From all the newspapers in the last seven years in British national newspapers about 348 mentioned ECT or electroconvulsive therapy or electroshock and it's other synonyms. Overall 111 articles (31,9%) portrayed ECT negatively, 198 articles were neutral and 39 were positive. A substantial comment on ECT was published in 44 (12,6%) articles. The negative comments (14/16) were published in liberal newspapers whereas most positive comments about ECT (10/12) were published in conservative newspapers. Overall most depictions of ECT were neutral, with smaller numbers of negative (111) and positive (39) representations. Not bad compared to the depiction of ECT in Hollywood movies. Euba .....read more »

They've calculated that a blog with 15,000 visits a month has a yearly carbon dioxide emissions of 8lb. To neutralise these emissions they have created "My blog is carbon neutral" buttons so bloggers can demonstrate that they care about the environment and the carbon footprint of their blogs. They've found a solution to make blogs carbon neutral and contribute to environmental issues as a blogger. How? They plant trees in cooperation with the Arbor Day Foundation in Plumas National Forest in Northern California for our project to neutralize the carbon footprint of blogs. Someone checked this claim with the .....read more »

Google published three videos to explain the main principles behind its three core businesses: search, ads and apps. This one is about the apps and explains the advantages of cloud computing. Beware cloud computing also has some downsides such as being unable to access data when the server is down, also security issues are always a threat, so take care.Related posts: Google Apps or Living in The Cloud Google Apps Tricks Sensual Cloud in Florence ..read more »

40 grams of dark chocolate per day reduces the urinary excretion of the stress hormone cortisol and it almost normalizes the stress related differences in energy metabolism and gut microbial activities between participants with low and high anxiety traits. You are what you eat, it has been described how dietary preferences is associated with metabolic processes in healthy subjects. How does dark chocolate, by some considered to be a very healthy, affect the human metabolism? A number of studies have shown cardiovascular benefits of eating flavanol rich cocoa. In a recent post I discussed the possible underlying mechanisms of these cardioprotective .....read more »

One of the most striking features of those suffering from anorexia nervosa is their perception of their bodies. You can put them in front of a mirror and they will still tell you they're to fat when in fact they're skinny. A recent publication in Nature Proceedings has an explanation. This explanation is based on the fact that our spatial experience is based on the integration of two different kinds of input, two different sensory inputs within two reference frames. These two reference frames are the egocentric frame and the allocentric frame. With the allocentric frame you can "see yourself engaged .....read more »

Last year had a post about Pi day and irrational numbers and about the beauty of pi and chocolate. Ordered a chocolate Pi but couldn't find one this year, anyone? Why? Watch the video and see if you can resist.Related posts: From Cocao Bean to Chocolate A 3D Chocolate Printer How Much Chocolate Do We Eat? ..read more »

hybrid 2010 reel from hybrid medical animation on Vimeo. This is some of the latest work of Hybrid's illustrations and animations, beautiful, it's almost art. I know it's promotional demo with a collection of their favorite and latest work but it's amazing. What do you think?Related posts: Cellular Lego Animations US Army medical illustrations and photos free online Medical Animation by Hybrid ..read more »

Good discussion about the use of graphics and charts in presentations, thanks Extreme Presentation.Related posts: When to start Power Point for a presentation? The Extreme Presentation Method: Advanced Presentations by Design Presentations for Physicians ..read more »

Finally, what took them so long? Now you can play games in the palm of your hand. We present Skinput, a technology that appropriates the human body for acoustic transmission, allowing the skin to be used as a finger input surface. In particular, we resolve the location of finger taps on the arm and hand by analyzing mechanical vibrations that propagate through the body. We collect these signals using a novel array of sensors worn as an armband. This approach provides an always-available, naturally-portable, and on-body interactive surface. To illustrate the potential of our approach, we developed several proof-of-concept applications on .....read more »

Who retires gracefully, who adjusts to retirement easily and who doesn't. Which personality traits play a part in successful retirement? The five factor model of personality or the Big Five can be used to see how personality traits are linked to how people adjust to retirement. It has been done in the past for other life transitions. The researchers not only used the Big Five but also the Satisfaction with Life Scale and questionnaires devised to measure reasons for retirement and the quality of experiences in retirement. These questionnaires were all part of an online survey on which 365 individuals responded, of .....read more »