tingilinde

a cost-effective treatment for aphasia

Singing.

snip

...

The language network encompasses the cortical regions of the brain involved in the processing of language and speech, as well as the white matter tracts that convey information between the different end points of the cortex.

According to the study results, singing increased the volume of gray matter in the language regions of the left frontal lobe and improved tract connectivity especially in the language network of the left hemisphere, but also in the right hemisphere.

...

 

 

whales are running up the score

More boat attacks by Orcas.

snip

...

Researchers do not know why the pod is targeting boats, but they have theorized that the behavior is a form of play for the curious apex predators. The interactions have become so frequent that they are now a multinational issue, involving scientists and officials from Spain, Portugal and Morocco. Online, anxious sailors have gathered to share advice on navigating “orca alley,” and biologists are tracking the orcas’ movements and testing methods that could deter them.

...

a tip of the hat to Sukie

 

the upside-down flag

Heather Cox Richardson on Alito and the insurrection.

 

ai chatbots and teens

Another what could possibly go wrong technology. There are some positive stories, but..

snip

...

But it’s not clear that the bot has properly been trained in CBT — or should be relied on for psychiatric help at all. The Verge conducted test conversations with Character.AI’s Psychologist bot that showed the AI making startling diagnoses: the bot frequently claimed it had “inferred” certain emotions or mental health issues from one-line text exchanges, it suggested a diagnosis of several mental health conditions like depression or bipolar disorder, and at one point, it suggested that we could be dealing with underlying “trauma” from “physical, emotional, or sexual abuse” in childhood or teen years. Character.AI did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.

...

 

the great vowel shift

google

Not a glowing look.

sent by an unnamed Google employee who offers 'no comment"

 

steam sheep:-)

a tip of the hat to Jim

 

 

anendophasia

The lack of an inner voice.  

As always - it's impossible to imagine how others think.

a tip of the hat to Sukie

 

climate scientists and kids

And the decision to have children.  This is consistent with what I hear from some in the field.

snip

...

Parmesan is not alone. An exclusive Guardian survey has found that almost a fifth of the female climate experts who responded have chosen to have no children, or fewer children, due to the environmental crises afflicting the world.

Such decisions were extremely difficult, they said. Dr Shobha Maharaj, an expert on the effects of the climate crisis from Trinidad and Tobago, has chosen to have only one child, a son who is now six years old. “Choosing to have a child was and continues to be a struggle,” she said.

Maharaj said fear of what her child’s future would hold, as well as adding another human to the planet, were part of the struggle: “When you grow up on a small island, it becomes part of you. Small islands are already being very adversely impacted, so there is this constant sense of impending loss and I just didn’t want to have to transfer that to my child.”

...

 

on women's sports

What they have done and are doing

snip

...

Jenkins: What’s going on underneath all of these games is the question of performance under pressure. There’s a credibility that you earn in performing on the playing field that you really can’t earn in any other arena, particularly women. There is something that happens in the way that men view women when women are seen to perform under pressure at a really high level physically.

I’ve always argued that Title IX is the closest thing to an Equal Rights Amendment that ever passed in this country. Women’s sports is the real secret history of the women’s movement. Women athletes have done more than any intellectual feminist has for establishing the new normal for women. I think that women’s sports, the proof of that physical competency and emotional competency under pressure, it makes it easier for men to envision women driving aircraft carriers on a midnight shift. It really does.

...