A 1989 study revealed that the sleeping brain likes to replay its recent experiences and that doing so supports learning and memory. Recently, they found that replay also happens while we're awake. When you hear something useful, your mind will automatically replay it at 20 x speed to better grasp the information. But, a constant influx of information prevents replay and can negatively affect learning, memory and decision-making.

How to support learning and memory

<ul><li>Replay reactivates related experiences. Replaying information causes the brain to look for relevant memories to contextualise and understand new information.</li><li>Replay supports your brain's grasp of motor and spatial information.</li></ul> But, replay occurs during those idle moments when your brain is not receiving novel information. If your brain doesn't get those breaks, its replay functions suffer.

Other effects of replay

The general media landscape does its best to capture all your attention with a steady stream of stimulating content. There is the infinite scroll design of most social media sites. Netflix and YouTube jump to the next show or clip the moment you've finished watching something. These design features are good for the platforms but don't give your brain time to sort and make sense of the information you just received, which at the very least, can lead to memory failures.

Memory failures

Social media information overload can lead to depressive symptoms and reduced well-being. More significantly, an overloaded brain is a confused brain that lapse in memory, judgement, and emotion regulation. Your brain needs time to wander from time to time, especially if you've engaged with useful information.

Your brain needs regular breathers

People in the radio business call them “buttons.” They’re those short music clips you hear in between news segments on NPR and other stations. Bob Boilen, former director of NPR’s All Things…

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

education

Learning & Education

problemsolving

Problem Solving

scienceandnature

Science & Nature

How Short Information Breaks Help Your Brain

Have you ever wondered or thought, after an year or a month or a week, where the hell did that go?Our memory remember things in a chronological order. For eg: Event X happened just before the big Paris vacation. Event Y happened in the first summer after I learned to drive.As each year passes, some of our experiences are converted to automatic routines and since there are no particular new experiences to anchor our memories, our brain blends these years into one countless unit and stores it.

How can you live your life to the fullest? 

To tell you an example, imagine your routine of going to your work over a period of one month. You go at 9 in the morning, do your work, come back at 5 in the evening, watch some TV and this cycle continues and it becomes an automatic routine. You experience no new memory here.So, here since there are no new experiences to anchor our memories, our brain blends this one month period into one countless unit and stores it. That's why you wonder at the end of the month "Where the hell did the last month go".

" Monotony collapses time; novelty unfolds it". You can exercise daily and eat healthy and live a long life, while experiencing a short one. That's why it's important to change routines regularly, and take vacations to exotic locales, and have as many new experiences as possible that can serve to anchor our memories. Creating new memories stretches out psychological time, and lengthens our perception of life.

This taught me how to live my life to the fullest

“Highly entertaining.” —Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker “Funny, curious, erudite, and full of useful details about ancient techniques of training memory.” —The Boston Globe The blockbuster phenomenon that charts an amazing journey of the mind while revolutionizing our concept of memory An instant bestseller that is poised to become a classic, Moonwalking with Einstein recounts Joshua Foer's yearlong quest to improve his memory under the tutelage of top "mental athletes." He draws on cutting-edge research, a surprising cultural history of remembering, and venerable tricks of the mentalist's trade to transform our understanding of human memory. From the United States Memory Championship to deep within the author's own mind, this is an electrifying work of journalism that reminds us that, in every way that matters, we are the sum of our memories.

