EndXA

I had no idea about this when I posted. Thank you for sharing.

Lay abstract of the original study:

Research on neurotypical children with imaginary friends has found that those with imaginary friends have better social skills and are more able to think about how other people’s minds work compared to children without imaginary friends. Research shows that some autistic children also create imaginary friends. This article is the first to look at whether or not autistic children with imaginary friends have stronger social skills and an improved ability to think about others’ minds than those without imaginary friends. We asked parents to report about their children aged 5 to 12. Finding almost half reported their child had an imaginary friend, a much larger number than previous research with younger children. Our findings also suggested that autistic children with imaginary friends were better able to understand others’ minds and had stronger social skills than their peers without imaginary friends. The children’s language ability did not influence this. The findings of this study add to the evidence that with respect to the creation imaginary friends and their potential benefits, the play profiles of autistic children are similar to the general population. It also provides more evidence that the understanding of others’ minds is not all or nothing in autism and gives reason for researchers to investigate whether the causes of these differences are the same or different for autistic children.

Direct link to the study: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13623613221092...

Worth pointing out something that they said in the post (emphasis in italics is mine, the full quote is given for context)

Imagine you have a company that goes slower and slower every quarter, and then you confront the shareholders with the statement, that the way to solve it, is to do absolutely no new features for a quarter or two, refactor the code, learn new methodologies etc. I doubt that the shareholders would allow that. Luckily, we don't have any shareholders, and we understand the vital importance of this investment in the long run. Not only in the project, but also in our skill and knowledge, so we do better next time.

This isn't necessarily the full explanation, but it's certainly something to keep in mind.

Note that three articles were published in response to this one (linked as 'Matters Arising' in the top part of the article), and they all appear to criticize the methodology that was used here.

The key objections from the first such article [1] are as follows (quoted verbatim, though the article itself obviously contains more details):

First, the use of transactions as the driver of future Bitcoin emissions is questionable, given the tenuous correlation between transactions and mining energy use...

Second, all three Bitcoin adoption scenarios designed by Mora et al. represent sudden and improbable departures from historical trends in Bitcoin transactions...

Third, Mora et al. applied outdated values for mining rig efficiencies and electric power CO2 intensities, which inflated their estimated 2017 Bitcoin energy use and CO2 emissions values considerably.

Fourth, by analytical design, Mora et al. applied 2017 per-transaction energy use and CO2 emissions values in all future years, multiplied by annual transactions... This decision effectively held both mining rig efficiency and grid CO2 intensities constant for the next 100 yr... This unprecedented choice ignores the dynamic nature of mining rig and power grid technologies and violates the widely followed practice of accounting for technological change in forward-looking energy technology scenarios...

Fifth, in constructing their scenarios, Mora et al. committed key errors when analysing adoption rates within their 40-technology comparison pool...

[1] 'Implausible projections overestimate near-term Bitcoin CO2 emissions', available at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0535-4

An interesting AMA with the founder of Factorio from a few years back: https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/6e6tkw/im_the_fou...

The title seems very misleading to me, because much more than "regular meditation" was involved.

Here is how they describe the study in the article:

The study was conducted at a resort in Southern California... The mindfulness intervention was an established meditation and yoga retreat consisting of 12 hours of meditation, nine hours of yoga, and self-reflective exercises over a week. The participants were divided into three groups of about 30 each: experienced meditators, women who had never meditated, and a group who simply “went on vacation.” The 30 “vacation participants” listened to health lectures and then did fun outdoor things for a week.

At the end, all three groups (vacation, novice, and regular meditators) showed statistically significant improvements in scores of stress and depression, which were measured using well-established and commonly used questionnaires. If we stop there, it seems that vacation is just as good as mindfulness exercises for stress reduction and mood lifting.

But what’s really striking are the result from 10 months later: the regular meditators still showed significant improvements on these scores, the novice meditators even more so. However, the vacationers were back to baseline. The researchers had ensured that all three groups were equal in average age, education level, employment status, and body mass index. This finding is in keeping with prior research showing that vacation has beneficial but very temporary effects, and that mindfulness therapies have sustained beneficial effects.

The original study can be read here: https://www.pnas.org/content/116/29/14677

Abstract:

Domestication shaped wolves into dogs and transformed both their behavior and their anatomy. Here we show that, in only 33,000 y, domestication transformed the facial muscle anatomy of dogs specifically for facial communication with humans. Based on dissections of dog and wolf heads, we show that the levator anguli oculi medialis, a muscle responsible for raising the inner eyebrow intensely, is uniformly present in dogs but not in wolves. Behavioral data, collected from dogs and wolves, show that dogs produce the eyebrow movement significantly more often and with higher intensity than wolves do, with highest-intensity movements produced exclusively by dogs. Interestingly, this movement increases paedomorphism and resembles an expression that humans produce when sad, so its production in dogs may trigger a nurturing response in humans. We hypothesize that dogs with expressive eyebrows had a selection advantage and that “puppy dog eyes” are the result of selection based on humans’ preferences.

