Who Wouldn't Want To Be a "Genius"?

First off, who wouldn't want to be a genius or at least bump-up there brains a bit?  And secondly, the written word has never been my strong point.  So you can see how this article caught my eye.  

I've tried writing in a personal journal before, hearing that "successful people" keep journals, and have never kept it up.  Then not sticking with it became disparaging of itself.  So seeing words like: scribbling, trivialize, and lying?, peeked my curiosity right away.  How could these ideas help me be a better writer?  Especially me, actually, the one who loves to write research papers and struggles with speaking about myself or coming up with a cohesive story for children.  

So, I plan on giving this a shot for a week to see what happens.  And for accountabilities sake, I'll post back here on any insights I've gained through the exercise.  Have to exercise your brain remember!  Make sure you keep growing new dendrites.  :-)

5 Freewriting Secrets for Being a "Genius"

These 5 tips enhance freewriting to generate more ideas.

Published on November 21, 2010

You've heard of freewriting, certainly. At its most basic, it's about forcing your internal editor to stay away while you splash your most raw and unusual thoughts onto the page.In Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insights, and Content (2nd edition, revised & updated), Mark Levy tells how he uses freewriting, not only to loosen up his writing muscles, but to solve business problems of all kinds.
Levy, author, writing teacher, and marketing strategist, shares a few "secrets" for making freewriting an indispensible tool:

5 Freewriting Tips

1. Try Easy. "Start scribbling, then remind yourself that you're simply looking to put some decent words and ideas down on the page: you're not trying to produce deathless prose and world-beating ideas in the course of a single night's writing." That recalls my own advice to "trivialize the task."

2. Work the Way You Think. "Use kitchen language. Coined by Ken Macrorie, it's a phrase that describes the language you use around the house when you're lounging in knock-around clothes. It's good strong language, but not the kind you'd normally use to get your point across in most settings."

3. Learn to Love Lying. Freewrite about fantastic scenarios and you may find your mind unclogged. "If an element in your situation is small, think of it as tiny or jumbo." For a fascinating example of this, see the giant puppet girl.

4. Getting a Hundred Ideas Is Easier Than Getting One. When you seek the one great idea, your perfectionism gets in the way of creativity. When you set out to amass lots of ideas, you won't stop at the first halfway decent one.

5. Build an Inventory of Thoughts. Make good use of your freewriting pages by grabbing and sorting keepable ideas into a set of files (or a writer's notebook).
Levy elaborates on each of those tips, and many more, using anecdotes from many realms. (I suggest you keep a batch of yellow stickies handy while you read.)

Copyright (c) 2010 by Susan K. Perry
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/creating-in-flow/201011/5-freewriting-secrets-being-genius

Even Closer to the Dream of an HIV Vaccine

Researchers report on the early development of anti-HIV neutralizing antibodies

Friday, January 14, 2011

New findings are bringing scientists closer to an effective HIV vaccine. Researchers from Seattle Biomedical Research Institute (Seattle BioMed), Vanderbilt University and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard report findings showing new evidence about broadly-reactive neutralizing antibodies, which block HIV infection. Details are published January 13 in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens.

According to author Leo Stamatatos, Ph.D., director of the Viral Vaccines Program at Seattle BioMed and a major stumbling block in the development of an effective vaccine against HIV is the inability to elicit, by immunization, broadly reactive neutralizing antibodies (NAbs). These antibodies bind to the surface of HIV and prevent it from attaching itself to a cell and infecting it. However, a fraction of people infected with HIV develop broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) capable of preventing cell-infection by diverse HIV isolates, which are the type of antibodies researchers wish to elicit by vaccination.

"We've found that the people who develop broadly-reactive neutralizing antibodies – which are about 30% of those infected – tend to have a healthier immune system that differs from others who don't develop those antibodies," Stamatatos explained, saying that these antibodies target only a few regions of HIV which is good from the standpoint of vaccine development. "It gives us less to target," he said.

In addition, the new findings show that these antibodies are generated much sooner than previously thought, in some cases as soon as a year after infection.

"These studies provide a strong rationale to begin teasing out the early immunological signals that allow some individuals, but not others, to mount broadly reactive neutralizing antibody responses," adds co-author Galit Alter, Ph.D.

"Now we know that these broadly-reactive neutralizing antibodies don't develop simply by chance and we can work to understand what makes this 30% of the HIV-infected population different," Stamatatos explained. By understanding that, we can hopefully use that information to design new immunogens and immunization protocols that can mimic the early events that lead to the development of such antibodies during natural infection."

