and women based on the results.

Previous studies have found behavioral differences between men and women. For example, women may have better verbal memory and social cognition, whereas men may have better motor and spatial skills, on average. Brain imaging studies have shown that women have a higher percentage of gray matter, the computational tissue of the brain, while men have a higher percentage of white matter, the connective cables of the brain. But few studies have shown that men's and women's brains areconnected differently.

In the study, researchers scanned the brains of 949 young people ages 8 to 22 (428 males and 521 females), using a form of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) known as diffusion tensor imaging, which maps the diffusion of water molecules within brain tissue. The researchers analyzed the participants as a single group, and as three separate groups split up by age.

As a whole, the young men had stronger connections within cerebral hemispheres while the young women had stronger connections between hemispheres, the study, detailed today (Dec. 2) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found. However, the cerebellum, a part of the brain below the cerebrum that plays a role in coordinating muscle movement, showed the opposite pattern, with males having stronger connections between hemispheres.

Roughly speaking, the back of the brain handles perception and the front of the brain handles action; the left hemisphere of the brain is the seat of logical thinking, while the right side of the brain begets intuitive thinking. The findings lend support to the view that males may excel at motor skills, while women may be better at integrating analysis and intuitive thinking.

"It is fascinating that we can see some of functional differences in men and women structurally," Verma told LiveScience. However, the results do not apply to individual men and women, she said. "Every individual could have part of both men and women in them," she said, referring to the connectivity patterns her team observed.

When the researchers compared the young people by age group, they saw the most pronounced brain differences among adolescents (13.4 to 17 years old), suggesting the sexes begin to diverge in the teen years. Males and females showed the greatest differences in inter-hemisphere brain connectivity during this time, with females having more connections between hemispheres primarily in the frontal lobe. These differences got smaller with age, with older females showing more widely distributed connections throughout the brain rather than just in the frontal lobe.

Currently, scientists can't quantify how much an individual has male- or female-like patterns of brain connectivity. Another lingering question is whether the structural differences result in differences in brain function, or whether differences in function result in structural changes.

The findings could also help scientists understand why certain diseases, such as autism, are more prevalent in males, Verma said.

By: Unknown On 05.24

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A Penis On MARS !

Nasa Mars Rover Accidentally Draws Penis On Red Planet

 Nasa's $800m Mars Exploration Rovers have accidentally drawn a penis.

The twin exploration vehicles Spirit and Opportunity were launched nine years ago, in an effort to search the surface of Mars for signs of water erosion and possibly even life.

According to Nasa, since then the rovers have driven over more than 10km of Martian land, directed by teams back on Earth combined with autonomous cameras designed to avoid potential problems with the terrain.

It appears that part of the robots' programming involves spinning in tight circles to test nearby terrain and find new routes.

Humorously, depending on your age perhaps, that has the unfortunate consequence of drawing a certain shape on the surface, which when discovered by Reddit essentially crashed Nasa's website.

The image was posted on Nasa's site and appears to be a genuine picture from the Martian surface - albeit one taken at an unfortunate angle.

It's not clear which of the rovers drew the shape, or even when it was made.

Nasa lost communication with the Spirit rover in 2009 after it became stuck in some sand. Meanwhile the Opportunity is still traversing the surface on its way to the Endeavour crater.

By: Unknown On 22.57

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The Most Wanted Secrets How To Have A Stronger Memory

Clenching your fists creates a stronger memory

Need to remember some important facts for that big presentation at work? Clench your right hand while preparing to remember. When giving that talk, ball up your left hand and you’ll call to mind those details, no problem. 

That’s the finding from a new study authored by Ruth Propper, an associate professor and director of the cerebral lateralization laboratory at Montclair State University. Propper has long been intrigued by how body movements impact how the brain works. While most people realize that the brain influences the body (the brain tells your arm there is an itch, and you feel it), less is understood about how the body sways the brain.

Past research suggests that clenching our hands can evoke emotions. When people ball up their right hands, for example, the left sides of their brains become more active, causing what’s known as “approach emotions,” feelings such as happiness or excitement. By squeezing the left hand, people engage the right side of the brain, which controls “withdrawal emotions” such as introversion, fear, or anxiety. (It probably seems like these might be less useful, but they come in handy in dangerous situations.)

Propper theorized that if clenching hands impacted feelings, these gestures might influence the brain in other ways.

To learn how hand clenching influenced memory and recall, she asked 51 right- handed subjects to memorize 72 words and randomly assigned each person to one of five hand-clenching groups or a control group that did nothing. Only righties were included because lefties exhibit better episodic memory overall so they’d have an unfair advantage. She found the perfect combination for better memory and recall occurs when a subject clenches his right hand while memorizing and balls up his left hand while trying to recall the memory.

“It is interesting to compare to not clenching at all. It’s almost 15 percent better [to clench right then left] than sitting there,” she says.

While a 15 percent improvement is on the edge of being statistically significant, Propper notes 15 percent can be the difference between an A and a C on test.

Propper admits that more research needs to be conducted on how bodily movements enhance brain function, but she recommends that people try squeezing their hands to aid with memory.

“I would say that it would be worth trying,” Propper says. Take parking your car in the parking lot.  “(A)s you park you can clench your right hand and when you are trying to find it, clench your left hand.”

By: Unknown On 22.52

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The Secret To Happiness - More More SEX !

The secret to happiness? Believing you have more SEX than your neighbours

Major study finds that keeping up with the Joneses in the bedroom is an important source of satisfaction
Researchers compare the happiness effect to income - we want to know we are doing as well as others

We all know people who aren’t happy unless they have a better house, car or job than the neighbours.

Now it seems there’s another way to keep up with the Joneses – in the bedroom.

Believing that they are having more sex than their neighbours is a crucial happiness factor for couples, says Tim Wadsworth, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder

Professor Tim Wadsworth, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder, analysed data collected between 1993 and 2006 from the General Social Survey, an opinion poll which has monitored the psyche of American society since 1972.

In total, he studied data collected from 15,386 people.

Since the beginning of the survey, all respondents have been asked whether they are ‘very happy’, ‘pretty happy’ or ‘not too happy’.

After taking factors including income, marital status, health and age into account, respondents who had sex at least two to three times a month were 33 per cent more likely to report a higher level of happiness than those who had no sex during the previous 12 months.