career

Career

travel

Travel

books

Books

Foer's unlikely journey from chronically forgetful science journalist to U.S. Memory Champion frames a revelatory exploration of the vast, hidden impact of memory on every aspect of our lives. On average, people squander forty days annually compensating for things they've forgotten. Joshua Foer used to be one of those people. But after a year of memory training, he found himself in the finals of the U.S. Memory Championship. Even more important, Foer found a vital truth we too often forget: In every way that matters, we are the sum of our memories. Moonwalking with Einstein draws on cutting-edge research, a surprising cultural history of memory, and venerable tricks of the mentalist's trade to transform our understanding of human remembering. Under the tutelage of top "mental athletes," he learns ancient techniques once employed by Cicero to memorize his speeches and by Medieval scholars to memorize entire books. Using methods that have been largely forgotten, Foer discovers that we can all dramatically improve our memories. Immersing himself obsessively in a quirky subculture of competitive memorizers, Foer learns to apply techniques that call on imagination as much as determination-showing that memorization can be anything but rote. From the PAO system, which converts numbers into lurid images, to the memory palace, in which memories are stored in the rooms of imaginary structures, Foer's experience shows that the World Memory Championships are less a test of memory than of perseverance and creativity. Foer takes his inquiry well beyond the arena of mental athletes-across the country and deep into his own mind. In San Diego, he meets an affable old man with one of the most severe case of amnesia on record, where he learns that memory is at once more elusive and more reliable than we might think. In Salt Lake City, he swaps secrets with a savant who claims to have memorized more than nine thousand books. At a high school in the South Bronx, he finds a history teacher using twenty- five-hundred-year-old memory techniques to give his students an edge in the state Regents exam. At a time when electronic devices have all but rendered our individual memories obsolete, Foer's bid to resurrect the forgotten art of remembering becomes an urgent quest. Moonwalking with Einstein brings Joshua Foer to the apex of the U.S. Memory Championship and readers to a profound appreciation of a gift we all possess but that too often slips our minds.

Foer is the younger brother of New Republic editor Franklin Foer and novelist Jonathan Safran Foer. He is the son of Esther Foer, president of a public relations firm, and Albert Foer, a think-tank president. He was born in Washington, D.C. and attended Georgetown Day School. He then went on to graduate from Yale University, where he lived in Silliman College, in 2004.Foer is married to Dinah Herlands, a medical student at Yale, whom he met while an undergraduate at Yale. Foer sold his first book, Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, to Penguin for publication in March 2011. He received a $1.2 million advance for the concept when he was just 22 plus a movie option.

Joshua Foer

Moonwalking with Einstein

Consider something unbelievably tiny, unbelievably dense, and incredibly hot. Then, suddenly, space, time, and all molecular matter burst in ways that no words can express. What is known is that the Universe expanded at an unfathomable rate in a fraction of a second. Some recognised subatomic particles and fundamental forces emerged as a result of this expansion. The Universe then began to cool drastically, to around 1 billion degrees Celsius, allowing energy and ultimately matter (plasma of nuclei, electron and photons) to emerge.

The Big Bang

3,80,000 years after The Big BangAs the universe expanded, plasma grew cooler and cooler. The universe cooled down further to 3000 K, making it possible for the nuclei in the plasma to gain electrons and become full-fledged neutral Hydrogen and Helium atoms. Photons of light tangled in the plasma could now move freely and were released. The universe became transparent for the first time. This is known as cosmic microwave background that we can see even today.

Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB)

The entire universe was made up of Hydrogen and helium gas clouds with no stars and planets.After the release of CMB, nothing in the Universe radiated light until around 200 million years after the Big Bang when the first stars began to form.

Cosmic Dark Age

About 200 million years after The Big BangDue to gravity, hydrogen and helium clouds began to clump together. Tiny imperfections. Little knots, wrinkles, and flaws began attracting nearby particles of matter. The clumps grew, became more massive, and attracted more particles. Hence, it made them denser, and as a result, gravity became more intense. As the clouds compress more and more, they became hotter, until the center became so hot that nuclear fusion began. This released a tremendous amount of energy, which caused the earliest stars to light up.

First Stars

The gravity that was trying to squash the star together was pushed back by the fusion at the center which created a balance. Within a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, the first generation of stars, known as Population III stars, were formed. After CMB, these stars were the first source of visible light in the universe.

