# zen: short daily mental practices induce structural plasticity in socio-affective and socio-cognitive brain networks

AA << have recently discovered that different types of mental training positively affect either our attention abilities or our social competencies such as compassion and perspective-taking. These improvements in attentional-, socio-emotional or cognitive capacities are parallelled by structural changes in dissociable brain networks supporting these skills. In addition, the scientists were able to show that the release of the stress hormone cortisol after exposure to a psychosocial stressor was significantly reduced only after practising mental techniques aiming at improving social competencies but not by mindfulness-based attention-increasing techniques >>

Tania Singer,  Verena Muller. Improving social skills through mental training changes brain structure and reduces social stress. Max Planck Institute. Oct 4, 2017

http://www.cbs.mpg.de/press-release/improving-social-skills

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171004142653.htm

Sofie L. Valk, Boris C. Bernhardt, et al.  Structural plasticity of the social brain: Differential change after socio-affective and cognitive mental training. Sci Adv  2017; 3(10) e1700489    doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1700489 Oct 4, 2017
   
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/10/e1700489

# pnei: pulsatile testosterone to drive pulsatile decision making during trading

<< Testosterone (..) has been shown to affect economic decision making and is taken as a performance enhancer among some financial professionals >>

Amos Nadler, Peiran Jiao, et al. The Bull of Wall Street: Experimental Analysis of Testosterone and Asset Trading. Management Science.
doi: 10.1287/mnsc.2017.2836  Sep 25, 2017.

http://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2836

Raging Bull: First study to find link between testosterone and stock market instability. Oct 10, 2017

https://m.phys.org/news/2017-10-raging-bull-link-testosterone-stock.html

# acad: anyone can hack biology, by Tiffany

<< Biohacking is a relatively new field of amateur and professional scientists conducting “do-it-yourself” biology experiments >>

Now That Anyone Can Hack Biology—Should We Be Afraid? Singularity Hub. October, 2017

https://singularityhub.com/2017/10/02/biohacking-what-is-it-and-should-we-be-afraid/amp/

Tiffany Vora. What Is Biohacking and Should We Be Afraid of It? Tech-x-planations. Singularity Hub

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=mLlGiSEDi3s

# gst: detect and monitor a deep tremor

<< “Deep tremor is very sensitive to small stress changes,” Chao [Kevin Chao] said. “So, we decided to use them as stress meters to monitor local variations in stress build-up and release before and after large earthquakes” >>

Amanda Morris. Do Earthquakes Have a ‘Tell’? Data scientists and seismologists use “deep tremor” to forecast strong earthquakes. Oct 5, 2017.

http://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/news/articles/2017/10/do-earthquakes-have-a-tell.html

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171005151119.htm

Kevin Chao, Zhigang Peng, et al.
Temporal variation of tectonic tremor activity in southern Taiwan around the 2010 ML6.4 Jiashian earthquake. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth. 2017; 122(7): 5417–34 doi: 10.1002/2016JB013925

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016JB013925/abstract

also

http://flashontrack.blogspot.it/search?q=earthquakes

# brain: a unique patterns of activations during processing narratives

<< English, Farsi and Mandarin readers use the same parts of the brain to decode the deeper meaning of what they're reading >>

<< Even given these fundamental differences in language, which can be read in a different direction or contain a completely different alphabet altogether, there is something universal about what occurs in the brain at the point when we are processing narratives >> Morteza Dehghani.

<< In the case of each language, reading each story resulted in unique patterns of activations in the "default mode network" of the brain. This network engages interconnected brain regions such as the medial prefrontal cortex, the posterior cingulate cortex, the inferior parietal lobe, the lateral temporal cortex and hippocampal formation >>

<< One of the biggest mysteries of neuroscience is how we create meaning out of the world. Stories are deep-rooted in the core of our nature and help us create this meaning >> Jonas Kaplan.

University of Southern California. Something universal occurs in the brain when it processes stories, regardless of language.  ScienceDaily. Oct 5, 2017.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171005141710.htm

Morteza Dehghani, Reihane Boghrati, et al.  Decoding the neural representation of story meanings across languages. Human Brain Mapping. 2017 doi: 10.1002/hbm.23814

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/resolve/doi?DOI=10.1002/hbm.23814

# evol: an ultra-rare survivor, the Malagasy striped whirligig beetle H. milloti

<< a whirligig beetle species, Heterogyrus milloti, inhabiting forest streams in southeastern Madagascar is the last survivor of a once dominant and widespread Mesozoic group. With a Late Triassic to Early Jurassic origin (226–187 Ma) it is the hitherto oldest dated endemic lineage of animal or plant on Madagascar >>

Grey T. Gustafson, Alexander A. Prokin, et al. Tip-dated phylogeny of whirligig beetles reveals ancient lineage surviving on Madagascar. Scientific Reports 2017; 7 (8619) doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-08403-1

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-08403-1

<< Even today, the ageless striped whirligig beetle keeps its own company, preferring to skitter atop the surface of out-of-the-way forest streams in southeastern Madagascar—not mixing with latecomers of the subfamily Gyrininae who have become the dominant whirligig beetles on Madagascar and abroad >>

Meet Madagascar's oldest animal lineage, a whirligig beetle with 206-million-year-old origins. Oct 4, 2017

https://m.phys.org/news/2017-10-madagascar-oldest-animal-lineage-whirligig.html

# behav: innovations among wild capuchin monkeys (Cebus capucinus)

<< understanding what makes some individuals more likely to innovate and/or transmit new behaviors is critical for creating realistic models of culture change >>

<< Older, more social monkeys were more likely to invent new forms of social interaction, whereas younger monkeys were more likely to innovate in other behavioral domains (foraging, investigative, and self-directed behaviors). Sex and rank had little effect on innovative tendencies. Relative to apes, capuchins devote more of their innovations repertoire to investigative behaviors and social bonding behaviors and less to foraging and comfort behaviors >>

Susan E. Perry, Brendan J. Barrett, Irene Godoy. Older, sociable capuchins (Cebus capucinus) invent more social behaviors, but younger monkeys innovate more in other contexts. PNAS. 2017; 114 (30): 7806–7813

http://m.pnas.org/content/114/30/7806

Research reveals how new behaviors appear and spread among capuchin monkeys. Aug 24, 2017

https://m.phys.org/news/2017-08-reveals-behaviors-capuchin-monkeys.html