# life: ghostly psyche revisited; ghosts, zombies, gris-gris, and so on ...

<< Most people imagine philosophers as rational thinkers who spend their time developing abstract logical theories and strongly reject superstitious beliefs. But several 20th-century philosophers actively investigated spooky topics such as clairvoyance, telepathy – even ghosts.

Many of these philosophers, including Henri Bergson and William James, were interested in what was called “psychical research”. This was the academic study of paranormal phenomena including telepathy, telekinesis and other-worldly spirits. These thinkers attended seances and were attempting to develop theories about ghosts, life after death and the powers exhibited by mediums in trances. >>

AA << recent archival research has been looking at how these topics shaped 20th-century philosophy. >>️

Matyas Moravec. Many important 20th-century philosophers investigated ghosts – here’s how they explained them. Oct 24, 2024. 

https://theconversation.com/many-important-20th-century-philosophers-investigated-ghosts-heres-how-they-explained-them-241635

Also: ethno, gris-gris, neuro, zombie, perception, psychedelic, delirium, in https://www.inkgmr.net/kwrds.html 

Keywords: ethno, gris-gris, neuro, zombie, perception, psychedelic, delirium 

FonT: even G.A. Romero's zombie filmography - which, as with other "spooky" themes, I have always marginalized - still seems relevant.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_A._Romero

# brain: time delay in 'reservoir brain' as a reservoir network, a hypothesis

<< Both the predictive power and the memory storage capability of an artificial neural network called a reservoir computer increase when time delays are added into how the network processes signals, according to a new model. >>️

<< They also suggest that incorporating time delays could offer advantages to living neural networks (such as those found in human and animal brains). Such a finding would be tantalizing, as time delays are known to decrease performance in living systems. For example, for a baseball player facing an oncoming ball, a longer time delay between perception and action (which is learned from experience) will decrease the likelihood they hit a home run. Are there instead cases in which time delays increase an organism’s ability to perform some task? Has evolution shaped our brains, which could perhaps be thought of as a collection of reservoir computers, so that the time delay between one neuron sending a signal and a second receiving it is exactly the right length for understanding the visual and audio that constantly impinge upon our eyes and ears? Does adding time delays impact the number of neurons the brain needs to operate correctly? Further work is needed to answer these questions, but such work could lead to a new understanding of how biological organism’s function.  >>️

Sarah Marzen. Time Delays Improve Performance of Certain Neural Networks. Physics 17, 111. July 22, 2024. 

https://physics.aps.org/articles/v17/111 

Also: pause, silence, jazz, network, brain, ai (artificial intell), in https://www.inkgmr.net/kwrds.html 

Keywords: gst, brain, network, neural network, reservoir network, reservoir computer, time delay, ai, artificial intelligence

# art: nature as a bizarre artist, the self-sculpted Sphinx.

<< There is evidence that the Great Sphinx was a natural landform before its surface features were chiseled by the ancient Egyptians. Is this controversial theory plausible? >>

AA << carried out experiments on the fluid mechanical erosion of clay. Based on accounts of the nonuniform composition of the Sphinx, we tested the effect of hard inclusions within hillocks of softer clay. The flow of a water tunnel mimics the prevailing winds of Giza, and three-dimensional optical scanning records the history and evolution of the shape as it erodes. >>

<< These results show what ancient peoples may have encountered in the deserts of Egypt and why they envisioned a fantastic creature. >>️

️

Samuel Boury, Scott Weady, Leif Ristroph. Sculpting the Sphinx. Phys. Rev. Fluids 8, 110503. Nov 16, 2023.

https://journals.aps.org/prfluids/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.8.110503

https://gfm.aps.org/meetings/dfd-2022/6323dcaf199e4c2c0873fad7

Also: brain, perception, in https://www.inkgmr.net/kwrds.html 

Keywords: art, sculpt, Sphinx, erosion, fluid mechanical erosion, brain, mind, perceptions.