First Stars Stabilises

About 1 Billion years after The Big Bang Stars formation happened almost everywhere in universe. Thus we have billions and billions of stars. Galaxies were formed out of these swirling clouds of stars and gas in space. Gravity sends these objects careening into one another as other clouds approached, knitting them into larger spinning packs. Material can be slung toward a galaxy's outskirts following collisions, forming large spiral arms filled with star colonies. Since, these were large scale structure it took a long time in an almost homogeneous gas clouds.

The First Galaxies, clusters and superclusters

The Chemicals Cook uphttps://bighistory.in/life-cycle-of-a-star/

Explore: What Comes Next

Threshold II: Formation of the First Stars

space

Space

Formation of the First Stars

Developing artificial robotic arms & legs which would would perform simple tasks like moving around an obstacle (for tetraplegic patients for example).Over time the algorithm can then adjust to the individuals preferences and brain signals.

Brain reading robots

Printing 3D artificial bones with a material with similar properties to human bones.These artificial bones can replace the damaged bones for example.

3D printed bones

Are you a fan of a good tasty nutrition? A beautiful steak of meat, or a delicious ice-cream... Well, what if you we tell you that your preferred food is a 100% lab-made, would you still eat it?

Lab-made dairy products

Everything is in the title... Imagine a plane with Hydrogen fuel only. This means 0 carbone emission.There is a project of a concept plane powered completely by liquid hydrogen and with capacity to fly roughly 279 passengers.

Hydrogen planes

Q Bio is a us company building a scanner that will measure hundreds of biomarkers in around an hour. Then, It intends to use this data to produce a 3D digital avatar of a patient’s body – known as a "digital twin". This could help doctors prioritise which patients need to be seen most urgently, but also to develop more sophisticated ways of diagnosing illness.

Digital “twins” that track your health

You certainly didn't miss the last trending hot topict: Metaverse!! This new revolution aim to create a "digital" second world.Of course, VR plays a central role. It is getting lots of funding right now and will be seeing drastic improvements in the next couple of years.

Virtual reality universes

Reducing CO2 is a big challenge. Imagine a technology taking CO2 from the air and either storing it in deep geological caves under ground, or using it in combination with hydrogen to produce synthetic fuels.This could prove to be one of the best technological advances for the future of the environment. But it has a lot of complications right now.

Direct air capture

The average cremation reportedly releases 400kg of CO2 into the atmosphere. So, some companies are thinking about a greener way to die like composting the body, or using a special suit made with mushrooms and other microorganisms that aid the dead body decomposition.Well, in my opinion, there is a very old solution that works quite well... burying the body. The soil will do the rest!

Green funerals

Bionic eyes is becoming reality. In January 2021, a successful surgery implanted the world’s first artificial cornea into a bilaterally blind.Scientists developed an artificial iris fitted to smart contact lenses that correct a number of vision disorders. And even working on wireless brain implants that bypass the eyes altogether. These innovations will take the world of health to another level.

Artificial eyes

As the the future is drawn for the autonomous driving, it can change all the vision for transportation and delivery solutions.Autonomous taxis can take from place A to place B without any driver, your amazone order can be delivered by a drone and so on... Infrastructures & organization are going to be important to facilitate this technological elvolution.

Airports for drones and flying taxis

Scientists have found a way to store energy in the red bricks that are used to build houses but it's i the proof-of-concept stage.This technology can change the way of thinking about our homes and infrastructures and how to use energy.

Energy storing bricks

Imagine your wearable solution could be charged automatically by using your sweat... Yes you sweat and other energy source!!!It could be possible in the near future. Engineers at the University of Glasgow have developed a new type of flexible supercapacitor. The device works by coating polyester cellulose cloth in a thin layer of a polymer, which acts as the supercapacitor’s electrode which stores energy, replacing the electrolytes found in conventional batteries with sweat.

Sweat powered smartwatches

Researchers have developed an new material walled "living concrete" (using sand, gel and bacteria). It has a self healing power from cracks and it can clean the air from toxins and pollution.