Prof Wadsworth found that people reported steadily higher levels of happiness as they reported steadily more regular sex .

Those who had sex once a week were 44 per cent happier than those had not had sex for a year, whilst those who had sex two to three times a week were 55 per cent more likely to report a higher level of happiness.

But his study, entitled ‘Sex and the Pursuit of Happiness: How Other People’s Sex Lives are Related to Our Sense of Well-Being’, also found that those who were having sex but believed they were having less sex than their peers were unhappier than those who believed they were having as much or more than their peers.

He found that if members of a peer group were having sex two to three times a month but believed their peers were on a once-weekly schedule, their probability of reporting a higher level of happiness fell by about 14 per cent.

He said: ‘There's an overall increase in the sense of wellbeing that comes with having sex more frequently, but there's also this relative aspect to it.

‘Having more sex makes us happy, but thinking that we are having more sex than other people makes us even happier.’

But while income can be guessed from a neighbour's new car, sex is a more clandestine activity.

So how do men and women know how frequently their peers are  have sex?

Prof Wadsworth says that the mass media provides people with clues.

Wadsworth noted that magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Men's Health, frequently reported the results of their own or others' sex surveys.

Conversations within friendship groups also suggest how much peers are getting intimate.

‘There is plenty of evidence that information concerning sexual behaviour is learned through discussions within peer groups and friendship networks,’ added Prof Wadsworth.

‘I can't think of a better explanation for why how much sex other people are having would influence a person's happiness.'

He added that, as a species, we tend to worry that we are not measuring up to an ideal.

‘We're usually not looking down [on people] and thinking of ourselves as better off. We're usually looking up and feeling insufficient and inadequate.

By: Unknown On 03.13

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The Federal Top Secrets How To Control Things Through Mind

Cool! Samsung Discover How to Control Gadgets Through the Mind

Samsung researchers collaborate with the University of Texas to create a gadget that can be controlled by the mind. As an experiment, they use a tablet Galaxy Note 10.1.

Innovation is key to the success of technology producers, and that the attempt made Samsung through their new findings. These findings are also expected to change the user experience when using a smartphone or tablet PC.

As a first step, Samsung wants to make an application that allows users to connect with gadgetnya through mind waves. Through this aplilkasi users can play songs, change tracks, open the app, turn off and turn on the tablet, as well as several other functions.

This experiment was successfully carried out by using the wave mind reader. Shaped like a hat, but there EGG electrodes are used to translate the commands of the mind to be executed on the tablet.

"Finding new ways to interact with the gadget is the main objective of this project. Few years ago only a small button that is the only way to control the phone, but now users can use voice, touch, movement, and eye movements to interact with mobile devices, "said Insoo Kim, Samsung engineers who mengagas the project.

Until now the application is still being perfected, and not known about when these innovations can be used by the wider community.

By: Unknown On 00.43

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How To Suicide in MARS ! Wanted Volunteers!

I'm Sending Four People to Mars for the Rest of Their Lives

Space travel has always been tainted with a few big, unavoidable problems for me. The first is that I spent all three years of my university career occasionally learning what Foucault thinks about reality television, rather than anything vaguely scientific that would teach me how to launch myself through earth's atmosphere without dying immediately. The second is that everything is just so staggeringly, unfathomably far away. The half hour commute to work is bad enough; three days to get to a pretty nondescript floating hunk of rock just seems pointless and like a massive waste of time that could be spent not crowded up in a little shuttle hurtling through the sky.

Although, I suppose if there was an exciting prospect at the end of the journey I wouldn't mind so much. Like a new, ready-made home for me to spend the rest of my years, for example. Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp is going to be furnishing those exact dreams with his Mars One project, which aims to build a liveable settlement on Mars, before sending four humans to live there for the rest of their lives in 2023, followed by more batches of people as the years go on, living there for the REST of their lives.        

Besides that minor detail, his project is remarkable in that it aims to raise the majority of its funding through creating the biggest media spectacle the world has ever known – covering every stage of the project and allowing viewers to vote on who gets to take the trip – rather than relying on governments and having to deal with any kind of political interference. I met Bas for a drink to talk about his plans.

 VICE: So tell me what sparked this whole idea of sending people to live the rest of their lives on Mars.
Bas Lansdorp: I was originally inspired around 15 years ago when the first rover landed on Mars. I basically thought it'd be much cooler if humans were walking up on Mars, rather than the machine. I always wanted to go myself and knew I didn't stand a chance if I went through the normal NASA or European Space Agency (ESA) procedures, but I kind of forgot about the idea when I started studying mechanical engineering. Then, a few years later, someone told me that the Americans were planning a one-way trip to Mars – which is so much more feasible than a return mission – so I decided to drop everything and go for it.

What were you doing at the time?
I was working at a company, but I sold half my shares to get things going. Then John de Mol, the inventor of Big Brother, told me I could finance the project through the media, so I thought 'I really have to take this chance now.' I mean, it's extremely complex, but I have to take the risk and do it.

Yeah, it's interesting that you're planning on funding the whole project with media money.
Well, we have other revenue ideas, of course, but yeah – we need to finance a lot of things before we can send any humans out to Mars and creating a media spectacle is a good way to do that. I'll just add that it's not my main goal to create a media spectacle, though. There are much easier ways of doing that than sending humans on a one-way mission to Mars.

 Ha, yeah I assume there probably are. How much is it going to cost?
It's going to be £3.8 billion to set it up, then another £630 million for each one of the four astronauts. I initially thought that number was unrealistically high, but the International Olympic Committee had a revenue of one or two billion pounds for one three-week-long event, so that's half a billion a week, which makes our numbers not look too bad.

Literally everybody who has access to internet or TV will watch it and, by that time, nearly four billion people will have the internet, so imagine being the brand that sponsors an event like that. You'll immediately have the biggest name on the planet.  It's a lot of money, but I'm very entrepreneurial and also very down to earth, so I wouldn't do it if I didn't believe it was possible.

Cool. So what's the process? What's being sent up first?
We've got a demonstration mission in 2016 to show the technology that we've purchased, which is where we'll send a communications satellite to Mars, then, in 2018, we'll send a rover up to find the best location for the settlement.   

