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Goffin’s cockatoo? More like golfin’ cockatoo
Can birds play golf? Of course not; it’s ridiculous. Humans can barely play golf, and we invented the sport. Anyway, moving on to “Brian retraction injury after elective aneurysm clipping.”
Hang on, we’re now hearing that a group of researchers, as part of a large international project comparing children’s innovation and problem-solving skills with those of cockatoos, have in fact taught a group of Goffin’s cockatoos how to play golf. Huh. What an oddly specific project. All right, fine, I guess we’ll go with the golf-playing birds.
Golf may seem very simple at its core. It is, essentially, whacking a ball with a stick. But the Scots who invented the game were undertaking a complex project involving combined usage of multiple tools, and until now, only primates were thought to be capable of utilizing compound tools to play games such as golf.
For this latest research, published in Scientific Reports, our intrepid birds were given a rudimentary form of golf to play (featuring a stick, a ball, and a closed box to get the ball through). Putting the ball through the hole gave the bird a reward. Not every cockatoo was able to hole out, but three did, with each inventing a unique way to manipulate the stick to hit the ball.
As entertaining as it would be to simply teach some birds how to play golf, we do loop back around to medical relevance. While children are perfectly capable of using tools, young children in particular are actually quite bad at using tools to solve novel solutions. Present a 5-year-old with a stick, a ball, and a hole, and that child might not figure out what the cockatoos did. The research really does give insight into the psychology behind the development of complex tools and technology by our ancient ancestors, according to the researchers.
We’re not entirely convinced this isn’t an elaborate ploy to get a bird out onto the PGA Tour. The LOTME staff can see the future headline already: “Painted bunting wins Valspar Championship in epic playoff.”
Work out now, sweat never
Okay, show of hands: Who’s familiar with “Name that tune?” The TV game show got a reboot last year, but some of us are old enough to remember the 1970s version hosted by national treasure Tom Kennedy.
The contestants try to identify a song as quickly as possible, claiming that they “can name that tune in five notes.” Or four notes, or three. Well, welcome to “Name that exercise study.”
Senior author Masatoshi Nakamura, PhD, and associates gathered together 39 students from Niigata (Japan) University of Health and Welfare and had them perform one isometric, concentric, or eccentric bicep curl with a dumbbell for 3 seconds a day at maximum effort for 5 days a week, over 4 weeks. And yes, we did say 3 seconds.
“Lifting the weight sees the bicep in concentric contraction, lowering the weight sees it in eccentric contraction, while holding the weight parallel to the ground is isometric,” they explained in a statement on Eurekalert.
The three exercise groups were compared with a group that did no exercise, and after 4 weeks of rigorous but brief science, the group doing eccentric contractions had the best results, as their overall muscle strength increased by 11.5%. After a total of just 60 seconds of exercise in 4 weeks. That’s 60 seconds. In 4 weeks.
Big news, but maybe we can do better. “Tom, we can do that exercise in 2 seconds.”
And one! And two! Whoa, feel the burn.
Tingling over anxiety
Apparently there are two kinds of people in this world. Those who love ASMR and those who just don’t get it.
ASMR, for those who don’t know, is the autonomous sensory meridian response. An online community has surfaced, with video creators making tapping sounds, whispering, or brushing mannequin hair to elicit “a pleasant tingling sensation originating from the scalp and neck which can spread to the rest of the body” from viewers, Charlotte M. Eid and associates said in PLOS One.
The people who are into these types of videos are more likely to have higher levels of neuroticism than those who aren’t, which gives ASMR the potential to be a nontraditional form of treatment for anxiety and/or neuroticism, they suggested.
The research involved a group of 64 volunteers who watched an ASMR video meant to trigger the tingles and then completed questionnaires to evaluate their levels of neuroticism, trait anxiety, and state anxiety, said Ms. Eid and associates of Northumbria University in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England.
The people who had a history of producing tingles from ASMR videos in the past had higher levels of anxiety, compared with those who didn’t. Those who responded to triggers also received some benefit from the video in the study, reporting lower levels of neuroticism and anxiety after watching, the investigators found.
Although people who didn’t have a history of tingles didn’t feel any reduction in anxiety after the video, that didn’t stop the people who weren’t familiar with the genre from catching tingles.
So if you find yourself a little high strung or anxious, or if you can’t sleep, consider watching a person pretending to give you a makeover or using fingernails to tap on books for some relaxation. Don’t knock it until you try it!
Living in the past? Not so far-fetched
It’s usually an insult when people tell us to stop living in the past, but the joke’s on them because we really do live in the past. By 15 seconds, to be exact, according to researchers from the University of California, Berkeley.
But wait, did you just read that last sentence 15 seconds ago, even though it feels like real time? Did we just type these words now, or 15 seconds ago?
Think of your brain as a web page you’re constantly refreshing. We are constantly seeing new pictures, images, and colors, and your brain is responsible for keeping everything in chronological order. This new research suggests that our brains show us images from 15 seconds prior. Is your mind blown yet?
“One could say our brain is procrastinating. It’s too much work to constantly update images, so it sticks to the past because the past is a good predictor of the present. We recycle information from the past because it’s faster, more efficient and less work,” senior author David Whitney explained in a statement from the university.
It seems like the 15-second rule helps us not lose our minds by keeping a steady flow of information, but it could be a bit dangerous if someone, such as a surgeon, needs to see things with extreme precision.
And now we are definitely feeling a bit anxious about our upcoming heart/spleen/gallbladder replacement. … Where’s that link to the ASMR video?
Goffin’s cockatoo? More like golfin’ cockatoo
Can birds play golf? Of course not; it’s ridiculous. Humans can barely play golf, and we invented the sport. Anyway, moving on to “Brian retraction injury after elective aneurysm clipping.”
Hang on, we’re now hearing that a group of researchers, as part of a large international project comparing children’s innovation and problem-solving skills with those of cockatoos, have in fact taught a group of Goffin’s cockatoos how to play golf. Huh. What an oddly specific project. All right, fine, I guess we’ll go with the golf-playing birds.
Golf may seem very simple at its core. It is, essentially, whacking a ball with a stick. But the Scots who invented the game were undertaking a complex project involving combined usage of multiple tools, and until now, only primates were thought to be capable of utilizing compound tools to play games such as golf.
For this latest research, published in Scientific Reports, our intrepid birds were given a rudimentary form of golf to play (featuring a stick, a ball, and a closed box to get the ball through). Putting the ball through the hole gave the bird a reward. Not every cockatoo was able to hole out, but three did, with each inventing a unique way to manipulate the stick to hit the ball.
As entertaining as it would be to simply teach some birds how to play golf, we do loop back around to medical relevance. While children are perfectly capable of using tools, young children in particular are actually quite bad at using tools to solve novel solutions. Present a 5-year-old with a stick, a ball, and a hole, and that child might not figure out what the cockatoos did. The research really does give insight into the psychology behind the development of complex tools and technology by our ancient ancestors, according to the researchers.
We’re not entirely convinced this isn’t an elaborate ploy to get a bird out onto the PGA Tour. The LOTME staff can see the future headline already: “Painted bunting wins Valspar Championship in epic playoff.”
Work out now, sweat never
Okay, show of hands: Who’s familiar with “Name that tune?” The TV game show got a reboot last year, but some of us are old enough to remember the 1970s version hosted by national treasure Tom Kennedy.
The contestants try to identify a song as quickly as possible, claiming that they “can name that tune in five notes.” Or four notes, or three. Well, welcome to “Name that exercise study.”
Senior author Masatoshi Nakamura, PhD, and associates gathered together 39 students from Niigata (Japan) University of Health and Welfare and had them perform one isometric, concentric, or eccentric bicep curl with a dumbbell for 3 seconds a day at maximum effort for 5 days a week, over 4 weeks. And yes, we did say 3 seconds.
“Lifting the weight sees the bicep in concentric contraction, lowering the weight sees it in eccentric contraction, while holding the weight parallel to the ground is isometric,” they explained in a statement on Eurekalert.
The three exercise groups were compared with a group that did no exercise, and after 4 weeks of rigorous but brief science, the group doing eccentric contractions had the best results, as their overall muscle strength increased by 11.5%. After a total of just 60 seconds of exercise in 4 weeks. That’s 60 seconds. In 4 weeks.
Big news, but maybe we can do better. “Tom, we can do that exercise in 2 seconds.”
And one! And two! Whoa, feel the burn.
Tingling over anxiety
Apparently there are two kinds of people in this world. Those who love ASMR and those who just don’t get it.
ASMR, for those who don’t know, is the autonomous sensory meridian response. An online community has surfaced, with video creators making tapping sounds, whispering, or brushing mannequin hair to elicit “a pleasant tingling sensation originating from the scalp and neck which can spread to the rest of the body” from viewers, Charlotte M. Eid and associates said in PLOS One.
The people who are into these types of videos are more likely to have higher levels of neuroticism than those who aren’t, which gives ASMR the potential to be a nontraditional form of treatment for anxiety and/or neuroticism, they suggested.
The research involved a group of 64 volunteers who watched an ASMR video meant to trigger the tingles and then completed questionnaires to evaluate their levels of neuroticism, trait anxiety, and state anxiety, said Ms. Eid and associates of Northumbria University in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England.
The people who had a history of producing tingles from ASMR videos in the past had higher levels of anxiety, compared with those who didn’t. Those who responded to triggers also received some benefit from the video in the study, reporting lower levels of neuroticism and anxiety after watching, the investigators found.
Although people who didn’t have a history of tingles didn’t feel any reduction in anxiety after the video, that didn’t stop the people who weren’t familiar with the genre from catching tingles.
So if you find yourself a little high strung or anxious, or if you can’t sleep, consider watching a person pretending to give you a makeover or using fingernails to tap on books for some relaxation. Don’t knock it until you try it!
Living in the past? Not so far-fetched
It’s usually an insult when people tell us to stop living in the past, but the joke’s on them because we really do live in the past. By 15 seconds, to be exact, according to researchers from the University of California, Berkeley.
But wait, did you just read that last sentence 15 seconds ago, even though it feels like real time? Did we just type these words now, or 15 seconds ago?
Think of your brain as a web page you’re constantly refreshing. We are constantly seeing new pictures, images, and colors, and your brain is responsible for keeping everything in chronological order. This new research suggests that our brains show us images from 15 seconds prior. Is your mind blown yet?
“One could say our brain is procrastinating. It’s too much work to constantly update images, so it sticks to the past because the past is a good predictor of the present. We recycle information from the past because it’s faster, more efficient and less work,” senior author David Whitney explained in a statement from the university.
It seems like the 15-second rule helps us not lose our minds by keeping a steady flow of information, but it could be a bit dangerous if someone, such as a surgeon, needs to see things with extreme precision.
And now we are definitely feeling a bit anxious about our upcoming heart/spleen/gallbladder replacement. … Where’s that link to the ASMR video?
Goffin’s cockatoo? More like golfin’ cockatoo
Can birds play golf? Of course not; it’s ridiculous. Humans can barely play golf, and we invented the sport. Anyway, moving on to “Brian retraction injury after elective aneurysm clipping.”
Hang on, we’re now hearing that a group of researchers, as part of a large international project comparing children’s innovation and problem-solving skills with those of cockatoos, have in fact taught a group of Goffin’s cockatoos how to play golf. Huh. What an oddly specific project. All right, fine, I guess we’ll go with the golf-playing birds.
Golf may seem very simple at its core. It is, essentially, whacking a ball with a stick. But the Scots who invented the game were undertaking a complex project involving combined usage of multiple tools, and until now, only primates were thought to be capable of utilizing compound tools to play games such as golf.
For this latest research, published in Scientific Reports, our intrepid birds were given a rudimentary form of golf to play (featuring a stick, a ball, and a closed box to get the ball through). Putting the ball through the hole gave the bird a reward. Not every cockatoo was able to hole out, but three did, with each inventing a unique way to manipulate the stick to hit the ball.
As entertaining as it would be to simply teach some birds how to play golf, we do loop back around to medical relevance. While children are perfectly capable of using tools, young children in particular are actually quite bad at using tools to solve novel solutions. Present a 5-year-old with a stick, a ball, and a hole, and that child might not figure out what the cockatoos did. The research really does give insight into the psychology behind the development of complex tools and technology by our ancient ancestors, according to the researchers.