It seems that an update has been posted: "BHP agrees not to damage 40 Aboriginal heritage sites without consulting traditional owners" (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/11/bhp-a...)

The buttons on the bottom left corner of the screen also allow you to explore options such as changing the view type and selecting different floors.

The original study: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095679762091678...

Abstract:

Identifying brain biomarkers of disease risk is a growing priority in neuroscience. The ability to identify meaningful biomarkers is limited by measurement reliability; unreliable measures are unsuitable for predicting clinical outcomes. Measuring brain activity using task functional MRI (fMRI) is a major focus of biomarker development; however, the reliability of task fMRI has not been systematically evaluated. We present converging evidence demonstrating poor reliability of task-fMRI measures. First, a meta-analysis of 90 experiments (N = 1,008) revealed poor overall reliability—mean intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) = .397. Second, the test-retest reliabilities of activity in a priori regions of interest across 11 common fMRI tasks collected by the Human Connectome Project (N = 45) and the Dunedin Study (N = 20) were poor (ICCs = .067–.485). Collectively, these findings demonstrate that common task-fMRI measures are not currently suitable for brain biomarker discovery or for individual-differences research. We review how this state of affairs came to be and highlight avenues for improving task-fMRI reliability.

Study abstract:

Autism symptom severity change was evaluated during early childhood in 125 children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Children were assessed at approximately 3 and 6 years of age for autism symptom severity, IQ and adaptive functioning. Each child was assigned a change score, representing the difference between ADOS Calibrated Severity Scores (CSS) at the two ages. A Decreased Severity Group (28.8%) decreased by 2 or more points; a Stable Severity Group (54.4%) changed by 1 point or less; and an Increased Severity Group (16.8%) increased by 2 or more points. Girls tended to decrease in severity more than boys and increase in severity less than boys. There was no clear relationship between intervention history and membership in the groups.

The study can be found at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-020-04526-z

Key quote from the article:

I asked [Governor] Hutchinson more broadly if he had concerns about the message he’s sending about when citizens should report web vulnerabilities.

“Well the question is, do you see a vulnerability or did you find a vulnerability? I think we’ll let the investigation speak for itself on those points.”

Reading this article brought this one to mind: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/07/google-security-keys-neu... (about Google using security keys to deal with phishing)

Original study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009286742...

Abstract:

A visual cortical prosthesis (VCP) has long been proposed as a strategy for restoring useful vision to the blind, under the assumption that visual percepts of small spots of light produced with electrical stimulation of visual cortex (phosphenes) will combine into coherent percepts of visual forms, like pixels on a video screen. We tested an alternative strategy in which shapes were traced on the surface of visual cortex by stimulating electrodes in dynamic sequence. In both sighted and blind participants, dynamic stimulation enabled accurate recognition of letter shapes predicted by the brain’s spatial map of the visual world. Forms were presented and recognized rapidly by blind participants, up to 86 forms per minute. These findings demonstrate that a brain prosthetic can produce coherent percepts of visual forms.

I found this video for those who want a visual example of what this can look like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZzQhiNQXxU

I'm not taking a stance on the topic, but I think that if you quote the part that you did, then you should also quote the part right before it, for full context:

In the race to effect substantial, system-wide rejuvenation, Harold Katcher is a dark horse. He has the right academic credentials and a solid history of research. In fact, in earlier life he was part of a team that discovered the breast cancer gene, brca1. I asked Harold for a biographical sketch, and have printed it in a box at the end of this posting.

And here's the bio sketch itself:

