The fewer the toys children have, the more they play

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“Leave them. They’ll have some there. Let’s travel light,” said my husband, referring to our son’s set of buckets and spades.

Thirty-six hours, two plane trips, a ferry ride, two shuttles, and a taxi later, jet-lagged but beyond excited, we arrived at our island in the middle of the South Pacific.

I’d been dreaming of returning since my husband proposed here a decade ago; visualizing the joy of sharing this happy place with my then three-year-old son.

We wasted no time; dropping our bags in our room and heading straight to the beach for a dip in the ocean before heading to the dive shop to collect some snorkel gear.

They’ll have a set of buckets and spades, I thought. Nope.

So, we headed to the gift store. Nope.

The next day, we went to the local market. Buckets and spades? Nope.

Shoot. We messed up.

How was my son going to play all week? How were we going to entertain him? What kind of parents don’t bring toys to the beach?

I felt like a failure…only my son wasn’t bothered.

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Sufi historians trace their foundation to Muhammad himself, but it has been stated that this esoteric cult stems from man’s earliest strivings to liberate his ego from material things. This, in fact, is the main aim of the movement. Sufism is a distinct and very complete way of life, setting as its goal the realisation of man’s (and woman’s) believed role in life.

 

Man, argue the Sufi saints, is part of the Eternal Whole, from which everything is derived, and to which all must return. His mission is in preparing himself for that return. This can only be achieved through purification. When the human soul is correctly harnessed to the body, and has obtained complete control over it, then man appears in his perfect form: the Perfect Man, in fact, emerges as closely resembling the superman, possessed of amazing powers, who figures in the aspirations of Eastern and Western occultism alike.

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A Power Law Keeps the Brain’s Perceptions Balanced

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Researchers have discovered a surprising mathematical relationship in the brain’s representations of sensory information, with possible applications to AI research.

The human brain is often described in the language of tipping points: It toes a careful line between high and low activity, between dense and sparse networks, between order and disorder. Now, by analyzing firing patterns from a record number of neurons, researchers have uncovered yet another tipping point — this time, in the neural code, the mathematical relationship between incoming sensory information and the brain’s neural representation of that information. Their findings, published in Nature in June, suggest that the brain strikes a balance between encoding as much information as possible and responding flexibly to noise, which allows it to prioritize the most significant features of a stimulus rather than endlessly cataloging smaller details. The way it accomplishes this feat could offer fresh insights into how artificial intelligence systems might work, too.

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Neuroeducación en las aulas: cómo despertar la emoción por aprender

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Para garantizar el éxito de los procesos de enseñanza y aprendizaje, es necesario que vayan acompañados de una actitud básica: la pasión o emoción por aprender. Esto se puede conseguir teniendo en cuenta los últimos avances que ofrece la neurociencia. Te explicamos en qué consiste y cómo la están aplicando algunos centros.

La neuroeducación es una disciplina que estudia el papel que juega el cerebro en el proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje de los estudiantes. En este sentido, las principales áreas sobre las cuales se asienta son dos: de un lado, las ciencias de la educación y, de otro, la neurociencia, que permite estudiar los fenómenos educativos desde varios enfoques.

Conocimiento y emoción

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Many of you will be aware of how fatty build-ups in the arteries can increase the chances of developing heart problems, but now scientists have found early evidence the same sort of clogging could happen in the lungs – and it might be linked to asthma.

It’s already known that people who are overweight have a higher risk of asthma. Before now it was thought the connection could be caused by extra pressure on the lungs, or additional inflammation in the body. Now there’s evidence fatty deposits may play a part, too.

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