# behav: the self-care hypothesis of the puteketeke bird (great crested grebe, Podiceps cristatus)

<< The Puteketeke bird has been elected as New Zealand's Bird of the Century after John Oliver promoted the bird not just on his show, but around the world. >>

<< It also exhibits some unusual antics, like eating feathers to help it vomit up parasites,  >> AILSA CHANG

️

<< They have a mating dance where they both grab a clump of wet grass and chest bump each other... >> JOHN OLIVER

Kat Lonsdorf, Christopher Intagliata. The Puteketeke bird has been elected as New Zealand's Bird of the Century. npr.org Nov 15, 2023. 

https://www.npr.org/2023/11/15/1213287236/the-puteketeke-bird-has-been-elected-as-new-zealands-bird-of-the-century

L’uccello del secolo della Nuova Zelanda l’ha deciso John Oliver. ilpost.it. Nov 15, 2023. 

https://www.ilpost.it/2023/11/15/john-oliver-uccello-secolo-nuova-zelanda/

the bird: https://youtu.be/98ceB5SPRXI

John Oliver, an interview: https://youtu.be/uVE1hBzHn3s

many thanks to Tammi ( https://www.inkgmr.net/tammi ) for this news. 

Also: Self-perception of health and survival. A 10-year follow-up among Italians aged over sixty. INRCA, Technical Report, Genova, 7 March 1995: 1-19. Minerva Med 1997 Jan-Feb 88:1-2 15-23. [abst] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9093288/

Also: 'behav', 'perception', in https://www.inkgmr.net/kwrds.html

Keywords: behaviour, self-care, perceptions

# life: a painted texture glimpsed through 25 words

<< If you want to understand the complicated nature of the United States in 2023, ask Americans to define their country themselves. In the past year, the American Communities Project did just that. It visited four different counties and asked passersby to define 25 words, including America, and the responses showed a range of opinions. >>️

<< The media tends to explain the divides in United States in binary terms — red/blue, left/right, urban/rural. News stories discuss war between two conflicting “cultures” in the country. Sometimes included is a third option for “independents” or “centrists.” But look closer and the picture is far more complicated, marked by fault lines that can be hard to see. >>️

Dante Chinni, Ari Pinkus. New Survey Breaks Down America’s Complicated Landscape. American Communities Project/Ipsos. Oct 26, 2023. 

https://www.americancommunities.org/new-survey-breaks-down-americas-complicated-landscape

Also: 

Immediate 'shot', the three second time window in art, music, poems and language processing. FonT. Apr 30, 2021.

https://flashontrack.blogspot.com/2021/04/gst-immediate-shot-three-second-time.html

Effetto Northridge. Notes. Sep 26, 2005.

(quasi-stochastic poetry)

https://inkpi.blogspot.com/2005/09/1887-effetto-northridge.html

Keywords: life, self-perception

# brain: the sense of hearing, the sense of silence.

<< Do we only hear sounds? Or can we also hear silence? These questions are the subject of a centuries-old philosophical debate between two camps: the perceptual view (we literally hear silence), and the cognitive view (we only judge or infer silence). >>

<< In all cases (concerning seven experiments), silences elicited temporal distortions perfectly analogous to their sound-based counterparts, suggesting that auditory processing treats moments of silence the way it treats sounds. Silence is truly perceived, not merely inferred. >>️

️

Rui Zhe Goh, Ian B. Phillips, Chaz Firestone. The perception of silence. 

PNAS. 120 (29) e2301463120. Jul 10, 2023. 

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2301463120

Roberto Molar Candanosa. The sound of silence? Researchers prove we can  hear it. Johns Hopkins University - HUB. Jul 11, 2023. 

https://hub.jhu.edu/2023/07/11/can-we-hear-silence 

Researchers Prove We Hear the 

Sound of Silence. Jul 10, 2023. 

https://youtu.be/nCRosndUfMc

Also: silence, pause, sound, noise, perception, brain, in https://www.inkgmr.net/kwrds.html 

Keywords:  brain, perception, sound, noise, pause, silence

# gst: an approach to information content in the music of J. S. Bach

<< Music has a complex structure that expresses emotion and conveys information. Humans process that information through imperfect cognitive instruments that produce a gestalt, smeared version of reality. What is the information that humans see? And how does their perception relate to (and differ from) reality? To address these questions quantitatively, (AA) analyze J. S. Bach's music through the lens of network science and information theory. >>

They << find that Bach's music is structured for efficient communication; that is, it communicates large amounts of information while maintaining small deviations of the inferred network from reality. >>

They << probe the network structures that enable this rapid and efficient communication of information -- namely, high heterogeneity and strong clustering. (..) More generally, (they) gain insight into features that make networks of information effective for communication. >>