So, you might consider me a late bloomer. While I have thousands of citations in the literature, with publications ranging from the discovery of the human ‘breast cancer gene’, to protein structure, bacteriology, biotechnology, bioinformatics, and biochemistry, there was no center or direction to my work as I had given up my personal goal of solving/curing aging when I learned that ‘wear and tear’ was the cause of it. Yet something happened in year 1985 when I was in California working with Michael Waterman and Temple Smith (fathers of bioinformatics) that is inexplicable: I found myself in Intensive Care with a tube inserted into my trachea and the knowledge that I might not live. And then I had a dream: I dreamed that somehow in the far future (and on another world), I was being feted for ‘bringing immortality to mankind’. Clearly, I survived that incident (started with an infected tooth). I lived a wonderful life – becoming a computer programmer (which I loved), leaving that for the University of Maryland’s Asian division, becoming a full professor and then the Academic Director for the Sciences, in Tokyo, Japan. By the time I left Japan in 2004, (my daughter Sasha was a fourth-grader, (yonensei), in the Japanese school system), I was teaching for U of M online – somewhat retired, and looking forwards to writing computer programs for fun and profit. Yet I never ever forgot that dream. It was clearly impossible; I had no lab – and really, there was no way to repair all damaged cells – it’d be like sweeping back the ocean. And then, in 2009, I read an old paper from 2005, a paper written by the Conboys, (Michael and Irina), Tom Rando and others, coming from Irv Weisman’s lab, that completely changed my life; that showed me that everything I believed about aging was wrong – that aging occurred at the organismic level, not at the cellular level and could be reversed. Well, the rest of the story is about persistence and the blessed intervention of Akshay Sanghvi who too saw there was another way and provided the structural, monetary, and emotional support (and some good ideas) that had me start a new career at age 72 in Mumbai, India. I feel twenty years younger than I did three years ago, I guess that’s another hint about aging. Now the ‘mystical’ dream? It wouldn’t be the first time in history that that happened – take that as a datum.

The privacy aspect to this is definitely touchy:

The FCC argued in court that making the millions of IP addresses contained in the logs publicly accessible would constitute an “unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” And while [Judge Schofield] didn’t entirely disagree, she said the agency had failed to adequately spell out how anyone would be harmed by the disclosure.

Regardless, Schofield said she also decided to weigh any hypothetical harm against the potential value of the information to the public. “In this case, the public interest in disclosure is great because the importance of the comment process to agency rulemaking is great,” she said, adding: “If genuine public comment is drowned out by a fraudulent facsimile, then the notice-and-comment process has failed.”

The judge also wrote that:

...despite the privacy concerns raised by the agency, releasing the logs may help clarify whether fraudulent activity interfered with the comment period, as well as whether the agency’s decision-making process is “vulnerable to corruption.”

People's ability to create in Minecraft is amazing.

Case in point: someone built a Quad-Core computer that runs inside the game (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbO0tqH8f5I)

Summary quote (trimmed for brevity):

"The year 1816 is known as the Year Without a Summer... because of severe climate abnormalities that caused average global temperatures to decrease... Evidence suggests that the anomaly was predominantly a volcanic winter event caused by the massive 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora..."

Mirzakhani described herself as a "slow" mathematician, saying that "you have to spend some energy and effort to see the beauty of math." To solve problems, Mirzakhani would draw doodles on sheets of paper and write mathematical formulas around the drawings. Her daughter described her mother's work as "painting".

She declared: "I don't have any particular recipe [for developing new proofs] ... It is like being lost in a jungle and trying to use all the knowledge that you can gather to come up with some new tricks, and with some luck, you might find a way out."

A relevant short video from the article is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzwrpAfMdKw

You're right, I dropped the ball with the title, but unfortunately I can't edit it now.

Clarifying information for readers:

The original title of the article is: "Pharrell Made Only $2,700 In Songwriter Royalties From 43 Million Plays Of 'Happy' On Pandora"

Relevant quote describing the issue:

Despite Pharrell's ubiquity, "Happy" made $2,700 in publisher and songwriter royalties from 43 million Pandora streams in the first quarter of 2014, according to an email from music publisher Sony/ATV CEO Marty Bandier obtained by Digital Music News.

Pandora's response (trimmed):

...However, we wish Mr. Bandier would provide the proper context and facts. Pandora is already the highest paying form of radio to both performers and songwriters. We have paid more than $1 billion to rights holders since our inception, which amounts to over half of all revenue we have generated. Regarding the specific songs he mentions in his letter, Pandora paid all rights holders more than $150,000 in just three months, substantially more than the $6,100 he suggests.

The issue is not whether Pandora pays enough in royalties. The real issue is the financial dispute between labels and publishers about how to divide Pandora's industry-leading royalties. Mr. Bandier and his label peers (many of whom work within the same companies) are free to decide amongst themselves to change the split between songwriters and performing artists of the substantial royalty revenue already paid by Pandora. We'd also encourage that same group to provide transparency about how those dollars flow to the artists and songwriters.

Interestingly, they actually briefly mention something on the topic in the article:

In the time that the block was in effect, we heard from students, teachers, professionals and more in Turkey about how the block had impacted their daily lives. For many students, the block had occurred just days before their final exams.

My bad, edited it now.