What factors determine a good place for a settlement?
It's got to be north enough to have a good amount of water crystals in the soil and south enough for the solar panels to be effective. It's gonna be on the northern hemisphere because the seasons are less extreme there. But it's also got to be as low as possible in altitude, because Mars has a very thin atmosphere and the lower down you go, the more time you'll have to slow down and land safely.

 And everything is going to be ready built for the humans' arrival, right?
Yeah, everything will land in big pre-built components that will be assembled by the rovers. There'll be two capsules for the life support system, two capsules for the living units and two capsules with supplies.   

Nice. Is it right that the astronauts are being picked with a lottery system?
No, that was just something some news show said. The way we're doing it is to have our experts determine who's suitable from those who apply, then we'll ask the audience who they want to send to Mars. The people picked will be the world's first ambassadors to Mars, so it's important that the general public have their say.

What would be your perfect candidate?
Well, when I started, I thought we'd need doctors and engineers, but the most important thing is actually the person's personality. You need someone who's capable of sitting in a very small vehicle for the seven month journey, then able to cope mentally with leaving earth behind. The medical and engineering aspects are obviously very important, too, but we'll train them in those for the eight years before they leave, so it's the personality that's the most crucial thing. 

 What happens if two of the astronauts have a baby, or something? 
Well, that's not the goal. We're putting people up there, but they'll be largely responsible for their own actions. Because of the time difference between Earth and Mars, it's not like we'll be able to say, "Pick up that rock" or guide them through stuff in realtime, so they'll have to be responsible.

And any responsible person knows that Mars – with only three other people for company – probably isn't the ideal place to have a baby. The means to get a baby into the world will be there, though, and the long-term goal is create an outpost where that could happen – maybe when there's 20 or 30 people there. 

So you eventually want to start a whole new Martian society?
Yeah, that should be the goal. We want to establish a small self-supporting society on Mars that doesn’t need the Earth anymore. Although, it's such long-term planning that it's not really something you can keep under control, so we'll have to see.

Do you want to go and live on Mars eventually?
I wanted to. I talked to our medical director, Norbert Craft, though, and he said I don't have the patience or the calmness to cope. I'm the architect and the entrepreneur, not the right person to actually go on the mission, but I will be extremely, extremely jealous when the first four people leave.

 One of my friends put his name down for it. He's always wanted to live in the remote Scottish wilderness, so I suppose Mars would be an even better alternative.
Oh, cool. We just got a bid from an investor, so we're getting really close to signing contracts with our suppliers. When that happens, we think we'll be far enough along to start selecting astronauts.

Nice, I'll let him know. Lastly, what's your personal mission with this? Scientific discovery? Moving the human race forward? Or just leaving your mark on the universe?
Somewhere in the middle, I suppose. I’m interested in the science – I mean, imagine if we found life on Mars. We don't know how much life there is in the universe, let alone on our neighbouring planet. And who knows – it could even bring us closer to understanding the history of the solar system and where we all come from. Of course, the prospect of putting humanity on a different planet is also just breathtaking. It seemed incomprehensible to me before, so my biggest motivation at the moment is to achieve sending the first ever people to Mars. 

By: Unknown On 00.20

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The Hottest Temperatures for 1,400 Years

 Late 20th century was warmest in 1,400 years

PARIS, France - Earth was cooling until the end of the 19th century and a hundred years later, the planet's surface was on average warmer than at any time in the previous 1,400 years, according to climate records presented on Sunday, April 21.

In a study spanning two millennia published in Nature Geoscience, scientists said a "long-term cooling trend" around the world swung into reverse in the late 19th century.

In the 20th century, the average global temperature was 0.4 degrees Celsius (0.7 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than that of the previous 500 years, with only Antarctica bucking the trend.

From 1971-2000, the planet was warmer than at any other time in nearly 1,400 years.

This measure is a global average, and some regions did experience warmer periods than that -- but only for a time. Europe, for instance, was probably warmer in the first century AD than at the end of the 20th century.

The investigation is the first attempt to reconstruct temperatures over the last 2,000 years for individual continents.

It seeks to shed light on a fiercely-contested aspect in the global-warming debate.

Skeptics have claimed bouts of cooling or warming before the Industrial Revolution -- including two episodes in Europe called the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age -- are proof that climate variations are natural, not man-made.

The new study does not wade into the debate about greenhouse gases, but points to two planetary trends.

The first is a clear, prolonged period of cooling. It may have been caused by a combination of factors, including an increase in volcanic activity, with stratospheric ashes reflecting the sunlight, or a decrease in solar activity or tiny changes in Earth's orbit, both of which would diminish sunlight falling on the planet.

The cooling -- between 0.1-0.3 C (0.2-0.6 F) per thousand years, depending on the region -- went into reverse towards the end of the 19th century, and was followed by an intensifying period of warming in the 20th, the paper said.

Beneath this global trend over 2,000 years were episodes of continental cooling or warming, some of which were quite long.

And some continents lagged the overall planetary trend, but with the exception of Antarctica, all followed it.

"Distinctive periods, such as the Medieval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age stand out, but do not show a globally uniform pattern on multi-decadal time scales," said Heinz Wanner of the University of Bern in Switzerland, one of 78 researchers from 24 countries who took part in the project.

"There are things that are common to all the regions of the planet -- long-term cooling, until the 19th century, followed by warming on all continents, except for Antarctica, where it is less clear, but also strong variations from one region to another," Hugues Goosse, a climatologist at Belgium's Catholic University of Leuven, told AFP.

Previous research into climate change has pointed to a warming spurt in the 20th century and attributed it to the rise of heat-trapping carbon gases emitted by burning coal, oil and gas.

The warming trend shifted up a gear in the middle of the 1970s, in line with record-breaking levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), according to this past research.

2012 saw the 36th straight year that global temperatures were above average since 1880, when scientifically acceptable records were first kept, and was the ninth or 10th warmest on record, US scientists said in January.

The temperature reconstruction published on Sunday was coordinated by a scientific initiative called the Past Global Changes (PAGES) 2K Network.

It brings together weather data as well as telltales of temperature variation from tree rings, pollen, corals, lake and marine sediments, ice cores and stalagmites garnered at 511 locations across seven continental-scale regions.