Suman Kulkarni, Sophia U. David, et al. Information content of note transitions in the music of J. S. Bach. arXiv: 2301.00783v1 [physics.soc-ph]. Jan 2, 2023. 

https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.00783

Also

keyword 'music' in FonT

https://flashontrack.blogspot.com/search?q=music

keyword 'jazz' in FonT

https://flashontrack.blogspot.com/search?q=jazz

keyword 'jazz' in Notes 

(quasi-stochastic poetry)

https://inkpi.blogspot.com/search?q=jazz

Keywords: gst, music, jazz, information theory, note transitions, Bach

# brain: jazzy perceptions inside, there’s more to all the noise; even in the dark, neurons of the visual cortex chat

<< Scientists are now rethinking how they study and conceive of perception. >>

<< At every moment, neurons whisper, shout, sputter and sing, filling the brain with a dizzying cacophony of voices. Yet many of those voices don’t seem to be saying anything meaningful at all. They register as habitual echoes of noise, not signal; as static, not discourse. >>️

<< But over the past decade, that view has changed. (..) There’s more to all the noise, scientists realized, than they had assumed. >>️

<< Now, by analyzing both the neural activity and the behavior of mice in unprecedented detail, researchers have revealed a surprising explanation for much of that variability: Throughout the brain, even in low-level sensory areas like the visual cortex, neurons encode information about far more than their immediately relevant task. They also babble about whatever other behaviors the animal happens to be engaging in, even trivial ones — the twitch of a whisker, the flick of a hind leg. Those simple gestures aren’t just present in the neural activity. They dominate it. >>️

<< Our brains aren’t just thinking in our heads. Our brains are interacting with our bodies and the way that we move through the world. >> Cris Niell. 

<< Wait — maybe the brain isn’t noisy. Maybe it’s actually much more precise than we thought, >> David McCormick️.️

Jordana Cepelewicz. ‘Noise’ in the Brain Encodes Surprisingly Important Signals. Quantamag. Nov 7, 2019. 

https://www.quantamagazine.org/noise-in-the-brains-vision-areas-encodes-body-movements-20191107/

Salkoff DB, Zagha E, McCarthy E, McCormick DA. Movement and Performance Explain Widespread Cortical Activity in a Visual Detection Task. Cereb Cortex. 2020 Jan 10;30(1):421-437. doi: 10.1093/ cercor/bhz206. 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31711133/

Also

keyword 'perception' in FonT

https://flashontrack.blogspot.com/search?q=perception

keyword 'percezione' | 'percezioni' in Notes (quasi-stochastic poetry)

https://inkpi.blogspot.com/search?q=percezione

https://inkpi.blogspot.com/search?q=percezioni

keyword 'error' | 'fuzzy' | 'noise'  in FonT 

https://flashontrack.blogspot.com/search?q=error

https://flashontrack.blogspot.com/search?q=fuzzy

https://flashontrack.blogspot.com/search?q=noise

keywords 'errore' | 'errori' in Notes (quasi-stochastic poetry)

https://inkpi.blogspot.com/search?q=errore

https://inkpi.blogspot.com/search?q=errori

keyword 'jazz' in FonT

https://flashontrack.blogspot.com/search?q=jazz

keyword 'jazz' in Notes (quasi-stochastic poetry):

https://inkpi.blogspot.com/search?q=jazz

Keywords: brain, perception, visual cortex, noise

# life: apropos of transitions (in visual perceptions), 'when the reasoning mind melts away, only shapes remain'.

<< Those who drink the hallucinogenic ayahuasca report seeing two-dimensional patterns or throbbing, three-dimensional hexahedral cells. When the reasoning mind melts away, only shapes remain. >>

<< Geometry gives us a world unclad. "Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare," wrote Edna St. Vincent Millay. That feeling of mystical revelation — of a shimmering, underlying order that we can apprehend if we purify our perception — might explain the mutual affinity between poets and geometers.  (..) Many of the mathematicians cited in Ellenberg’s book (Jordan Ellenberg,  'Shape' ) wrote verse. >>

<< “I prove a theorem,” the poet Rita Dove wrote, “and the house expands.” >>️

️

Parul Sehgal. ‘Shape’ Makes Geometry Entertaining. Really, It Does. NYT. May 20, 2021.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/18/books/review-shape-geometry-jordan-ellenberg.html