Self-healing ‘living concrete’

Here we are speaking about a new class of artefact: a living, programmable robots. They were made using stem cells from frog embryos. These new machines can perform different tasks: <ul><li>searching radioactive contamination</li><li>gathering microplastic in the oceans.</li><li>traveling in arteries to scrape out plaque</li></ul>

Living robots

In the future, internet will become available in every point on earth, even in inaccessible areas. This can become true by using satellites. Some of internet operators of today may disappear.

Internet for everyone

The bio-bean company is working on recycling coffee waste. It can turn 85% of this waste into biofuels for heating buildings and powering transport.  For information, London’s coffee industry creates over 200,000 tonnes of waste every year. Recycling in this industry could only be beneficial of environnement.

Coffee power

A new technology using loud noises to fight forest fires could be used in the near future. Since sound is made up of pressure waves, it can be used to disrupt the air surrounding a fire, essentially cutting off the supply of oxygen to the fuel. At the right frequency, the fire simply dies out.

Drown forest fires in sound

Scientists have used AI to try to understand how can the flatworm regenerate easily parts of its body. By analysing and simulating countless scenarios, the computer was able to solve the mystery of the flatworm’s regeneration in just 42 hours!The machine in this experiment was able to create a new, abstract theory independently – a huge step towards the development of a conscious computer, and potentially a landmark step in the way we carry out research.

The AI scientist

The fast-charging solution of electric cars would clearly accelerate facilitate and accelerate the adoption of these cars. The problem is that fast-charging is bad for lithium batteries because of heat damage. However, researchers have now found that they can avoid the damage if the batteries could heat to 60°C for just 10 minutes and then rapidly cool again to ambient temperatures. This research can pave the way for the adoption of this technology.

Car batteries that charge in 10 minutes

Scientists have succeeded to mimic the neurons in our nervous system by attaching artificial neurons onto silicon chips. So they could reproduce the electrical properties of real neurons in minute detail.Researchers hope their work could be used in medical implants to treat conditions such as heart failure and Alzheimer’s as it requires so little power.

Artificial neurons on silicon chips

Javier Ponce is an architect who first designed a floating farm project designed on the dual principle of aquaponies and vertical agriculture. This solution could meet the growing needs in terms of food in the near future.

Floating farms

Russian scientist Sergey Zimov wanted to study the animals' impact on environment and climate.He hopes to recreate an old environment in a wildlife park for herbivores like wild horses and bisons, with extinct megafauna like mammoths replaced by modern hybrids...

Pleistocene Park

"A disruptive idea must be considered ridiculous, then dangerous, the self-evident". And you, how do you find these 22 future technology ideas?

The future is coming, and sooner than you think. These emerging technologies will change the way we live, how we look after our bodies and help us avert a climate disaster.

technologyandthefuture

Technology & The Future

Future technology: 22 ideas about to change our world

There is 2 types of elements when it comes to chemical reaction in our nature : Noble Gases , Reactive elements ( all of the other elements).<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Noble Gases :</li></ul>The most stable elements which don't undergo any chemical reaction (at normal condition) with other elements or with each other.Because their outermost energy level is completely filled with electrons.Their molecules are mono-atomic such as (He,Ne,Ar,Kr,Xe,Rn)<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Reactive Elements :</li></ul>All other elements are reactive to some extent, they undergo chemical reactions to complete their outermost shell by accepting , losing , sharing electrons.

Must Known To Understand

The Valence electrons play an important role in the formation of the bonds. So the scientist G.N.Lewis introduced a simple method to represent the valence electrons by using dotsYou can open the picture to understand more about the steps.Resource: El moasser book

Lewis Electron-dot Symbols

Chemical Bonds Physical Bonds1. Ionic Bonds 1. Hydrogen Bond2. Coordinate bond 2. Metallic bond3. Covalent Bond:-<ul><li>pure covalent bond</li><li>Non-polar covalent bond</li><li>Polar covalent bond</li></ul>As you can see there are 7 bonds which I will explain in details in the next post . Hope you enjoyed my explanation and found it easy to understand.P.S "don't worry I am working on it and it will be posted later this month ;) "

Types Of Bonds

Some people find Chemistry so complicated and confusing . So I , as a passionate high school student about Chemistry , try at my best to clarify some basics with simple explanation.