By: Unknown On 22.39

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The New Knowledge About Love And Sex

7 Things Bonobos Can Teach Us About Love and Sex

What can our close primate cousins teach us about sex?

A few days ago, the lovely Cara Santa Maria, sexy neuroscientist and editor at Huffington Post, asked me if I could come up with seven things we could learn about love from bonobos, for a Valentine's Day piece.

Christopher Ryan is one of the freshest voices in the modern scientific movement to decode the mystery of human sexuality. His book, Sex At Dawn, busts many of the myths surrounding human sexual evolution, based upon contextual evidence from our hominid ancestors as well as our living relatives, namely, the great apes.

We've known for some time that bonobos (previously known as "pygmy chimpanzees") are among  the most sexual of all living animals—besides of course, humans. Frans de Waal dubbed them the "make love, not war" species, since they seem to resolve the majority of conflicts through sexual activity. So, it seemed only natural that I ask Dr. Ryan, preeminent "sexpert," to give us some love advice through the lens of these magnificent creatures. From them, we can learn a thing or two--or seven.

So, without further ado, here are seven things we can learn about love from bonobos, as described by Dr. Christopher Ryan:

1. More sex = less conflict. As the great primatologist, Frans de Waal put it, "Chimps use violence to get sex, while bonobos use sex to avoid violence." While chimps victimize each other in many ways—rape, murder, infanticide, warfare between groups—there's never been a single observed case of any of these forms of aggression among bonobos, who are much sexier than chimps. As James Prescott demonstrated in a meta-analysis of all available anthropological data, the connection between less restrictive sexuality and less conflict generally holds true for human societies as well.

2. Feminism can be very sexy. When females are in charge, everyone lives better (including the males). While male chimps run the show, among bonobos, it's the females who are in charge, with much better quality of life for everyone involved (see #1).

3. Sisterhood is powerful. Although female bonobos are about 20% smaller than males—roughly the same ratio as in chimps and humans—they dominate males by sticking together. If a male gets out of line and harasses a female, ALL the other females will gang up on him. This sisterly solidarity, combined with lots of sex, tends to keep the males behaving politely.

4. Jealousy isn't romantic. While bonobos no-doubt experience unique feelings for one another, they don't seem to worry much about controlling one another's sex lives. Nor do bonobos seem to gossip much...

5. There's promise in promiscuity. All the casual sex among bonobos is arguably a big part of what has made them among the smartest of all primates. Until human beings came along and messed things up for them, bonobos enjoyed very high quality of life, low stress, and plenty of social interaction in hammocks. In fact, of the many species of social primates living in multi-male social groups, not a single species is sexually monogamous. Each of the arguably smartest mammals--humans, chimps, bonobos, and dolphins—is promiscuous.

6. Good sex needn't always include an orgasm, and "casual" doesn't necessarily mean "empty" or "cheap." Most bonobo sexual interactions are nothing more than a quick feel, rub, or intromission—a "bonobo handshake," if you will. (See Vanessa Woods's excellent book by that name for a personal story of living with bonobos while falling in love.) But bonobos are very romantic: like humans, they kiss, hold hands (and feet!), and gaze into one another's eyes while having sex.

7. Sex and food go together better than love and marriage—at least for bonobos. Nothing gets a bonobo orgy started faster than a feast. Give a group of bonobos a bunch of food and they'll all have some quick sex before very politely sharing the food. No need to fight over scraps like a bunch of uncouth chimps!

By: Unknown On 21.22

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MILF Sperm Eater

Flies ullidiid (Euxesta bilimeki) has a unique behavior. Fly species have a habit of eating sperm!

MILF: Mother I Love Flies
 
Such behavior may be considered disgusting. In fact, there may be some who consider it porn. However, the behavior is totally real. Scientists recently revealed that the behavior associated with the rejection of females to males.

Like humans, animals also have a "soul mate" option. Human males busy convincing female hero that he is indeed elected future husband. Animals also need to convince the female stud that he deserves to marry her.

Some species live shows to attract females and rejection or acceptance is made by the female. However, some other species do not.

On the species of birds, mammals, and insects, where fertilization takes place inside the body, the selection of mating couples sometimes invisible. In certain cases, females forced males willing dikimpoii "desperate". This is what happens to species E bilimeki.

Christian Luis Rodriguez-Enriquez and his colleagues from the Institute for Ecology in Vera Cruz, Mexico, to make observations on 74 pairs of E bilimeki. They want to know the reason why it takes sperm female flies.

The results showed, all females studied sperm are "paid" stud. Then, at least they take the majority of sperm released.

In a more detailed observation, a quarter of all females who dobservasi eject sperm from males. This means, all the seeds from the male was issued. Married males did not have a chance to get a descent.

Researchers were puzzled by the results of this research. If many females who do, it can be said that the female is a waste of time and energy to mating. Throw away the chance to have offspring, what is its purpose?

National Geographic reported, the analysis revealed that the purpose of the female scientist sperm is the seed of the males refused to marry her.

Ullidiid flies do not like the stud that is too "desperate" to marry her. They do not want males who do not know the meaning of "subtle rejection" before marriage to father offspring.

According to investigators, let males marry females because it is lazy to call the male. Sperm-rich protein then eaten after issued as compensation for workers who have been issued throughout the marriage.

Previously, researchers estimated that sperm eating behaviors associated with survival. However, that assumption is not entirely true.

In excellent condition lacked food, eating sperm can indeed make it fly species survive. However, it was not the sperm flies assure long lived species. This suggests that the sperm is not eaten as a main meal.

By: Unknown On 21.08

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Live Fast Die Younger

Live fast, die younger: Actors, singers and sportsman 'die seven and a half years before other high achievers'

    Analysis of successful people found those in the public eye died younger
    Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix and more did not realise their potential
    Young people considering chasing fame 'may face early death'

Stars such as Kurt Cobain, formerly of hit grunge band Nirvana, are more likely to die young, according to new research
Elvis Presley died in 1977, grossly overweight and addicted to drugs. In his prime he was the biggest music star the world had ever seen
Too soon: Best-selling novelist Ernest Hemingway was just 61 when he killed himself
Waste: American rocker and musical pioneer Jimi Hendrix was just 27 when he died, apparently from an overdose. His career in the musical mainstream lasted just four years

Fame really does have a price, research shows.