Jordan Ellenberg. Shape. The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else. 463 pages. Penguin Press.

https://www.nytimes.com/column/books-of-the-times

Also

keyword 'ayahuasca'  | 'magic string' in FonT

https://flashontrack.blogspot.com/search?q=ayahuasca

https://flashontrack.blogspot.com/search?q=magic+string

keyword 'transition' in FonT

https://flashontrack.blogspot.com/search?q=transition

keyword 'transition' | 'transizion*' in Notes (quasi-stochastic poetry)

https://inkpi.blogspot.com/search?q=transition

https://inkpi.blogspot.com/search?q=transizione

https://inkpi.blogspot.com/search?q=transizioni

# gst: immediate 'shot', the three second time window in art, music, poems and language processing

<< Is there a universal time constant for poetic lines when people read them aloud or recite them by heart? Turner and Pöppel (1988) collected over 20 types of poetry, varying from East to West and from modern societies to indigenous cultures, and found a constant of ~3 s for the duration of poetic lines. >>️

<< This observation indicates a production– perception synchrony of ~3 s, which means that we not only tend to recite poems  (and speech in a more general sense; discussed later) with a 3-s pattern but also appreciate poems aesthetically within the same temporal frame. This temporal preference for a 3-s pattern and not a 1-s or a 10-s pattern, which linguistically would be possible, indicates presumably a profound evolutionary basis. The temporal modulation effect of the 3-s window on aesthetic appreciation may also motivate to look for other concepts and phenomena of the cognitive and neural basis of aesthetic perception in general and in detail, as has been partly already done for decision processes, the visual arts, and music (Avram et al., 2013; Bao et al., 2016; Bao et al., 2017; Park et al., 2014; Park et al., 2015; Pöppel, 1989a). >>

Xinchi Yu, Yan Bao. The three second time window in poems and language processing in general: Complementarity of discrete timing and temporal continuity.  PsyCh Journal. Vol 9, Issue 4 p. 429-443. doi: 10.1002/ pchj.390. Aug 26, 2020. 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pchj.390

<< the composer Peter Michael Hamel  (..) decided to compose a string quartet, which he called The Time Frame. This time window (the three second time window), which is an anthropological universal, provides an operative basis for effortless communication, empathic relationships to others, and it is the brain's way to integrate continuity and simultaneity of what is experienced in a complementary mode. >>️

Peter Michael Hamel. Through the self to music: The self as the creative origin for composing in time frames. Psych J. 10(2):249-253. doi: 10.1002/ pchj.446. Apr 12, 2021

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33847070/

Also 

Ramificata tinnula (di carmina fluitantia). Notes (quasi-stochastic poetry). Jun 09, 2005.

https://inkpi.blogspot.com/2005/06/1668-ramificata-tinnula-di-carmina.html

Elettrico Charlie (Seven come eleven). 

Notes (quasi-stochastic poetry). Feb 01, 2007. 

https://inkpi.blogspot.com/2007/02/2116-elettrico-charlie-seven-come.html

Il pseudomotore di Shostakovich. Notes (quasi-stochastic poetry). Nov 15, 2006. 

https://inkpi.blogspot.com/2006/11/2087-il-pseudomotore-di-shostakovich.html 

keyword 'jazz' in Notes (quasi-stochastic poetry)

https://inkpi.blogspot.com/search?q=jazz

FonT 

Queste considerazioni di Xinchi Yu e  Yan Bao potrebbero anche indicare una sorta di predisposizione neurofisiologica individuale all' 'immediato Satori' ... 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satori

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_(awareness)

# brain: related noise in perception, like a type of "groupthink"

<< The findings, (..) offer new insights into the limits of perception and could aid in the design of so-called neuroprosthetics-devices that enable people to regain some lost sensory capabilities. >>

<< because neurons are highly interconnected, when one randomly responds incorrectly and misidentifies an image, it can influence other neurons to make the same mistake. >>

<< You can think of correlated noise like a type of 'groupthink,' in which neurons can act like lemmings, with one heedlessly following another into making a mistake, >> Surya Ganguli

<< Remarkably, the visual system is able to cut through about 90% of this neuronal noise, but the remaining 10% places a limit on how finely we can discern between two images that look very similar. >>

