Monday Miscellany: Chronic Pain, Brains, & Beauty

My partner graduated yesterday! I was in a different state! I might be a bad girlfriend!

I use exclamation points a lot!

But it’s Monday, so I’m a little more caffeinated and a little less exclamatory…so click some links!

Can we diagnose mood disorders via brain scans?
Man, I wish we could. Luckily, it looks like my wishes could be granted.

Sidenote: I’m getting my brain scanned (structural and functional MRI’s) sometime soon and I get to keep copies of all the images. My feelings.

GUYS. What if we could tell you what treatment would work best for your depression by LOOKING AT YOUR BRAIN?

Note for people trying to figure out what meds they’re talking about: escitalopram is known by the brand name Lexapro and is an SSRI.

People think secret information is better information:

Our studies imply that, among average U.S. citizens, secret information is used as a cue to infer informational quality. This suggests that when government leaders claim, for example, that secret information indicates that enemy nations are building weapons of mass destruction—and that military intervention is therefore warranted—citizens may be more likely to endorse their government’s position even though there is no opportunity for public vetting of that information.

Welp. That’s not a great heuristic. Can anyone give me a reason this is a good thought process to have? I’m coming up short.

Two post about chronic pain: one on the awful redundancy and one about skeptics with chronic pain.

Are women their own worst beauty critics?

Many people do lack self-confidence, and there is certainly more pressure on women to be conscious of their own appearance than men, but is it really the case that women are more criticalof that appearance than everyone else?

First of all, the whole entire world is critical of the way women look. Whether you are asupermodel, a teenager or even Secretary of State, if you’re a female, there are people all around you ready to tell you how bad your body looks. Secondly, the idea that women are valuableonly for their beauty permeates nearly every facet of modern society, from the billboards we walk past to the social media we use daily. And this idea that women should be reduced to their appearance originated almost entirely in the minds and actions of men. And it is still largely perpetuated today by men – who run over 90% of our media.

So to say women are their own “worst critics” when it comes to beauty puts the blame on women for a beauty-obsessed, body-shaming and misogynistic world created and maintained largely by dudes.

School of Doubt wrote about the Secular Student Alliance. It’s pretty great.

Happy Monday, m’dears! In honor of things that begin with M, here’s a map of Mercury:

tumblr_moc0ogPC5p1qmvxavo1_400
source

 

{advertisement}
Monday Miscellany: Chronic Pain, Brains, & Beauty
{advertisement}

4 thoughts on “Monday Miscellany: Chronic Pain, Brains, & Beauty

  1. 1

    Welp. That’s not a great heuristic. Can anyone give me a reason this is a good thought process to have? I’m coming up short.

    I reckon they’ve been trained, many of them since they were able to understand language, to consider secret information – e.g., the special relationship that a minister has with the sky-wizard, the sky-wizard’s “mysterious ways”, and so on – a mark of holiness and awe. They talk of the unknowableness, the ineffability, the infinite mystery, and all kinds of other foolish guff.

  2. 2

    Well, “secret” tends to imply “secret for a good reason.” The kind of information that is kept secret is likely to be on average more valuable and important. If you want to find out about a friend’s life and they have a blog, aren’t you most interested in the password protected posts?

  3. 4

    Unexplained chronic pain are terrible, I have suffered from it for years. If there’s an article that can help i would be happy to read.
    A few days ago I read about a device that helps doctors pinpoint the reason for the chronic pain, so thay
    could find the appropriate treatment.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *