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The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature by Geoffrey Miller

"At once a pioneering study of evolution and an accessible and lively reading experience, The Mating Mind marks the arrival of a prescient and provocative new science writer. Psychologist Geoffrey Miller offers the most convincing–and radical–explanation for how and why the human mind evolved.

Consciousness, morality, creativity, language, and art: these are the traits that make us human. Scientists have traditionally explained these qualities as merely a side effect of surplus brain size, but Miller argues that they were sexual attractors, not side effects. He bases his argument on Darwin’s theory of sexual selection, which until now has played second fiddle to Darwin’s theory of natural selection, and draws on ideas and research from a wide range of fields, including psychology, economics, history, and pop culture. Witty, powerfully argued, and continually thought-provoking, The Mating Mind is a landmark in our understanding of our own species."
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Darwinian Happiness: Evolution As a Guide for Living and Understanding Human Behavior Bjørn Grinde

"Darwinian Happiness: Evolution As a Guide for Living and Understanding Human Behavior, ISBN 0-87850-159-2, is a 2002 book by the Norwegian biologist Bjørn Grinde from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. He argues that human emotions find their cause in evolution and offers ways by which we can use this for our advantage.

More specifically, mammals are equipped with a nerve system that enables them to distinguish not only between pleasant and unpleasant sensations, but positive and negative experiences in general. While the biological term fitness refers to the capacity to create offspring, happiness (or quality of life) is, at least in a biological perspective, a question of the qualities of the experiences our nervous system offers us.

In order to improve these experiences there are two main principles to consider:

Who is Bjørn Grinde

"Bjørn Grinde is a biologist working in the fields of genetics and evolution, with a particular interest in human evolution. He studied natural sciences as well as psychology and anthropology at the University of Oslo, resulting in a Dr.scient (1981) and a Dr.philos (1984) from the same university. Presently he works as a chief scientist at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, associated with the Division of Mental Health]. Many of his scientific papers have focused on molecular evolution, using viruses as a model system.

A prime interest has been to use knowledge on human behavioral biology (also referred to as evolutionary psychology) to improve health and quality of life. His most known book, meant for a general audience, Darwinian Happiness was written for this purpose. He has also published several scientific papers on the topic. See his personal website at wikispaces for a list of key publications."

See more @ Wikipedia

Official site

Check out Genetics Home Reference

"Genetics Home Reference provides consumer-friendly information about the effects of genetic variations on human health.

The resources on this site should not be used as a substitute for professional medical care or advice. Users seeking information about a personal genetic disease, syndrome, or condition should consult with a qualified healthcare professional. "
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Check out GeneCards

"For over a decade, GeneCards has provided gene-centric information, automatically mined and integrated from a myriad of data sources, resulting in a web-based card for each of the tens of thousands of human gene entries.
The GeneCards database is developed and maintained in the Crown Human Genome Center at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Founded in 1997, the GeneCards project defined as its goal to integrate the fragments of information scattered over a variety of specialized databases into a coherent picture.

Academic institutions all over the world currently maintain GeneCards mirror sites.

We now introduce GeneCards Version 3, featuring a novel infrastructure, and a new speedy and sophisticated search engine. As a result of these improvements, the GeneCards user can now perform improved and better targeted queries, and evaluate search results in a more effective and user friendly manner. We also introduce GeneDecks....

What's in a GeneCard?

GeneCards Infrastructure and Database

In GeneCards Versions 2.xx, information is stored in flat files, one file per gene, all indexed to enable full-text searches. GeneCards V3 uses a persistent object/relational model, attempting to model all of the data entities and relationships in an efficient manner so that the diverse functions of displaying single genes, extracting various slices of attributes of sets of genes, and performing well on both full text and field-specific searches are taken into account. Commercial users can have access to the relational database in collaboration with LifeMap Sciences, Inc.Academic sites can receive a complete GeneCards mirror by signing the academic mirror site agreement.


Citing GeneCards in the Literature

If you want to cite the GeneCards encyclopedia in a journal article or on-line publication, please note the URL www.genecards.org, and cite the relevant publication(s)."
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15 Newly Discovered Facial Expressions

"Computer Maps 21 Distinct Emotional Expressions—Even “Happily Disgusted”

Study more than triples the number of facial expressions researchers can use to track the origins of emotions in the brain

COLUMBUS, Ohio—Researchers at The Ohio State University have found a way for computers to recognize 21 distinct facial expressions—even expressions for complex or seemingly contradictory emotions such as “happily disgusted” or “sadly angry.”