<< With this study, we've helped resolve a puzzle that's been around for over 30 years about what limits mammals-and by extension humans-when it comes to sensory perception, >> Mark Schnitzer

Adam Hadhazy. Misfiring from jittery neurons sets fundamental limit on perception.  Stanford University. Apr 9, 2020.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-04-misfiring-jittery-neurons-fundamental-limit.html

Rumyantsev OI, Lecoq JA, et al. Fundamental bounds on the fidelity of sensory cortical coding. Nature 580, 100–105 doi:.10.1038/ s41586-020-2130-2. Mar 18, 2020.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2130-2

# behav: adaptive synchronizations; the tendency to anticipate during auditory rhythms

<< Dancing and playing music require people to coordinate actions with auditory rhythms. In laboratory perception-action coordination tasks, people are asked to synchronize taps with a metronome. When synchronizing with a metronome, people tend to anticipate stimulus onsets, tapping slightly before the stimulus. The anticipation tendency increases with longer stimulus periods of up to 3500ms, but is less pronounced in trained individuals like musicians compared to non-musicians.  >>

Iran R. Roman, Auriel Washburn, et al.  Delayed feedback embedded in perception-action coordination cycles results in anticipation behavior during synchronized rhythmic action: A dynamical systems approach. PLoS Comput Biol 15(10): e1007371. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007371. Oct 31, 2019.

https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007371

Delayed neural communication may underlie anticipatory behaviors. Public Library of Science. Oct 31, 2019.

https://m.phys.org/news/2019-10-neural-underlie-anticipatory-behaviors.html

# brain: to trace transitions from consciousness to unconscious subliminal perception

AA << study the transition in the functional networks that characterize the human brains’ conscious-state to an unconscious subliminal state of perception >>

<< the most inner core (i.e., the most connected kernel) of the conscious-state functional network corresponds to areas which remain functionally active when the brain transitions from the conscious-state to the subliminal-state. That is, the inner core of the conscious network coincides with the subliminal-state. >>

<< This finding imposes constraints to theoretical models of consciousness, in that the location of the core of the functional brain network is in the unconscious part of the brain rather than in the conscious state as previously thought. >>

Francesca Arese Lucini, Gino Del Ferraro, et al. How the Brain Transitions from Conscious to Subliminal Perception. Neuroscience. Volume 411, Jul 15, 2019, Pages 280-290.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306452219302052

<< The k-core of the conscious state is reduced to three active regions of the brain, the fusiform gyrus (left and right) and the precentral gyrus. These regions are the only active in the subliminal state. >>

Physicists use mathematics to trace neuro transitions. City College of New York. Jul 18, 2019.

https://m.medicalxpress.com/news/2019-07-physicists-mathematics-neuro-transitions.html  

# soc: computational socioeconomics, a brief manifesto.

AA << will make a brief manifesto about a new interdisciplinary research field named Computational Socioeconomics, followed by detailed introduction about data resources, computational tools, data-driven methods, theoretical models and novel applications at multiple resolutions, including the quantification of global economic inequality and complexity, the map of regional industrial structure and urban perception, the estimation of individual socioeconomic status and demographic, and the real-time monitoring of emergent events. >>

Jian Gao, Yi-Cheng Zhang, Tao Zhou.
Computational Socioeconomics. arXiv:1905.06166v1 [physics.soc-ph].  May 15, 2019.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.06166

download (free, ~11Mb):    https://arxiv.org/pdf/1905.06166

# brain: networks that may underlie our perception of free will

<< Our perception of free will is composed of a desire to act (volition) and a sense of responsibility for our actions (agency). >>

AA << study focal brain lesions that disrupt volition, causing akinetic mutism (..), or disrupt agency, causing alien limb syndrome (..), to better localize these processes in the human brain. >>

<< Lesion locations causing akinetic mutism all fell within one network, defined by connectivity to the anterior cingulate cortex. Lesion locations causing alien limb fell within a separate network, defined by connectivity to the precuneus. >>

AA << results demonstrate that lesions in different locations causing disordered volition and agency localize to unique brain networks, lending insight into the neuroanatomical substrate of free will perception. >>

R. Ryan Darby, Juho Joutsa, et al. Lesion network localization of free will. PNAS Oct 1, 2018.  doi: 10.1073/pnas.1814117115  