An analysis of the lives and deaths of almost 1,000 successful people found that pop stars, sportsmen and actors were more likely to die young.

The price of fame equated to up to seven and a half years of life, with military top brass living on average almost eight years longer than sports stars, singers and other performers, a medical journal reports.

The idea that musicians die young has long been a source of fascination, with the deaths of the likes of Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison still fodder for books and films decades later.

Using information from New York Times obituaries, the Australian researchers proved the trio to be far from from the exception to the rule.

They took obituaries published between 2009 and 2011 and pulled out information such as age of death, cause of death and occupation.

It was assumed that those deemed worthy of an obituary in the newspaper had had a successful career.

The analysis showed that performers, including actors and singers, died the youngest.

Their average age of death was 77 years and one month. In contrast, military personal were the longest lived, clocking up 84 years and 8 months, on average.

Sportspeople also fared badly, dying on average at the age of 77 years and 5 months. Writers and other ‘creatives’ weren’t far behind, with an average lifespan of 78 and a half.

In contrast, businesspeople and politicians tended to join army-types in living in to their 80, the article in QJM: An International Journal of Medicine reports.

Early deaths were linked to accidents and infections, including HIV and cancer.

Lung cancer deaths, which the researchers said were an indication of long-term smoking, were most common in those whose career was performance-based.

The study’s authors said that young people considering chasing fame may face the choice of fulfilling their career potential or living longer.

They added that while the results don’t prove anything, they raise some interesting possibilities, from pop stars indulging too much while famous, to them self-medicating afterwards.

Professor Richard Epstein, of St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney, said: ‘First, if it is true that successful performers and sports players tend to enjoy shorter lives, does this imply that fame at younger ages predisposes to poor health behaviours in later life after success has faded?

‘Or that psychological and family pressures favouring unusually high public achievement lead to self-destructive tendencies throughout life?

‘Or that risk-taking personality traits maximise one’s chances of success, with the use of cigarettes, alcohol or illicit drugs improving one’s performance output in the short term?

‘Any of these hypotheses could be viewed as a health warning to young people aspiring to become stars.’

Another recent analysis of rock and pop stars found that many of those who died young had been abused when young.

The British researchers said that the trappings of a rock and roll lifestyle may be especially attractive to those who have had an unhappy childhood.

By: Unknown On 01.38

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The World's Oldest Harbor

4,500-year-old harbor structures and papyrus texts unearthed in Egypt

Archaeologists have stumbled upon what is thought to be the most ancient harbor ever found in Egypt, along with the country's oldest collection of papyrus documents, Egyptian authorities say.

The harbor goes back 4,500 years, to the days of the Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops) in the Fourth Dynasty, the Egypt State Information Service reported on Friday. The Great Pyramid of Giza serves as the tomb of Khufu, who died around 2566 B.C.

The harbor was built on the Red Sea shore in the Wadi al-Jarf area, 112 miles (180 kilometers) south of Suez. The find was made by a French-Egyptian mission from the French Institute for Archaeological Studies, according to Friday's dispatch. Discovery News quoted the mission's director, Pierre Tallet of the University of Paris-Sorbonne, as saying that the site "predates by more than 1,000 years any other port structure known in the world."
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The harbor is considered one of the most important commercial ports of ancient Egypt, where trips to export copper and other minerals from the Sinai Peninsula were launched. Egyptian authorities said the archaeologists found a variety of docks, as well as a collection of carved stone anchors.

The team also unearthed a collection of 40 papyri that detailed the daily lives of ancient Egyptians during the 27th year of Khufu's reign, said Egypt's antiquities minister, Mohamed Ibrahim. "These are the oldest papyri ever found in Egypt," he said. Among the subjects reportedly covered were the arrangements for getting bread and beer to the workers heading out from the port.

One papyrus is said to detail the daily activities of an official named Merrer, who was involved in building the Great Pyramid.

"He mainly reported about his many trips to the Turah limestone quarry to fetch block for the building of the pyramid," Tallet told Discovery News. "Although we will not learn anything new about the construction of the Cheops monument, this diary provides for the first time an insight on this matter."

By: Unknown On 19.50

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God Particle Has Been Found !

By: Unknown On 01.02

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Disgusting Facts About SEX

Weird, disgusting facts about sex

We know sex is amazing, but there are certain things that can give you a creepy feeling about sex.

Unlike in movies, real life sex can be embarrassing at times, and can even lead to sexual mishaps. As part of the animal kingdom, we human beings have sex like the way other animals do. If you imagine the biological things that happen to our body during sex, you will definitely find it absolutely disgusting.

From strange noises to dirty kissing, sex can be awkward, funny, and to say the least, gross. So, brace yourself as we list a few weird facts that might put you off sex for a while.

Why kissing is so dirty: When you kiss your partner's mouth you are almost passing bacteria to each other's mouths. It's a fact that there are around five hundred types of bacteria in our mouth, and about fifty per cent of them are present in our tongue. So be careful when you bite your partner's tongue. At the end of the day, French kiss is a gross thing to do.

Millions of sex a day: Believe it or not, everyday about 100 million couples around the world have sex. That means around 65,000 couples are having sex right now. So if you imagine the sheer intensity of the sexual activity, you are sure to find it gross. It might seem like the earth is shaking under your feet.

Naked bodies make noises: While having sex your bodies rub against each other, and start to sweat, get sticky and even make strange noises. Maybe sex with clothes on is a more hygienic idea.

Vagina could stink: For those who like oral sex, here is bad news for you. If not washed regularly vagina can smell bad, and cause yeast infection. Hence, making the prospect of sex during periods all the more messy.

After sex is a mess: After orgasm, most people always land up in the bathroom rather than just roll over and go to sleep. And also you have to clean up your messy bed or may even have to change the whole bedding. In this case, women do most of the cleaning. After all, ejaculation is a messy business.

Sex after meal sucks: How do couples have sex after a romantic dinner? It could be one of the grossest things to do. Imagine, sex between burps. Sex isn't fun when your mouth stinks, and when your stomach is full. Now, if you are having sex only to burn calories, then it's a different thing altogether.

If you have ever had any such gross feelings about sex, do share them with us.