In the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they report that they were able to more than triple the number of documented facial expressions that researchers can now use for cognitive analysis.

“We’ve gone beyond facial expressions for simple emotions like ‘happy’ or ‘sad.’ We found a strong consistency in how people move their facial muscles to express 21 categories of emotions,” said Aleix Martinez, a cognitive scientist and associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Ohio State. “That is simply stunning. That tells us that these 21 emotions are expressed in the same way by nearly everyone, at least in our culture.”
See the entire article @ Research News

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1. 15 Newly Discovered Facial Expressions

Offensive and Obscene by The Venus Project

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TVP Magazine Issue No. 13

Marina Abramović's “The Artist Is Present"

Note:It states that this may be because of her gender, but I personally do not think so.

"Marina Abramović is best known for her performance pieces, in which she tries to explore what is possible for an artist to do in the name of art.  Her best known piece was the recent “The Artist Is Present,” in which she sat motionless for 736.5 hours over the course of three months, inviting visitors to sit opposite her and make eye contact for as long as they wanted.  So many people began spontaneously crying across from her that blogs and Facebook groups were set up for those people. 

Her bravest piece, however, is my favorite.  This piece was primarily a trust exercise, in which she told viewers she would not move for six hours no matter what they did to her.  She placed 72 objects one could use in pleasing or destructive ways, ranging from flowers and a feather boa to a knife and a loaded pistol, on a table near her and invited the viewers to use them on her however they wanted.

Initially, Abramović said, viewers were peaceful and timid, but it escalated to violence quickly.  “The experience I learned was that … if you leave decision to the public, you can be killed… I felt really violated: they cut my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the public. Everyone ran away, escaping an actual confrontation.”

This piece revealed something terrible about humanity, similar to what Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment or Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Experiment, both of which also proved how readily people will harm one another under unusual circumstances.

This performance showed just how easy it is to dehumanize a person who doesn’t fight back, and is particularly powerful because it defies what we think we know about ourselves.  I’m certain that no one reading this believes the people around him/her capable of doing such things to another human being, but this performance proves otherwise.   "
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TheNewBoston's biology and chemistry playlist

TheNewBoston,Bucky, has a playlist of videos where he describes chemistry and biology from the beginning. He is very descriptive and people who have no idea about chemistry can follow along.

Check out TheNewBoston's Chemistry playlist

TheNewBoston's Biology playlist.

Highlights Animal Books series

Remember these books?

Great for learning about the animal kingdom.
Sadly, there is not a store dedicated to these older books;however, they can be found on Ebay, and Amazon.

Focus On: The Human Body by Steve Parker

"No question is too tough. No explanation is too weird. Find out about your body. Get the fascinating facts! Did you know that your brain weighs the same as three cans of baked beans? Or that you have almost as many hairs on your body as a gorilla? Or that if you lined up all the tiny neurons in your body, they would stretch over 950km? Full of colour pictures, photos and astonishing facts, this book will make your brain boggle!"

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2. Buy (same book ,or one with the same name.Not sure)

Wildlife Explorer kit/binder

"A total of 36 unbelievable cards bring your child face to face with mammals, reptiles, birds and insects.  Each card is loaded with stunning photographs, fascinating facts and helpful illustrations.

Three-Ring Binder & “Quick-Find” Dividers – protect, organize and locate your child’s favorite cards quickly and easily.
4-Piece Adventure Kit – your child will set off on a voyage of discovery and learning with an expedition-ready kit including binoculars, flashlight, compass and a handy case.

If you are having trouble seeing this offer, you may want to try switching browsers.

If you’d like to keep receiving shipments, do nothing after signing up.  Otherwise you will need to adjust your account accordingly."
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The Ape That Thought It Was a Peacock: Does Evolutionary Psychology Exaggerate Human Sex Differences?

"This article looks at the evolution of sex differences in sexuality in human beings and asks whether evolutionary psychology sometimes exaggerates these differences. According to a common understanding of sexual selection theory, females in most species invest more than males in their offspring, and as a result, males compete for as many mates as possible, whereas females choose from among the competing males. The males-compete/females-choose (MCFC) model applies to many species but is misleading when applied to human beings. This is because males in our species commonly contribute to the rearing of the young, which reduces the sex difference in parental investment. Consequently, sex differences in our species are relatively modest.