The Chemical Reaction Concept

Qualia are the subjective or qualitative properties of experiences. What it feels like, experientially, to see a red rose is different from what it feels like to see a yellow rose. Likewise for hearing a musical note played by a piano and hearing the same musical note played by a tuba. The qualia of these experiences are what give each of them its characteristic “feel” and also what distinguish them from one another. Qualia have traditionally been thought to be intrinsic qualities of experience.

Do You See What I See

The term “qualia” (singular: quale and pronounced “kwol-ay”) was introduced into the philosophical literature in its contemporary sense in 1929 by <a href="https://iep.utm.edu/lewisci">C. I. Lewis </a>in a discussion of <a href="https://iep.utm.edu/sense-da">sense-data theory</a>.

QUALIA 

Lewis use of the term "qualia" in reference to rhe properties of sense-data themselves. In contemporary usage, the term has been broadened to refer more generally to properties of experience. Paradigm examples of experiences with qualia are perceptual experiences (including nonveridical perceptual experience like hallucinations) and bodily sensations (such as pain, hunger, and itching). Emotions (like anger, envy, or fear) and moods (like euphoria, ennui, or anxiety)

Does It Feel The Same To You

Qualia are often referred to as the phenomenal properties of experience, and experiences that have qualia are referred to as being phenomenally conscious . Phenomenal <a href="https://iep.utm.edu/consciou">consciousness </a>

Phenomenal Consciousness 

Has phenomenal aspects. What could be the representational content of the experience of an orgasm? The nature of the relationship between phenomenal consciousness and intentionality has recently generated considerable philosophical discussion. Philosophers think that phenomenal consciousness reduces to intentional content. While-others think the reductive relationship goes in the other direction.

Are we all experiencing the same reality?

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

philosophy

Philosophy

Qualia | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The fastest human in the world, according to the Ancient Greek legend, was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atalanta">the heroine Atalanta</a>. Although she was a famous huntress who joined Jason and the Argonauts in the search for the golden fleece, she was renowned for her speed. No one could defeat her in a fair footrace. She was also the inspiration for the first of many similar paradoxes put forth by the ancient philosopher Zeno of Elea about how motion, logically, should be impossible.

Background 

To go from her starting point to her destination, Atalanta must first travel half of the total distance. To travel the remaining distance, she must first travel half of what’s left over. No matter how small a distance is still left, she must travel half of it, and then half of what’s still remaining, and so on, ad infinitum. With an infinite number of steps required to get there, clearly she can never complete the journey. And hence, Zeno states, motion is impossible: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradoxes">Zeno’s paradox</a>. Here’s the unintuitive resolution.

So, What Is Zeno’s Paradox?

The oldest “solution” to the paradox was done from a purely mathematical perspective. The claim admits that, sure, there might be an infinite number of jumps that you’d need to take, but each new jump gets smaller and smaller than the previous one. Therefore, as long as you could demonstrate that the total sum of every jump you need to take adds up to a finite value, it doesn’t matter how many chunks you divide it into. Simple, straightforward, and compelling, right?

The Initial Solution To The Paradox?

This reasoning is only good enough to show that the total distance you must travel converges to a finite value. It doesn’t tell you anything about how long it takes to reach your destination.There's no guarantee that each of the infinite number of jumps you need to take- even to cover a finite distance-occurs in a finite amount of time. If each jump took the same amount of time, for example, regardless of the distance traveled, it would take an infinite amount of time to cover whatever tiny fraction-of-the-journey remains. This way, it is still impossible for Atalanta to reach her destination

Why Is The Initial Solution Flawed?