By: Unknown On 23.59

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The Best Time to Have Sex

Your odds of achieving orgasm are highest on THIS night

Mark this date on your calendars, ladies: A new study in The Journal of Sexual Medicine shows that around day 14 of your menstrual cycle, your clitoris grows up to 20 percent bigger and becomes engorged more easily, upping your chance of arousal.

A group of Italian researchers studied 24 women between the ages of 18 and 35. Using ultrasound equipment, they took measurements of each woman’s clitoris and the main artery that feeds blood into the clitoris, causing arousal. They did this at the beginning, middle, and end phases of each woman’s menstrual cycle. The researchers found that on day 14 of a woman’s cycle, her clitoris actually grows in size. And not just by a tiny bit—it swells by 15-20 percent on average. On top of this, the clitoral artery becomes less restricted, meaning blood can travel to your love button more easily. These changes make it easier than ever for you to get turned on, so why not take advantage?

Day 14 is also around the time that ovulation occurs, so it makes sense that your body is gunning for some action. In fact, the women in the study reported having more sex mid-cycle than at any other time.

Cesare Battaglia, MD, PhD, a researcher at the University of Bologna and one of the study authors, says that the surge in estradiol (natural estrogen) around the time of ovulation is probably what causes these changes. But you don’t have to tell your partner that—just schedule a date night for day 14.

By: Unknown On 03.50

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Roman gold in the City of London

‘Unparalleled’ Roman artefacts found in London

Artefacts “unparalleled in the Roman world” have been unearthed at London’s biggest archaeological dig for 20 years, shedding new light on the mercantile and social roots of the capital.

Up to 60 staff from Museum of London Archaeology have been digging since September at Bloomberg Place, a three-acre site in the heart of the City of London that will become the European headquarters of the media group.

About 8,000 objects have been found at the site, which the archaeologists have dubbed “the Pompeii of the north”. These include a hoard of pewter, fine leather upholstery and footwear, inked writing tablets and shoulder-high oak walls that channelled the Walbrook river which once ran through the area.

Though this tributary of the river Thames no longer flows, the waterlogged earth was crucial in keeping the leather, wooden and wicker objects in a remarkable state of preservation.

Among the hundreds of shoes found were cork-soled slippers used on the stone floors heated by Roman hypocausts, flip-flop style sandals and carbatina – footwear made from a single piece of leather.

But the artefact that has set archaeologists’ pulses racing is a large panel of leather upholstery that may have been used as the equivalent of a dashboard on a Roman horse-drawn chariot. Consisting of five stitched layers of leather, the 1.2m piece is decorated with an image of a warrior on a chariot flanked by two “hippocamps” – half-horse, half-fish creatures of Roman myth.

Staff said European museums could find nothing with which to compare the object. Michael Marshall, a Museum of London archaeologist, said: “It’s completely unparalleled in the Roman world.”

The scale of commerce in Roman London is also revealed by a mass of industrial spoil, including the offcuts from leather and metal working and evidence of a large mill that may have been powered by the Walbrook.

Mr Marshall said: “It is going to tell us a massive amount about the local Roman economy.”

With finds dating from the entire period of the Roman occupation of Britain, which lasted from AD43 to AD410, the dig also boasts the biggest haul from a single site of “fist and phallus” amulets – popular effigies thought to ward off evil – with 20 recovered for analysis.

Large parts of the Bloomberg site were also excavated in 1954, when archaeologists discovered the foundations of a Roman temple of Mithras.

But modern techniques mean far more will be saved this time than in the earlier digs, enriching academic understanding of the Roman occupation of London. “We’ve only looked so far at about 1,000 objects from the site, so much of the story has yet to be told,” said Mr Marshall.

The remains of the Mithras temple, dismantled for the current construction work, will be rerebuilt under the Bloomberg building to form part of a permanent exhibition also featuring objects from the dig.

Under the rules governing archaeological finds, Bloomberg – which is majority-owned by Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York – owns the artefacts retrieved from the site.

While the media group said no decision had been taken, large-scale finds in the capital have previously been donated to the Museum of London by their corporate owners after analysis and research has been completed.

By: Unknown On 03.42

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The Gospel of Judas

Truth Behind Gospel of Judas Revealed in Ancient Inks

The Gospel of Judas, a text dated to about A.D. 280, tells the story of Judas as a collaborator with Jesus instead of a betrayer.
A long-lost gospel that casts Judas as a co-conspirator of Jesus, rather than a betrayer, was ruled most likely authentic in 2006. Now, scientists reveal they couldn't have made the call without a series of far more mundane documents, including Ancient Egyptian marriage licenses and property contracts.

The Gospel of Judas is a fragmented Coptic (Egyptian)-language text that portrays Judas in a far more sympathetic light than did the gospels that made it into the Bible. In this version of the story, Judas turns Jesus over to the authorities for execution upon Jesus' request, as part of a plan to release his spirit from his body. In the accepted biblical version of the tale, Judas betrays Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.

As part of a 2006 National Geographic Society (the Society) investigation of the document, microscopist Joseph Barabe of McCrone Associates in Illinois and a team of researchers analyzed the ink on the tattered gospel to find out if it was real or forged. Some of the chemicals in the ink raised red flags — until Barabe and his colleagues found, at the Louvre Museum, a study of Egyptian documents from the third century A.D., the same time period of the Gospal of Judas.

By: Unknown On 08.43

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The Ideal Penis as Seen by Experts

 'Ideal' Penis Size Depends on Guy's Height

Put down the rulers, guys — whether your penis is the "right" size depends on the proportions of the rest of your body, a new study finds.

Women rate men with larger penises more attractive, but the returns on bigger genitals start to decrease at a flaccid length of 2.99 inches (7.6 centimeters), the researchers found. What's more, larger penises gave tall men a bigger attractiveness boost than shorter men. The study suggests that women's preferences for bigger penises could explain why human males have relatively big genitals for their body size.

Studies on women's preferences for penis size have been mixed, with some suggesting that women who frequently orgasm through vaginal stimulation are the pickiest, perhaps because penis size matters for that sort of stimulation. Men typically fret more about size than women, however, at least according to a 2007 review article in the British Journal of Urology International.

