If Looks Could Kill - Graphic Art & Design

Perpetually fascinated by the subconscious, this intrigues me:

• Rats deprived of sleep die faster than rats that are deprived of food
• Some sadist actually implemented and tested the aforementioned bullet to the point of death.
• Memory consolidation takes place (defragmenting)

…if our brains did what they do during dreams while awake, we would be diagnosed as mentally ill. Yet we enter into this cousin of delirious insanity every night. “Do we go mad at night to prevent ourselves from doing so in the day time?” Hobson has asked. “Or do we go mad because the brain temporarily gives up certain of its controls in order to regain them, in better order, when sleep ends?” - Harvard sleep researcher, J. Allan Hobson

(Source)

Not only is this a bad-ass AC/DC song, but also a compelling question raised in this article, “Who Made Who?” Does God exist outside of our minds, meaning he created us, or did we create God?

Spirituality and belief don’t have to equate to religious faith, Newberg said. The feelings of enlightenment and well-being some derive from religion can come to others through from artistic expression, nonreligious meditation, watching a beautiful sunset or listening to stirring music.

Scientists studied the areas of the brain stimulated by the activity of prayer, meditation and speaking in tongues (glossolalia) with interesting results:

1. Both prayer and meditation showed “decreased activity in the parts of the brain that have to do with sense of self and spatial orientation — which suggests the description of oneness with God, of transcendence sometimes experienced in meditation or prayer.”
2. Those speaking in tongues were shown not to have control over their own speech, but they were unable to locate another area of the brain as responsible for it, you can imagine the implications here.

The Center for Spirituality and the Mind is “bringing together some 20 experts from fields including medicine, pastoral care, religious studies, social work and bioethics” to explore the relationship they have demonstrated and proven via brain scanner images, and how to integrate this with treatment to complement medicinal treatments.

P.S. If you like the icon shown above, you can nab it here.

This is one of the most intense images I have seen, a mummified woman cowering and covering her face, contorted in terror over whatever she faced 600 years ago. Also, a mummified baby discovered at the same site reminds me of the styling for Tool’s Sober video.

Both are to be on display at the Museum of the Nation in Lima, Peru.

( Source )

The images remind me of The Ring, where those who have seen the tape appear distorted in photographs. However, this is an actual condition, “prosopagnosia,” or face blindness.

I first learned of this via an article on Wired, then found this in-depth website on it here, with even more visual examples.

This fascinates me to no end.

• The surgery soundtrack included Eminem during the drilling portions (until someone complained)
• The brain is more of a consistency of soft tofu, it doesn’t spread like toothpaste.
• If you cut out a sizeable cube o’ brain, it retains its shape, with damaged brain being softer.

(Source: The Private Life of a Brain Surgeon)

Weird stories about body piercings lately.

Not the norm, but something to be aware of: The first is a rare case of “necrotizing fasciitis” or gas gangrene, a “flesh-destroying infection”. An 18 year-old woman had her nipples pierced, but reportedly was not forewarned that her diabetic condition would make her more prone to infection. It became infected and spread from her breast to her lymph nodes necessitating the removal of one of her breasts. (Source)

In other news, a teen’s tongue piercing causes ’suicide disease.’ Basically, tongue barbell irritates nerve, triggering excruciating pain, like being electrocuted - in your face. Again, not typical, but good to know. (Source)

I’m not opposed to piercings, personally. I just don’t have any, beyond the rows in my ears that I wear nothing in. I did some of those piercings myself with safety pins. This was ignorant, I realized, once my ears began greening around their new holes. :B