We’re not entirely convinced this isn’t an elaborate ploy to get a bird out onto the PGA Tour. The LOTME staff can see the future headline already: “Painted bunting wins Valspar Championship in epic playoff.”
Work out now, sweat never
Okay, show of hands: Who’s familiar with “Name that tune?” The TV game show got a reboot last year, but some of us are old enough to remember the 1970s version hosted by national treasure Tom Kennedy.
The contestants try to identify a song as quickly as possible, claiming that they “can name that tune in five notes.” Or four notes, or three. Well, welcome to “Name that exercise study.”
Senior author Masatoshi Nakamura, PhD, and associates gathered together 39 students from Niigata (Japan) University of Health and Welfare and had them perform one isometric, concentric, or eccentric bicep curl with a dumbbell for 3 seconds a day at maximum effort for 5 days a week, over 4 weeks. And yes, we did say 3 seconds.
“Lifting the weight sees the bicep in concentric contraction, lowering the weight sees it in eccentric contraction, while holding the weight parallel to the ground is isometric,” they explained in a statement on Eurekalert.
The three exercise groups were compared with a group that did no exercise, and after 4 weeks of rigorous but brief science, the group doing eccentric contractions had the best results, as their overall muscle strength increased by 11.5%. After a total of just 60 seconds of exercise in 4 weeks. That’s 60 seconds. In 4 weeks.
Big news, but maybe we can do better. “Tom, we can do that exercise in 2 seconds.”
And one! And two! Whoa, feel the burn.
Tingling over anxiety
Apparently there are two kinds of people in this world. Those who love ASMR and those who just don’t get it.
ASMR, for those who don’t know, is the autonomous sensory meridian response. An online community has surfaced, with video creators making tapping sounds, whispering, or brushing mannequin hair to elicit “a pleasant tingling sensation originating from the scalp and neck which can spread to the rest of the body” from viewers, Charlotte M. Eid and associates said in PLOS One.
The people who are into these types of videos are more likely to have higher levels of neuroticism than those who aren’t, which gives ASMR the potential to be a nontraditional form of treatment for anxiety and/or neuroticism, they suggested.
The research involved a group of 64 volunteers who watched an ASMR video meant to trigger the tingles and then completed questionnaires to evaluate their levels of neuroticism, trait anxiety, and state anxiety, said Ms. Eid and associates of Northumbria University in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England.
The people who had a history of producing tingles from ASMR videos in the past had higher levels of anxiety, compared with those who didn’t. Those who responded to triggers also received some benefit from the video in the study, reporting lower levels of neuroticism and anxiety after watching, the investigators found.
Although people who didn’t have a history of tingles didn’t feel any reduction in anxiety after the video, that didn’t stop the people who weren’t familiar with the genre from catching tingles.
So if you find yourself a little high strung or anxious, or if you can’t sleep, consider watching a person pretending to give you a makeover or using fingernails to tap on books for some relaxation. Don’t knock it until you try it!
Living in the past? Not so far-fetched
It’s usually an insult when people tell us to stop living in the past, but the joke’s on them because we really do live in the past. By 15 seconds, to be exact, according to researchers from the University of California, Berkeley.
But wait, did you just read that last sentence 15 seconds ago, even though it feels like real time? Did we just type these words now, or 15 seconds ago?
Think of your brain as a web page you’re constantly refreshing. We are constantly seeing new pictures, images, and colors, and your brain is responsible for keeping everything in chronological order. This new research suggests that our brains show us images from 15 seconds prior. Is your mind blown yet?
“One could say our brain is procrastinating. It’s too much work to constantly update images, so it sticks to the past because the past is a good predictor of the present. We recycle information from the past because it’s faster, more efficient and less work,” senior author David Whitney explained in a statement from the university.
It seems like the 15-second rule helps us not lose our minds by keeping a steady flow of information, but it could be a bit dangerous if someone, such as a surgeon, needs to see things with extreme precision.
And now we are definitely feeling a bit anxious about our upcoming heart/spleen/gallbladder replacement. … Where’s that link to the ASMR video?