Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind skills

10.5: news.psy/affective and cognitive Theory of Mind
sharpened by non-entertainment:
mail@openculture.com
date: Sat, Oct 5, 2013 at 5:07 AM
subject: Study Finds That
Reading Tolstoy & Other Great Novelists
Can Increase Your Emotional Intelligence
. see top 10 free books;
part of 500 free books list .
. sciencemag.org:

Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind
Understanding others’ mental states is a crucial skill
that enables the complex social relationships
that characterize human societies.
Yet little research has investigated what fosters this skill,
which is known as Theory of Mind (ToM), in adults.
We present five experiments showing that
reading literary fiction led to
better performance on tests of
affective and cognitive ToM
compared with reading nonfiction,
popular fiction, or nothing at all .
Specifically, these results show that
reading literary fiction temporarily enhances ToM.
More broadly, they suggest that ToM may be influenced by
engagement with works of art.

ny times:

 . a study published Thursday in the journal Science.
 found that after reading literary fiction,
 as opposed to popular fiction or serious nonfiction,
 people performed better on tests measuring
 empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence
 — skills for reading someone’s body language
 or gauging what they might be thinking .
To find [those not exposed to art already
they look beyond college students:]
they used Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service,
where people sign up to earn money
for completing small jobs.
People ranging in age from 18 to 75
were recruited for each of five experiments.
They were paid $2 or $3 each to read for a few minutes..
Some were given excerpts from award-winning literary fiction
 (Don DeLillo, Wendell Berry). Dostoyevsky .
Literary fiction readers also scored
better than nonfiction readers
— and popular fiction readers made as many mistakes
as people who read nothing.
. subjects said they did not enjoy literary fiction
as much as other reading tasks . 

killer flu was a bioweapon

10.8: web.pol/purges/gemini/killer flu was a bioweapon:
todo: [done]
. what was that story about the
 actual cause of the flu pandemic ?
. one reason usa gov might do that now
is to help with war,
and then the vaccinated would survive .
. need to refind that conspiracy theory .

#trehalose is not a #slowcarb !

12.1: health/hormonics/#trehalose is not a #slowcarb !:
. trehalose should be presented as
a healthy alternative to popular sugars
(which includes not only sucrose,
but also high-fructose corn syrup);
however,
the reason it is a better sweetener
is not because it is digested more slowly
but because it has no fructose
-- and nothing could be healthier
than ending the use of high-dose fructose .
. it also has some other health benefits .

trehalose is hardly a #slowcarb:

. when compared to pure glucose
its raising of blood sugar levels
is 33% lower than pure glucose,
(isn't that an index of 66? -- like bread!)
and the extent to which it raises insulin
is only 14% lower than pure glucose
-- that is hardly in the zone!

. also keep in mind the risks of
genetically modified foods;
trehalose comes from maltodextrins;*
and "most maltodextrin is manufactured from corn"
and of course,
USA corn is mostly GM (genetically modified) .
. I'm not sure anything is wrong with GM sugar
but I can't be sure about the dangers of GM
because the science is corrupted by Big Money,
-- and by Big Religion:
we need to keep feeding a population
that won't stop growing !

yeast infections love trehalose:
. after tsp/4 trehalose before bed,
I woke up with an inflamed mouth
which I understand was a mild yeast infection,
since I'm quite prone to that .

. but that could happen on trehalose itself,
not just the breakdown into glucose,
since the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae
can use trehalose as a carbon source for growth;
and, Candida albicans synthesizes Trehalose
in order to avoid stress-induced apoptosis,
so perhaps that yeast also can grow in trehalose .

. yeast is usually controlled by bacteria,
so I will mix the trehalose in my peas,
where I keep the probiotics .
. that will lower the glycemic index too!

* trehalose from maltodextrins:

"In 1994, two patents were issued by
Hayashibara Biochemical Laboratories Inc. (Okyama, Japan)
disclosing a novel non-reducing
saccharide forming enzyme
(maltooligosyl trehalose synthase,
MTSase; EC 5.4.99.15)
and a trehalose releasing enzyme
(maltooligosyl trehalose trehalohydrolase,
MTHase; EC 3.2.1.141)
obtainable from the culture of
microorganisms such as Rhizobiumsp. M-11
and Arthrobacter sp. Q 36 ...
The first enzyme acts on reducing maltodextrins
having a polymerisation degree (DP) higher than three
and catalyses the conversion of the α-1,4 linkage
at the reducing end to an α-1,1,
the second enzyme specifically acts on
the α-1,4 linkage adjacent to the α-1,1
liberating trehalose and a
lower molecular weight maltooligosaccharide
[ an oligosaccharide derived from glucose monomers
linked as in maltose;
maltose is converted to glucose by maltase.]
...
The enzymatic synthesis of trehalose
is currently obtained using the
MTSase and the MTHase described above
by Hayashibara Biochemical Laboratories Inc"

#badBIOS @dragosr vs Mac, Linux and PC

4: cyb/sec/#badBIOS/ 
30: summary:
. malware that spreads via usb devices
can infect other usb devices,
and the problem is not the os;
it is the hardware and usb standards
which expose the os to malware infection .
. Dragos Ruiu talks about a mac infection
which sounds like the one I got;
it prevented me from reinstalling the os;
and it started infecting my chromebook,
but the chrome os was able to clean it up .
. my 2005 ubuntu laptop was not so lucky .
. a laptop in my future that will likely do well
is one running the xen hypervisor,
hardened with the Qubes OS .
(see #Qubes #Xen vs Dragos Ruiu's #badBIOS).

#Qubes #Xen vs Dragos Ruiu's #badBIOS

6: co.cyb/sec/qubes/Xen vs Dragos Ruiu's #badBIOS:
me to qubes-devel 5:41am:

. reading about the #badBIOS infection,
blog.erratasec.com/2013/10/badbios-features-explained.html
I was surprised to learn that all computing accessories
(mouse, trackpad, hub, keyboard, and of course
 flash drives) could have a software-programmable firmware
and this could be infected with malware that could spread
to your next computer if attached to dom0 .
. I was also concerned that a new flash drive malware
-- Dragos Ruiu's #badBIOS --
could infect a next machine without even being mounted;
is this a new threat that xen has yet to adapt to?

#superfood #slowcarb trehalose

30: web.health/trehalose:
. trehalose is a sugar(sucrose) substitute,
that has a moderate glycemic index,
and various medical benefits .

AquaBounty salmon #gmo #fishoil

news.pol/healthcare/gmo#AquaBounty salmon:
. the new gmo fish has an elevated potential
to be allergy-causing, [ consumersunion.org ]
and elevated levels of the IGF-1 growth hormone,
which is linked to colon, prostate and breast cancers;
but how much of that risk
would be in the fish's oil?

prophecies of 5777 (fall 2016)

9.6: web.pol/purges/wwIII/prophecies of 5777: