kimmie nguyen:

TED Talks | Another Reason to Smile

I love TED talks. Even the simple things are more interesting. If you want to read the entire synthesis of Ron Gutman's research on smiling, TEDBooks is releasing Smile: The Astonishing Powers of a Simple Act — a short Kindle book, in which Gutman expands on this talk to examine the last 200 years of science on smiling, facial mimicry and mirror neurons, the tell-tell signs of fake smiles vs. authentic smiles, and even how smiling affects our longevity.

 

 

"Lots of smiling can actually make you healthier. Smiling can help reduce the level of stress-enhancing hormones like cortisol, adrenaline and dopamine, increase the level of mood-enhancing hormones like endorphin and reduce overall blood pressure.”

via www.brainpickings.org

Oh So Geeky: Animated Cell Biology

via www.johnkyrk.com

The meeting of two types of geek creates a website dedicated to cell biology. In Motion! "Animation in education is known as the invisible helper." Where the hell was this when I was studying Molecular & Cell Biology? Click around on the site to see the molecular animations in action. The colors could use a little design love but it's really neat to see the Kreb's cycle, glycolysis and DNA translation in motion as they would be in life.

169 Best Illusions : Scientific American

via www.scientificamerican.com

"Brightness and color can have powerful effects on perception. In this illusion created by vision scientist Edward H. Adelson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, squares A and B are the same shade of gray. (If you don’t believe it, print out this page, cut out the two squares and place them side by side.) Our brain does not perceive the true brightness and color of each square but instead determines the brightness and color of A and B by comparison with the squares surrounding them."