Many thinkers, both ancient and contemporary, tried to resolve this paradox by invoking the idea of time. Specifically, as asserted by Archimedes, it must take less time to complete a smaller distance jump than it does to complete a larger distance jump, and therefore if you travel a finite distance, it must take you only a finite amount of time. And therefore, if that’s true, Atalanta can finally reach her destination and complete her journey.

Including The Concept Of Time

It’s eminently possible that the time it takes to finish each step will still go down: half the original time, a third of the original time, etc, but that the total journey will take an infinite amount of time. You can check this for yourself by trying to find what the series [½ + ⅓ + ¼ + ⅕ ++ …] sums to. As it turns out, the limit does not exist: this is a diverging series.Pure mathematics alone cannot provide a satisfactory solution to the paradox, as it isn’t simply about dividing a finite thing up into an infinite number of parts, but rather about the inherently physical concept of a rate

Only, This Is Flawed Too

How fast does something move? That’s a speed. Add in which direction it’s moving in, and that becomes velocity. And what’s the quantitative definition of velocity, as it relates to distance and time? It’s the overall change in distance divided by the overall change in time.

What Is Velocity?

Rate is the amount that one quantity (distance) changes as another quantity (time) changes as well.You can have a constant velocity (without acceleration) or a changing velocity (with acceleration). You can have an instantaneous velocity (your velocity at one specific moment in time) or an average velocity (your velocity over a certain part or whole of a journey).But if something is in constant motion, the relationship between distance, velocity, and time becomes very simple: distance = velocity * time.

What Then Is Rate?

This is the resolution of the classical “Zeno’s paradox” as commonly stated:The reason objects can move from one location to another (i.e., travel a finite distance) in a finite amount of time is not because their velocities are not only always finite, but because they do not change in time unless acted upon by an outside force. If you take a person like Atalanta moving at a constant speed, she will cover any distance in an amount of time put forth by the equation that relates distance to velocity.

How Does Rate Provide A Solution

The takeaway is this: Motion from one place to another is possible, and because of the explicit physical relationship between distance, velocity and time, we can learn exactly how motion occurs in a quantitative sense. Yes, in order to cover the full distance from one area to another, you have to first cover half that distance, then half the remaining distance, then half, etc.But the time it takes to do so also halves, so motion over a finite distance always takes a finite amount of time for any object in motion. This is still an interesting exercise for mathematicians and philosophers.

Final Thoughts 

I found this paradox is interesting, mainly because it has such a simple solution for what seems like an unsolvable problem. 

Travel half the distance to your destination, and there's always another half to go. Despite Zeno's Paradox, you always arrive right on time.

How Zeno's Paradox was resolved: by physics, not math alone

“Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.”

Big History:. Timeline

Consider something unbelievably tiny, unbelievably dense, and incredibly hot. Then, suddenly, space, time, and all molecular matter burst in ways that no words can express. What is known is that the Universe expanded at an unfathomable rate in a fraction of a second. Some recognised subatomic particles and fundamental forces emerged as a result of this expansion. The Universe then began to cool drastically, to around 1 billion degrees Celsius, allowing energy and ultimately matter to emerge.

10e-36 seconds after The Big BangThe universe expanded at an inconceivable speed, from far less than an atom to enormous size. The fundamental forces: Gravity (the force that pulls everything together), Electromagnetism, weak, and strong interaction (the force that holds nuclei together) emerged. Quantum fluctuations produce the microscopic 'wrinkles' in density that keep the universe from becoming completely uniform and homogeneous. This paved the path for subatomic particles like quarks to be formed.﻿

Inflation

The expansion had relatively slowed down. Due to quantum fluctuations subatomic particle like quarks were formed which were the building blocks of protons and neutrons. Quarks and antiquarks formed and annihilated each other. The remaining quarks accounted for one billionth of the prior mass of quarks and antiquarks.