But studies have relied on questionnaires, which may not always glean honest answers, Australian researchers wrote today (April 8) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And in other studies, scientists have asked women to judge the attractiveness of male figures in photos with only penis size varied, when in fact no trait is ever evaluated in a vacuum, the scientists added. [The 7 Weirdest Animal Penises]

To compensate, the researchers, led by Michael Jennions of Australian National University, showed 105 young Australian women life-size computer-generated figures of nude men, varying the figures' flaccid penis size, height and shoulder-to-hip ratio. Height and shoulder-to-hip ratio have previously been shown as factors used by women to judge attractiveness. The computer simulations varied penis width in sync with length, so that all penises were proportional.

The results revealed that women preferred taller men as well as high shoulder-to-hip ratios (meaning that the wider the shoulders were than the hip, the more attractive the man). Shoulder-to-hip ratio was a major determiner of attractiveness, accounting for 79.6 percent of the variation in hot-or-not ratings.

Though the effect was less extreme, women also preferred larger penises, at least up to 5.1 inches (13 cm) flaccid, which was the largest computer-generated penis in the study. Beyond 2.99 inches, however, the additional attractiveness per extra length started to decline. That's good news for guys, according to a 2001 Italian study that found 2.99 inches flaccid to be below average.

When the researchers controlled for shoulder-to-hip ratio, they found that a larger penis had a greater effect on attractiveness for taller men. It's possible that a larger penis just looked more proportional on a taller man's body, the researchers wrote, or it could be that women were biased against shorter men to the extent that even large genitals didn't help.

Women's own features mattered as well, the researchers found: Taller women were more likely to find taller men attractive. Women with greater body mass per height were slightly more likely than thinner women to weigh penis size more heavily in their judgments of attractiveness, though the difference was small.

The findings might help explain why humans have remarkably large genitalia given their average body size, the researchers wrote. Male humans outgun any other primate species: For example, male gorillas can weigh as much as 400 pounds (180 kilograms), but their erect penis length is only about 1.5 inches (4 cm). Human males weigh about half of what gorillas do, but studies peg average erect or flaccid-but-stretched penis length from 4.7 inches (12 cm) to 6.5 inches (16.7 cm).

Evolutionary biologists theorize that large human penises might help remove sperm from competing males during sex, but in an era before clothing, women may have been drawn to mating with men whose genitalia caught their eye. Men with larger penises, then, may have passed on their genes more readily, resulting in the large-genitals trait being handed down the generations. In other words, guys may have women to thank for their greater-than-gorilla-sized genitals. 

By: Unknown On 00.39

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Ejaculation Really Equal to Sprinting 100 Metres

Investigating an Old Schoolyard Myth: Is a Single Ejaculation Really Equal to Sprinting 100 Metres?

There’s a myth that many young men in Japan are familiar with: the physical exertion involved in one ejaculation is the same as running 100 metres as fast as you can. Now, although many such claims often carry about as much scientific weight as the idea that dropping a cold key down someone’s back can cure the hiccups, as any men will tell you, there’s a reason why we often feel the need to collapse and fall asleep after a particularly vigorous session.

Nonsense or not, this particular myth is one that has existed for generations in Japan and refuses to die off, being passed from one huddle of teenage boys or young office workers to the next. For this reason, online magazine R25 turned to a medical professional to get the cold, hard facts.

“The male orgasm supposedly burns the same amount of calories as running 100 metres with all your might,” the magazine begins. “By this logic, ejaculating three times would require the same amount of calories as a 300-metre run, and five times 500 metres’ worth, meaning that doing it 10 times would be about on par with a long distance run.”

These figures all seem somewhat vague and conveniently neat and tidy, however, so the magazine asked Dr. Ryukou Suda from the Shinjuku Life Clinic to shed some light on the old schoolyard tale.

“This is an incredibly difficult thing to measure since there is no fixed standard for the amount of energy required for a single ejaculation,” the good — and clearly very patient — doctor explains. “At either end of the spectrum, the amount of energy burned during a bout of extremely athletic sexual intercourse differs greatly to that required during a relaxed solo session.”

So there’s no way to know? How will we ever survive as a species without the answers to daft questions such as these!? Thankfully, Dr. Suda goes on to elaborate, pointing us in the direction of good-old science.

Apparently, by using Metabolic Equivalent of Task (MET) calculations, we’re able to ascertain how much energy a man burns during hanky panky. This measurement is often used when calculating the amount of physical exertion a person who has suffered a heart attack ought to limit themselves to, with each task being given a MET “score”. We can use METs to calculate the amount of energy used in a number of physical activities, Dr. Suda explains: ”Regular walking costs between 3.0 to 4.0 METs, and jogging around 7.0. Averagely strenuous sex comes in at around 1.3 METs. So in other words, on the scale of exertion, it wouldn’t be possible to use as much energy in one ejaculation as flat-out sprinting.”

There you have it, folks; science has the answers. But then why, if the number of calories burned during sex is so much lower than strenuous activity like sprinting, should so many of us men slump over with all the life and enthusiasm of an empty pillow case seconds after we’ve released the doves? Perhaps it’s just down to feelings of sheer elation and gratitude that someone actually let us climb aboard for a spot of numpty…

By: Unknown On 02.09

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Male Will Be Extinct - Be Prepared !!

The end of men? Expert predicts males will be extinct in five million years... and the process has already started!

    Leading Australian expert says 'inherent fragility' of the male sex chromosome will lead to male demise
    Says the research is 'very bad news' for all men

Battle of the sexes: A leading Australian expert says 'inherent fragility' of the male sex chromosome will lead to male demise

Men are living on borrowed time, according to a leading female scientist.

Professor Jenny Graves even claims the male of the species is heading for extinction.

And chaps, the bad news doesn’t end there, because the process may have already started.

Professor Graves, one of Australia’s most influential scientists, believes that women will win the battle of the sexes – and in the most definitive way possible.

She says that the inherent fragility of the male sex chromosome, the Y sex chromosome, means that men are sliding towards extinction.

Professor Graves’s prediction hinges around the number of genes on the male and female sex chromosomes.

The female, or X, chromosome, contains a healthy 1,000 or so genes.

What's more, girls and women have two of them.

The Y chromosome started off with as many genes as its female counterpart.

But over hundreds of millions of years it has crumbled away, leaving fewer than 100 genes in modern man.

This includes the SRY gene, the ‘male master switch’ that determines whether an embryo is male or female.

