brain

The notion of “shyness” is something most of us know quite well. In fact, according to prevalence studies, somewhere around 40-50% of American adults have first-hand experience on what it’s like to be chronically shy (1). Although differing from the Big Five personality trait of introversion, in that shy people are in fact fearful of social interaction while introverts merely prefer solitary environments, chronic shyness is often categorized as a characteristic trait (2). The precursor for this shyness trait is frequently cited as the temperament of behavioral

This feels like my ordinary nighttime routine: yellow light, static screen, wooden chair, pins and needles. Needles and pins? My foot has fallen asleep again – and yet, as that thought comes to me, I immediately question it: has my foot itself really turned off, or is it just that my mind has stopped registering the foot? Is my foot ignoring stimuli from the outside world, or is it simply unable to deliver the stimuli it does receive to my brain? I wonder what the relationship is between numbness and neurology. If I don’t feel a body part, does that automatically mean the part isn’t working? What if no “part” even exists outside of my

“Blind since birth, Marie-Laure Martin had always thought that candle flames were big balls of fire. The 39-year-old woman couldn’t see the flames themselves, but she could sense the candle’s aura of heat. Last October, she saw a candle flame for the first time. She was stunned by how small it actually was and how it danced. There’s a second marvel here: She saw it all with her tongue.”

"You don't need the body to feel the body"

Biology 202

Web Paper 1

The concepts of specification and generalization are an unavoidable and innate part of human nature that have a high cognitive and social importance. However, they also have limitations which reduce our accuracy as we move up and down the orders of magnitude. In this paper, the biological and perceptual limitations of generalization and specification will be analyzed and critiqued with relation to the anatomy of the human species and then applied to the usefulness, application, and accuracy of literary genres.

            We have all had those moments where we find ourselves in a situation that we consciously know we have never been in; yet, there is a strange familiarity that creeps into the back of our heads. The phenomenon known as déjà vu was first used by French philosopher and psychic, Emilie Boirac, in his book, L'Avenir des Sciences Psychiques (3).  A French phrase for “already seen”, many who experience déjà vu have the feeling that they have actually experienced the same event or situation at a previous date.  This sense of familiarity can be eerily unsettling. 

It all started during one of my father’s parties for the teachers at his psychiatric institute and their recently graduated students. As usual I was bored out of my mind and had fled to hide in my room listening to music in my ball gown. I had to run downstairs for a few minutes every hour or so or else my mother would realize I was gone, but before I even hit the bottom of the stairs I realized something was very very wrong. All the guests were lying on the ground of the dinning room, completely still.  My sister, Jessa, was sobbing in the corner repeating of and over again “I didn’t mean to do it”,while my mother pulled the bodies out to t