Building Block Of Matter

1 second after the Big BangElectron-positron pairs were created and annihilated, leaving 1/billionth the amount of electrons and positrons behind.

Leptons

10 seconds after The Big BangQuarks combined to generate protons and neutrons. Two up quarks and one down quark make up a proton, while one up quark and two down quarks make up a neutron.As the universe cooled, these neutrons and protons combined further to form hydrogen and helium nuclei. The hydrogen nuclei contained only a single proton while helium nuclei was made up of two protons and two neutrons. Deuterium, Helium-3, and lithium-7 were also formed in trace amounts.

Nuclei

3 minutes after The Big BangThe universe consisted of plasma (superheated state of ordinary matter) of nuclei, electrons, and photons; temperatures were too high for electrons to attach to the nuclei. Because photons of light were tangled up in these charged particles, they couldn't flow freely through the universe. Hence, the universe was utterly Dark.

Plasma

3,77,000 years after The Big BangAs the universe expanded, plasma grew cooler and cooler. The universe cooled down further to 3000 K, making it possible for the nuclei in the plasma to gain electrons and become full-fledged neutral Hydrogen and Helium atoms.

Atoms

3,80,000 years after the Big BangPhotons of light tangled in the plasma could now move freely and were released. The universe became transparent for the first time. This is known as cosmic microwave background that we can see even today.

Cosmic Microwave Background

Formations of First Starshttps://bighistory.in/formation-of-stars-timeline/

Explore What's Next?

A Journey from The Big Bang to the First Atoms

The proponents of apple cider vinegar say that if you regularly use the vinegar "with the mother" - the cloudy combination of bacteria and yeast - you have a cure-all, whether it is a better skin or a more efficient metabolism. Some studies suggest a beneficial impact on glucose metabolism and weight loss, while other studies have found no effect compared to a placebo. Drinking ACV may do more harm than good. It's been linked to tooth enamel erosion, gastrointestinal issues such as reflux, and reduced potassium levels.

Apple cider vinegar

The practise of swishing oil around in your mouth for 15 - 20 minutes a day is an Ayurvedic folk remedy and said to be a miraculous way to cleanse the body of toxins. Advocates say that it can whiten teeth, freshen breath, prevent cavities, and cleanse your body of various toxins. However, the detoxifying effect is yet to be shown in clinical trials. There is some evidence that oil pulling can help with oral hygiene, but mainstream dentists don't see it as a good substitute for toothpaste. There are few documented harms that can come from this practice.

Oil pulling

The massage technique involves a light touch to activate the lymph nodes (the tiny trash scavengers vital to your immune system). The method was developed to help people with oedema and to combat inflammation. There's no evidence to show that lymphatic massage can make you lose weight, change the shape of your face, improve your general health, or cure cancer. Lymphatic massage is relaxing and safe for most people but not recommended if you have circulation problems, congestive heart failure, or certain kidney issues.

Lymphatic massage

Sauna sech can benefit your body. Dry saunas raise the pulse and increase circulation, mimicking the effects of physical exercise. In addition, regular sauna sessions are linked to pain reduction in patients with rheumatic diseases like fibromyalgia. However, those with existing heart problems should check with their doctor before using saunas. Time in a sauna doesn't cause permanent weight loss. However, it can make you dangerously hydrated, making it essential to drink lots of water before and after a session.

Saunas

Some supposed detoxes are harmless, but a few of them carry real health risks—and don't actually do any good. Here's what you should do instead.

food

Food

health

Health

The truth about oil pulling, apple cider vinegar, and other trendy cleanses

We make decisions using systems that rest on ancient evolutionary gifts. The last 50 years of behavioral science have established that, in a way, the brain can be thought of as two brains: a fast-thinking brain and a slow-thinking brain. This idea was popularized in Daniel Kahneman’s book, Thinking, Fast and Slow .