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/09/25/1814117115 

Study looks at brain networks involved with free will. Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Oct 1, 2018

https://m.medicalxpress.com/news/2018-10-brain-networks-involved-free.html  

# brain: cockroaches, a spatial representation of the olfactory space

AA were able << to show - for the first time - the existence of a spatial representation of the olfactory space in the brain of a cockroach >>

University of Konstanz. Spatial perception of odorants in cockroaches. Feb 19, 2018.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180219103904.htm

AA << identified 12 types of pheromone-responsive projection neurons (..), each with spatially tuned receptive field >>

Hiroshi Nishino, Masazumi Iwasaki, et al. Spatial Receptive Fields for Odor Localization. Current Biology 2018; 28 (4): 600 - 608.e3. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2017.12.055.  Feb 8, 2018.

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(17)31688-3

# brain: auditory performance also oscillates

AA << demonstrate that, as with vision, both auditory sensitivity and criterion showed strong oscillations over time, at different frequencies: ∼6 Hz (theta range) for sensitivity and ∼8 Hz (low alpha range) for criterion, implying distinct underlying sampling mechanisms. The modulation in sensitivity in left and right ears was in antiphase, suggestive of attention-like mechanisms sampling alternatively from the two ears. >>

Hao Tam Ho, Johahn Leung, et al. Auditory Sensitivity and Decision Criteria Oscillate at Different Frequencies Separately for the Two Ears.  Current Biology. 2017;  27 (23): 3643 -9.e3. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2017.10.017. Nov 16, 2017.

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(17)31320-9

<< perception is cyclical. In a new study, researchers report that, much like visual perception, auditory perception and attention are rhythmic in nature >>

Researchers Discover the Brain is Strobing, Not Constant.

http://neurosciencenews.com/strobing-brain-7970/amp/

# brain: perception of musical rhythms in mammals

AA << confirmed that beat perception, far from being a unique human trait, is likely strongly conserved in mammals >>

Andrew Masterson. Beat perception more primitive than thought. New research shows gerbils react differently to varying musical rhythms. Nov 9, 2017.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/beat-perception-more-primitive-than-thought

Vani G. Rajendran, Nicol S. Harper, et al. Midbrain adaptation may set the stage for the perception of musical beat. Proc. R. Soc. B 2017 284 20171455; DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2017.1455. Nov 8, 2017.

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/284/1866/20171455

# behav: even more devious than previously thought

<< The common cuckoo, notorious for evading parental duty by hiding her eggs in the nests of other brooding birds, is even more devious than previously thought >>

Scientists expose true extent of cuckoo's cunning. Sept 4, 2017

https://m.phys.org/news/2017-09-scientists-expose-true-extent-cuckoo.html

<< Parasites evolve not only to evade host defences but also to manipulate host behaviour >>

AA << test whether a brood parasitic cuckoo manipulates host perception of predation risk using an acoustic signal—a hawk-like call—that might misdirect host defences and thereby reduce the chance that hosts detect parasitism >>

AA << propose that the female cuckoo chuckle call tricks the hosts into responding vigilantly as if they were exposed to danger from a hawk, instead of from a cuckoo. This would divert host attention from clutch protection to self-protection, and so reduce the chance of the hosts detecting that they have been parasitized >>

Jenny E. York, Nicholas B. Davies. Female cuckoo calls misdirect host defences towards the wrong enemy. Nature Ecology & Evolution. Sept 4, 2017 doi: 10.1038/s41559-017-0279-3

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0279-3

# n-lang: this is not a question of grammatical punctiliousness; time as a container to be filled

<< Shortest versus smallest isn’t actually a question of grammatical punctiliousness. Different languages frame time differently. Swedish and English speakers, for example, tend to think of time in terms of distance—what a long day, we say. Time becomes an expanse one has to traverse. Spanish and Greek speakers, on the other hand, tend to think of time in terms of volume—what a full day, they exclaim. Time becomes a container to be filled >>

Kendra Pierre-Louis. The language you speak changes your perception of time. TIME  IS  RELATIVE. May 9, 2017.

http://www.popsci.com/language-time-perception

<< These results reveal the malleable nature of human time representation as part of a highly adaptive information processing system >>

Bylund  E , Athanasopoulos  P. The Whorfian Time Warp: Representing Duration Through  the Language Hourglass. J  Exp  Psychol  Gen. 2017  Apr  27.  doi:  10.1037/xge0000314.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28447839