Rather than males competing and females choosing, humans have a system of mutual courtship: Both sexes are choosy about long-term mates, and both sexes compete for desirable mates. We call this the mutual mate choice (MMC) model. Although much of the evolutionary psychology literature is consistent with the MMC model, the traditional MCFC model exerts a strong influence on the field, distorting the emerging picture of the evolved sexual psychology of Homo sapiens. Specifically, it has led to the exaggeration of the magnitude of human sex differences,an overemphasis on men’s short-term mating inclinations, and a relative neglect of male mate choice and female mate competition. We advocate a stronger focus on the MMC model"

See the complete article about evolutionary psychology exaggerating human sex differences

The Secret to Intimacy | The Science of Love

Mutationism

"At the present time, mutation processes are considered to be a natural and essential part of Darwinistic evolution.However, at the beginning of the 20th century, this point of view was far from being a matter of fact and there was even a separate evolutionary theory, termed mutationism, which was considered by its proponents to be an alternative evolutionary theory that was incompatible with Darwinism.For example, when an orthodox mutationist explained the formation of wings in the ancestor of a certain clade of winged insect, he based his arguments on the concept that the members of the relevant clade of the wingless species produced winged mutants more rapidly than these mutants produced wingless individuals – revertants.Thus, winged individuals occurred in nature with increasing frequency until they completely predominated in the given clade.

            Mutationists diminished the importance of natural selection and were willing to consider it to be, a most, a factor that removes unsuitable mutations.They overlooked the fact that, in the absence of this factor, they are not capable of explaining the most interesting phenomenon in biological evolution, i.e. the formation of adaptive traits, complicated yet useful structures and patterns of behaviour."

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1. What Causes Mutations to Occur?
2. Encyclopedia Brittanica

Modern Science Confirms Ancient Knowledge

"Recent advances in DNA research have established that there was an Eve who lived about 250 to 270 thousand years ago, a first mother from who all modern humans stem, no matter what their racial heritage. [In 1987, scientists from the Universities of California and Michigan announced that all human beings descended from a single mitochondrial Eve: who lived in Africa.]

Then came news a few years later that there also was an actual Adam. Finally, genetic advances made test-tube babies possible by mixing the male sperm with the female egg and reimplanting it.

The knowledge that we have acquired corroborates what the Sumerians knew six thousand years ago. You wonder how is it possible, how could they know? How, as another example, could their symbol of the entwined serpents,that we still use today to denote medicine and healing and biology, be 6,000 years ago, the symbol of Enki, who engaged in genetic engineering to bring about the Adam? That was a symbol of the DNA, the double helix of DNA.

Notice in this image, on the top, the two entwined snakes and the ladder like ribbons between the serpents bodies.....does it remind you of anything?

Remember that these images are thousands of years old. Today we still use the image of the entwined serpent as a sign of medicine, this has carried over from ancient times. What does the emblem of entwined serpents, the symbol for medicine and healing to this very day, represent?

The discovery by modern science of the double helix structure of DNA offers the answer: The entwined Serpents emulated the structure of  the genetic code, the secret knowledge of which enabled the creation of the Adam. The first man the Annuaki created called the "Adam".

So, you say, "Ok. There were Anunnaki." Now, who were the Anunnaki and where were they from? The Sumerians say, "They came here from Nibiru." And you say, "What is Nibiru?" So they say, "It is one more planet in our solar system."

Now, if you say, "I'm really impressed by the Sumerian knowledge, and, maybe they knew what they were talking about regarding the Anunnaki. But I don't think there is another planet with these advanced beings on it near Earth." However, this is not science fiction.

"There is a tablet in the British Museum, its catalog number is such and such; it was discovered in this and this place; the text was first published by this and this scholar, here is what it says." All the information, all the sources that I am giving, are academically, scientifically, scholarly known and accepted sources. At no time do I invent my own source."

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The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin

"The classic that exploded into public controversy, revolutionized the course of science, and continues to transform our views of the world."

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2. PDF 
3. About @Darwin Online 

Center for Biological Diversity

"At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants.

Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.

We want those who come after us to inherit a world where the wild is still alive."

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Official site
Scorecard

Equilibrium,

1.
a state of rest or balance due to the equal action of opposing forces.
2.
equal balance between any powers, influences, etc.; equality of effect.
3.
mental or emotional balance; equanimity: The pressures of the situation caused her to lose her equilibrium.
4.
Chemistry . the condition existing when a chemical reaction and its reverse reaction proceed at equal rates. "

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"the condition of a system in which all competing influences are balanced, in a wide variety of contexts"

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List of types of equilibrium