Key quote from the article:

“If we were to shut the wildlife markets, a lot of these outbreaks would be a thing of the past,” says Ian Lipkin, director of Columbia University’s Center for Infection and Immunity, whose lab worked with Chinese officials to develop early diagnostic tests for SARS.

That’s because both SARS and the new outbreak are zoonotic, meaning these diseases started in animals before spreading to humans. Zoonotic diseases rank among the world’s most infamous. HIV, Ebola, and H5N1 influenza, for example, all percolated in wildlife before close interactions with humans spawned international outbreaks. With SARS, food preparers and people who handled, killed, and sold wild animals made up nearly 40 percent of the first cases. The earliest episodes were also among people who were more likely to live within walking distance of wildlife markets.

I strongly recommend taking a look at first three sections in the article I linked above: 'Abstract goals', 'Rewards that are far in the future', 'A disconnect from our future self'. They will give you a lot of insights into why this is an issue for you, which can later help you find a solution.

Also, here are two techniques I discuss that you might find helpful:

- Try to find ways to reward yourself for making progress on your way to your end goal. For example, you can create interim goals that are closer in time and reward yourself for making progress.

- Try to visualize your future self achieving the long-term rewards that you're interested in.

I understand what you're saying, but I'm not sure I agree.

Both articles discuss the concept of rewards extensively, though sometimes using different terms, which is what might have led to your conclusion.

For example, in the 'why people procrastinate' article, this falls under reasons such as 'lack of motivation' and 'rewards that are far in the future'. In the 'how to stop procrastinating' article, this falls under various tips for increasing how rewarding tasks feel, such as 'gamify your behavior', 'create streaks', and 'visualize your future self'.

Also, two important distinctions to keep in mind with regard to this:

- Goals and rewards are not necessarily identical. For example, you might have the goal of exercising three times a week, and get a reward of being complimented on your physical change by others.

- There is a difference between goals/rewards that are abstract and goals and rewards that feel abstract. For example, even a concrete reward can feel abstract if it's far in the future.

If anyone wants to learn more about this topic, I wrote an extensive overview of specific reasons why people procrastinate: https://solvingprocrastination.com/why-people-procrastinate/

It covers all of the most common reasons for procrastination, such as abstract goals, a disconnect from the future self, anxiety, task aversion, perfectionism, and fear of failure.

In addition, there's a comprehensive follow-up article, which explains how you can use this information in order to overcome your procrastination: https://solvingprocrastination.com/how-to-stop-procrastinati...

It describes a system you can use for overcoming procrastination, as well as various specific techniques you can implement, such as breaking large tasks into actionable pieces, scheduling tasks based on your productivity cycles, marking streaks of successes, and visualizing your future-self.

The study that this article is based on can be found here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-39356-2

Abstract:

Predatory behavior and top-down effects in marine ecosystems are well-described, however, intraguild interactions among co-occurring marine top predators remain less understood, but can have far reaching ecological implications. Killer whales and white sharks are prominent upper trophic level predators with highly-overlapping niches, yet their ecological interactions and subsequent effects have remained obscure. Using long-term electronic tagging and survey data we reveal rare and cryptic interactions between these predators at a shared foraging site, Southeast Farallon Island (SEFI). In multiple instances, brief visits from killer whales displaced white sharks from SEFI, disrupting shark feeding behavior for extended periods at this aggregation site. As a result, annual predations of pinnipeds by white sharks at SEFI were negatively correlated with close encounters with killer whales. Tagged white sharks relocated to other aggregation sites, creating detectable increases in white shark density at Ano Nuevo Island. This work highlights the importance of risk effects and intraguild relationships among top ocean predators and the value of long-term data sets revealing these consequential, albeit infrequent, ecological interactions.

The original study can be found at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-13092-7

Abstract:

Seawater is one of the most abundant natural resources on our planet. Electrolysis of seawater is not only a promising approach to produce clean hydrogen energy, but also of great significance to seawater desalination. The implementation of seawater electrolysis requires robust and efficient electrocatalysts that can sustain seawater splitting without chloride corrosion, especially for the anode. Here we report a three-dimensional core-shell metal-nitride catalyst consisting of NiFeN nanoparticles uniformly decorated on NiMoN nanorods supported on Ni foam, which serves as an eminently active and durable oxygen evolution reaction catalyst for alkaline seawater electrolysis. Combined with an efficient hydrogen evolution reaction catalyst of NiMoN nanorods, we have achieved the industrially required current densities of 500 and 1000 mA cm−2 at record low voltages of 1.608 and 1.709 V, respectively, for overall alkaline seawater splitting at 60 °C. This discovery significantly advances the development of seawater electrolysis for large-scale hydrogen production.