Human Behavior Is Pattern-Based 

The fast-thinking brain is the one we’ve had for around 30 million years. We have aspects of it in common with primates and monkeys, and it is the system that allows us to make rapid decisions without having to talk it through or blow any calories. This system allows us to make all kinds of decisions, like what food we’re going to eat, what people were going to trust, and which dangers might slide into our lives.

The Fast-Thinking Brain

The other brain is the slow-thinking brain, which is a much more recent development in evolutionary terms. It’s probably only about 70,000 to 100,000 years old. This is the system that we use to make creative, cautious, rational decisions, and it’s super glitchy, according to the people who study it. It’s the system that we use to invent things like law and art. It’s also central to what we think of as being human. Researchers have discovered that we use our fast-thinking, instinctive brain most of the time, but we think we’re using our creative, cautious, rational mind most of the time.

The Slow-Thinking Brain

Pattern-based behavior turns out to have everything to do with using our fast-thinking brain. When you put that brain under pressure and starve it of some essential information, it makes all kinds of decisions in ways that we can predict using formulas. Those predictable patterns in human behavior make us ripe for exploitation by pattern-based systems like AI.

Pattern-Based Behavior And Pattern-Based Systems - Us And AI

Companies are using AI to predict patterns you don’t even know you have. You can experience this in many ways in your day-to-day life. If you let Spotify recommend a song to you, it will probably do a pretty good job. If you watch a YouTube video, the next one the platform recommends will probably be one that you would be interested in watching. There’s almost no category of technologically-driven company that isn’t trying to predict what you will do next, and they’re increasingly using AI for that purpose.

Systems “See” Patterns Where Humans Don’t

This deployment by companies is taking forms we never saw coming. It’s not just being used to recommend a song or a video you might like; it’s being used to recommend who gets a job, who gets a loan, or who gets bail. In theory, all of these things can be done by a pattern-recognition algorithm.

From A Song And A Video To A Loan And A Bail

The problem is that those algorithms are not as smart as we think they are, and we basically get addicted to using them. Through over-reliance, we would approach a place where we won’t know how to make those decisions without that kind of system involved, and those systems are going to shape our behavior in invisible ways that we will irresistibly follow.

Patterns On Top Of Patterns

AI is really just an ability to take an unstructured set of variables, a big mess of data that a human being could never take the time to look through, and find patterns. It will discern that if X and Y conditions are met, then Z outcome is probable. Take, for example, a system that distinguishes between dogs and cows. Let’s say you’ve got a room full of dogs and cows, and you ask the AI system to distinguish between them. It would find whatever variables it could that best predict the difference.

AI Is A Lot Simpler Than We Think

What’s missing from so much of the talk about AI is understanding how simple its process is. An AI might look at dogs and cows and find the easiest variables to distinguish between those two categories, such as size or basic behaviors, and so it renders a verdict. It says this is a cow, and this is a dog . The problem is we humans look at that and think, wow, this thing is amazing. It’s a dog and cow expert!  But the truth is, it doesn’t actually know anything about dogs and cows. It only knows the bare minimum information it needs for picking patterns that allow it to tell the difference.

Telling Cows From Dogs Isn’t Exactly Genius

This is true no matter what you throw at an AI system. If you have an AI system trying to determine which person in a photograph is most likely to be a security threat, it’s going to use the same comparatively stupid way of drawing a distinction that it might use to draw a distinction between dogs and cows. Yet when you ask the makers of an AI system how their algorithms know the difference between these two things, the creators may not know. They are not legally required to know, and it’s not a technical requirement for the system. They don’t really know how their AI works most of the time.

Knowing Is Being Able To Explain. AI Can’t Do That. 

The most obvious patterns in our behavior—patterns an algorithm will use to make decisions about what's best for us—are not the ones we want to perpetuate.

Technology journalist Jacob Ward shares 5 key insights from his new book, The Loop: How Technology Is Creating a World Without Choices and How to Fight Back

The Loop: How Technology Is Creating a World Without Choices and How to Fight Back

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