What is more, while women have two X chromosomes, men have just one, ‘wimpy’, Y.

This is key, as the pairing allows the X to make crucial repairs.

Lacking a mate, the Y chromosome finds it more difficult to patch up mistakes and so decays away.

Professor Graves, of Canberra University, said: ‘The X chromosome is all alone in the male but in the female it has a friend, so it can swop bits and repair itself.

‘If the Y gets hit, it’s a downward spiral.’

Giving a public lecture, the professor said: ‘It is very bad news for all the men here.’

And there is more bad news.

In her talk at the Australian Academy of Science, the professor described the remaining genes on the Y chromosome as being mostly ‘junk’.

She said: ‘It’s a lovely example of what I call dumb design.

‘It’s an evolutionary accident.’

However,  there is some good news. 

Professor Graves estimates that it will take five million years for the Y chromosome, and the men it produces, to disappear all together.

Other experts urged men not to panic.

Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, a sex chromosome expert from the National Institute for Medical Research in London, said that studies have shown the decay to occur in bursts.

And the Y chromosome has not lost any genes for at least 25 million years.

He said: ‘I would say this is of no concern whatsoever.’

Professor Chris Mason, of University College London, said that even if the Y chromosome does crumble away in the next few million years, medicine will have plenty of time to catch up.

He said: ‘Five or six million years should be plenty of time for medical science to produce a fix and probably a Nobel Prize.’

Professor Graves has her own solution.

She says that when Y chromosome falls to pieces, another chromosome could take on the role of the missing Y, leading to the creation of a new species of human.

There is already a precedent for this in nature, in the form of a Japanese spiny rat which has survived the loss of its Y chromosome.

In fact, the  process may already be underway in some isolated groups of people, said the professor.

She said: ‘We would not even suspect it without checking the chromosomes.’

A CHROMOSOME CRISIS

The female, or X, chromosome, contains around 1,000 genes, and females have two of them.

The Y chromosome started off with as many genes as its female counterpart.

But over hundreds of millions of years it has crumbled away, leaving fewer than 100 genes in modern man.

This includes the SRY gene, the ‘male master switch’ that determines whether an embryo is male or female.

What is more, while women have two X chromosomes, men have just one, ‘wimpy’, Y.

This is key, as the pairing allows the X to make crucial repairs.

Lacking a mate, the Y chromosome finds it more difficult to patch up mistakes and so decays away.

By: Unknown On 01.38

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The Scary Secrets How To See Demons

Strange Sleep Disorder Makes People See 'Demons' 

When filmmaker Carla MacKinnon started waking up several times a week unable to move, with the sense that a disturbing presence was in the room with her, she didn't call up her local ghost hunter. She got researching.

Now, that research is becoming a short film and multiplatform art project exploring the strange and spooky phenomenon of sleep paralysis. The film, supported by the Wellcome Trust and set to screen at the Royal College of Arts in London, will debut in May.

Sleep paralysis happens when people become conscious while their muscles remain in the ultra-relaxed state that prevents them from acting out their dreams. The experience can be quite terrifying, with many people hallucinating a malevolent presence nearby, or even an attacker suffocating them. Surveys put the number of sleep paralysis sufferers between about 5 percent and 60 percent of the population.

 "I was getting quite a lot of sleep paralysis over the summer, quite frequently, and I became quite interested in what was happening, what medically or scientifically, it was all about," MacKinnon said. [Top 10 Spooky Sleep Disorders]

Her questions led her to talk with psychologists and scientists, as well as to people who experience the phenomenon. Myths and legends about sleep paralysis persist all over the globe, from the incubus and succubus (male and female demons, respectively) of European tales to a pink dolphin-turned-nighttime seducer in Brazil. Some of the stories MacKinnon uncovered reveal why these myths are so chilling.

Sleep stories

One man told her about his frequent sleep paralysis episodes, during which he'd experience extremely realistic hallucinations of a young child, skipping around the bed and singing nursery rhymes. Sometimes, the child would sit on his pillow and talk to him. One night, the tot asked the man a personal question. When he refused to answer, the child transformed into a "horrendous demon," MacKinnon said.

For another man, who had the sleep disorder narcolepsy (which can make sleep paralysis more common), his dream world clashed with the real world in a horrifying way. His sleep paralysis episodes typically included hallucinations that someone else was in his house or his room — he'd hear voices or banging around. One night, he awoke in a paralyzed state and saw a figure in his room as usual. [See MacKinnon's Artistic Images of Sleep Paralysis]

"He suddenly realizes something is different," MacKinnon said. "He suddenly realizes that he is in sleep paralysis, and his eyes are open, but the person who is in the room is in his room in real life."

The figure was no dream demon, but an actual burglar.

Myths and science of sleep paralysis

Sleep paralysis experiences are almost certainly behind the myths of the incubus and succubus, demons thought have sex with unsuspecting humans in their sleep. In many cases, MacKinnon said, the science of sleep paralysis explains these myths. The feeling of suffocating or someone pushing down on the chest that often occurs during sleep paralysis may be a result of the automatic breathing pattern people fall into during sleep. When they become conscious while still in this breathing pattern, people may try to bring their breathing under voluntary control, leading to the feeling of suffocating.

Add to that the hallucinations that seem to seep in from the dream world, and it's no surprise that interpretations lend themselves to demons, ghosts or even alien abduction, MacKinnon said.

What's more, MacKinnon said, sleep paralysis is more likely when your sleep is disrupted in some way — perhaps because you've been traveling, you're too hot or too cold, or you're sleeping in an unfamiliar or spooky place. Those tendencies may make it more likely that a person will experience sleep paralysis when already vulnerable to thoughts of ghosts and ghouls.

"It's interesting seeing how these scientific narratives and the more psychoanalytical or psychological narratives can support each other rather than conflict," MacKinnon said.

Since working on the project, MacKinnon has been able to bring her own sleep paralysis episodes under control — or at least learned to calm herself during them. The trick, she said, is to use episodes like a form of research, by paying attention to details like how her hands feel and what position she's in. This sort of mindfulness tends to make scary hallucinations blink away, she said.

"Rationalizing it is incredibly counterintuitive," she said. "It took me a really long time to stop believing that it was real, because it feels so incredibly real."

By: Unknown On 20.22

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