Archive for Author: Éiriú Eolas

Monday kicked off Children's Mental Health Week, an opportunity for various lobby groups and organisations (and there are many) to air their increasingly apocalyptic claims about childhood. In an appearance last week, the Duchess of Cambridge informed children that the world is a 'scary and daunting place' and encouraged parents to tell their children to 'feel confident about seeking support'. For at least two decades, we have been subject to increasingly shrill claims about a crisis of childhood. However, it is difficult to disentangle the truth about what appears to be relatively small increases in diagnoses of childhood mental illness and some underhanded claims-making by interested parties. For instance, back in 2007, claims appeared based on a UNICEF study that, Britain has the 'unhappiest children in the developed world'. The study was criticised for being manipulated toward a predetermined conclusion,...

We live in a chaotic world, characterized by roller coaster rides of alternating terror and exhilaration. Our culture has become exponentially more hurried, with a constant drive to camp out in the fast lane despite the well-known consequences of never slowing down. To keep up with this frenzy and avoid being trampled, we have developed an almost undetectable technique of refusing accountability for our actions. No one takes accountability anymore because to do so has somehow become an indication of weakness, a trait avoided at all costs to survive the hectic environment we live in. Immediate Gratification The sheer accessibility of information today is a main cause of the chaos. Our ability to ping-pong between current events, health news, and constant entertainment all while simultaneously working and eating our dinner is incredible. We have perfected the art of immediate gratification:...

A small amount of electricity delivered at a specific frequency to a particular point in the brain will snap a monkey out of even deep anesthesia, pointing to a circuit of brain activity key to consciousness and suggesting potential treatments for debilitating brain disorders. Macaques put under with general anesthetic drugs commonly administered to human surgical patients, propofol and isoflurane, could be revived and alert within two or three seconds of applying low current, according to a study published today in the journal Neuron by a team led by University of Wisconsin-Madison brain researchers. "For as long as you're stimulating their brain, their behavior — full eye opening, reaching for objects in their vicinity, vital sign changes, bodily movements and facial movements — and their brain activity is that of a waking state," says Yuri Saalmann, UW-Madison psychology and neuroscience...

Here's a glimpse into the ideological corruption of modern biology: P.Z. Myers, author of the atheist blog Pharyngula and a leading (and loud) Darwinist, assures us that he infers nothing about human sexual identity: When I meet people, I don't know anything about their sperm count or their chromosome arrangement or even what their genitals look like (you don't have to show me), so all the sex details are irrelevant to our interactions. Gender matters because we have a huge amount of social capital, some good, some bad, invested in how people present themselves, and also because those gender signifiers are diverse and do a better job of reflecting how people see themselves in society, and how society sees them. You know, when a population is identified as a discrete binary of two kinds of individuals, male and female, my...