###
Public Library of Science: http://www.plos.org

Thanks to Public Library of Science for this article.

http://www.labspaces.net/108590/Researchers_report_on_the_early_development_of_anti_HIV_neutralizing_antibodies

Lessons Learned from Dealing with Bad Emotions

EVERYONE should read this article.

Reminds me of how after taking Interpersonal Communication Skills, for a Speech credit in College, I thought to myself - THIS should be a required course for everybody in order to graduate!

Top 7 Lessons Learned on Dealing with Bad Emotions - Sources of Insight

29 OCTOBER 2010 

“Genius is the ability to renew one’s emotions in daily experience.” — Paul Cezanne

Editor’s note: Bad emotions happen. The test is — what will you do about them?

Here are the top seven lessons I learned on dealing with bad emotions …

Lesson #1 – Bad feelings are just signals
Lots of people never manage to understand the fact that bad feelings are signals sent by their minds in order to motivate them to do something. Just like hunger is a signal that shows that you need food emotions are signals that show you that you are in need of something.

Lesson #2 – Dealing with the root cause is the key
When most people feel bad they try to change their mood by doing something new, traveling, keeping themselves busy or even by using drugs. Bad moods intensify when you ignore them that way and the only way to end them to deal with the root cause. Think of a bad mood as a tree, if you want to get rid of it you have to cut the root instead of dealing with branches that will grow once again

Lesson #3 – 1+1= 14
The presence of two bad emotions at the same time will dramatically increase the intensity of bad feelings so make sure you never allow problems to accumulate. For example loneliness alone might be bearable, stress alone is bearable but both together would be a killer combination.

Lesson #4 – The faster you respond the better you will feel
When your subconscious mind sends you signals in the form of bad feelings and you don’t respond it will send you stronger signals later on. That’s how mild depression turns into severe depression and that’s how prolonged stress ends into nervous breakdowns. In short, respond as soon as you get the message.

Lesson #5 – Look for signs of problems
Bad dreams, insomnia, bad moods that seem to come out of nowhere are all signs that you have been suppressing bad emotions instead of dealing with them. If those signs started to appear then take immediate action

Lesson #6 – Mood swings
Mood swings are nothing more than changes in your feelings that happen when you see something that quickly reminds you of one of your unsolved problems. If for example you wanted to lose weight but were doing nothing about then seeing a swimsuit model could trigger a mood swing

Lesson #7 – You don’t have to solve the problem, you just have to start
Just like intense hunger is reduced to half the moment you start taking the first bite bad emotions are reduced to a great extent the minute you start taking actions. So you don’t have to solve your problems in order to feel good, you just have to start solving them.

Photo by lensbug.chandru.

Ask me a question!

I'll tell you no lies. I'll answer nearly anything.

^_^

Wednesdey (Wednesdey) | Formspring

With the rate of diabetes in the US, I'm hoping this proves to me a great help.

Scientists discover new mechanism for controlling blood sugar level

November 29, 2010

This hematoxylin- and eosin-stained pancreatic slice illustrates an islet of Langerhans adjacent to a capillary. Credit: University of Leicester

Medical scientists at the University of Leicester have identified for the first time a new way in which our body controls the levels of sugar in our blood following a meal.

They have discovered the part played by a particular protein in helping to maintain correct blood sugar levels.
The breakthrough was made in the University of Leicester by a team led by Professor Andrew Tobin, Professor of Cell Biology, who is a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow. The research is published online ahead of print in the prestigious international scientific journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Professor Tobin said: "The work, which was done wholly at the University of Leicester, is focused on the mechanisms by which our bodies control the level of sugar in our blood following a meal.
"We found that in order to maintain the correct levels of sugar, a protein present on the cells that release insulin in the pancreas has to be active. This protein, called the M3-muscarinic receptor, is not only active but also needs to undergo a specific change. This change triggers insulin release and the control of blood sugar levels."
Professor Tobin added: "Without the change in the M3-muscarinic receptor protein sugar levels go up in the same way that we see in diabetes. We are of course testing if the mechanism of controlling sugar levels we have discovered is one of the mechanisms disrupted in diabetes. If this were the case then our studies would have important implications in diabetes."

More information: M3-muscarinic receptor promotes insulin release via receptor phosphorylation/arrestin-dependent activation of protein kinase D1 appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) http://www.pnas.or … stract?ct=ct
Provided by University of Leicester