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Dolphins ‘deliberately get high’ on puffer fish nerve toxins by carefully chewing and passing them around
LuciocA visão mais "mainstream" da Biologia é a de que drogas são uma "trapaça" para o fitness que eventualmente várias espécies mais inteligentes descobrem.
Mas no meio dos comentários apareceu esse paper FANTÁSTICO aqui - http://www.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyt.2013.00142/full - que levanta a teoria alternativa de que não, os nossos cérebros são programados para gostar de psicoativos baseados em neurotoxinas porque eles *têm* um valor de fitness real: neurotoxinas combatem parasitas com sistema nervoso, como os vermes, que por outro lado tendem a evadir o sistema imune normal, e que no mundo natural são uma pressão seletiva significativa.
Curiosamente, duas das drogas de consumo mais comum no mundo - a nicotina e o THC - *têm* propriedades anti-helmínticas...
Não sei se raciocínios similares podem ser aplicados a outras drogas. Talvez sim - álcool por exemplo tem benefícios de saúde (principalmente cardiovasculares) se tomado em doses moderadas, e alguns animais (e.g., porcos) procuram ficar bêbados de propósito.
I have a few interpretations of this but I'd really like another opinion.
LuciocSonho Bizarro do Dia. Estou rindo com o final maluco...
In my dream, I'm in an asylum. I am my current self. 21 year old white female. But the setting seems to be of an almost Repo the Genetic Opera post apocalyptic feel. Everything is weird and distorted as if I actually am schizophrenic. And there's this white guy who looks after me like a father figure. In his thirties maybe. And we're walking up this stairwell. It's like the stairwell you'd see in any hospital but it was the only thing in the building as we were nearing the top. The tower was really tall and from the outside looked to be made of coiled wire. Some parts were gray and others were a deep red. The father figure was taking me to see the Indian man. Authority figure? And while we were climbing the stairs, all around me, taking up every available wall space, were these really Americanized images of Native Americans with bald eagles and American flags, etc. Everywhere. Finally we enter the room where the Indian man is sitting cross legged on a mat. The father figure steps back and says nothing. The Indian man rises up to greet me. He is wearing normal clothing. Not anything like all the pictures in the stairwell. His hair is a little dready and he has a piercing in his right ear. He was very thin and his head was too big for his body. Almost cartoonishly so. We embrace each other in a hug for what seemed like 20 or 30 seconds. I am surprised that he didn't pull away so quickly. Then I see lips on lips and at first I thought the Indian man and I were kissing but as it zoomed out, I realized it was my father figure and another man in the next room. And they were leaning over a water fountain filling their mouths with water, kissing, and then spitting it out. They did this 3 times before a voice in the background says "are you proud of yourself" in a condemning tone. And then... I wake up.
[link] [6 comments]
The ‘Racism’ Wrecking Ball
LuciocThe racism allegation has become what the communism allegation was in the 1950's - simply a way to silence an opponent through character assassination.
"Racism" is the new McCarthyism.
^ Bastante válido na política atual do Zuza.
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submitted by Iriestx [link] [3 comments] |
2014 Will Bring More Social Collapse -- Paul Craig Roberts
Lucioc"For a person who graduated from Georgia Tech in 1961, a year in which the class ring showed the same date right side up or upside down, the 21st century was a science fiction concept associated with Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film, '2001: A Space Odyssey.' To us George Orwell’s 1984 seemed so far in the future we would never get there. Now it is 30 years in the past.
Did we get there in Orwell’s sense? In terms of surveillance technology, we are far beyond Orwell’s imagination."
Life in the Emerging American Police State: What’s in Store for Our Freedoms in 2014?
Lucioc"The erosion of private property. If the government can tell you what you can and cannot do within the privacy of your home, whether it relates to what you eat or what you smoke, you no longer have any rights whatsoever within your home. If government officials can fine and arrest you for growing vegetables in your front yard, praying with friends in your living room, installing solar panels on your roof, and raising chickens in your backyard, you’re no longer the owner of your property. If school officials can punish your children for what they do or say while at home or in your care, your children are not your own—they are the property of the state. If government agents can invade your home, break down your doors, kill your dog, damage your furnishings and terrorize your family, your property is no longer private and secure—it belongs to the government. Likewise, if police can forcefully draw your blood, strip search you, and probe you intimately, your body is no longer your own, either. This is what a world without the Fourth Amendment looks like, where the lines between private and public property have been so blurred that private property is reduced to little more than something the government can use to control, manipulate and harass you to suit its own purposes, and you the homeowner and citizen have been reduced to little more than a tenant or serf in bondage to an inflexible landlord."
Parece muito com a fiscalização da Prefeitura de Belo Horizonte. Oh, ok, estou sendo exagerado: eles não fazem "cavity search" - ainda. :/
TIL that a book attributed to Penelope Ashe was actually written by a group of 24 journalists. It was designed to be deliberately terrible with a lot of sex, to illustrate the point that American literary culture had become mindlessly vulgar. The book became a bestseller in 1969.
LuciocO curioso é que o livro vendeu *muito mais* depois que os autores revelaram a scam. =)
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submitted by PrimalMusk [link] [148 comments] |
Elevado Castelo Branco é totalmente fechado por medida de segurança
LuciocPronto, fudeu de vez o trânsito no Centrão. Yay!!!
Obras no Elevado Castelo Branco deixam trânsito lento na tarde desta sexta-feira
LuciocO HORROR! Agora o morro do Carlos Prates está ameaçando despencar! VAMOS TODOS MORRERRRRRRRR!!!
(Oh, well, não exatamente, o problema seria que o Rio Arrudas seria represado pelo desabamento e todo a parte baixa do Centro e do Barro Preto seriam inundadas - igual nos Early 80s, quando tiveram de destruir o leito rococó cute antigo do rio para fazer a vala de cimento horrorosa - mas muito mais larga e funda - de hoje em dia.)
Surfista Prateado no cinema teria trilha de Paul McCartney
LuciocNunca tinha ouvido falar desse filme do Surfista que ameaçaram fazer nos 80s. Deve ter sido outra coisa que aconteceu de verdade na realidade alternativa do Fringe...
I find that I am the most imaginative after I've woken up and am still lying in bed. Anyone have a reason for this?
LuciocMinha mente também tende a ser mais imaginativa de manhã, quando estou "meio dormindo".
I haven't had too much luck lucid dreaming, and I don't often remember my dreams. But, very often I'll wake up and then kind of continue to dream, knowing that I'm dreaming and knowing that I'm awake. I suppose it's kind of like daydreaming and they're basically normal thoughts, but it's more imaginative than anything I produce during the day.
[link] [3 comments]
Saudi activist could be executed for alleged apostasy
LuciocComentário interessante sobre "Como Funciona a Arábia Saudita", aparentemente feito por alguém familiar com o lugar: http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1tqeo4/saudi_activist_could_be_executed_for_alleged/ceao6om
Dramatic decline in industrial agriculture could herald 'peak food'. Most conventional yield projection models are oblivious to the real world say US researchers
LuciocTL;DR: a produtividade de grãos está estagnando ou mesmo decaindo em várias partes do mundo.
Pelo menos vai ficar mais fácil emagrecer! :/
Ah, sim, e pesquisei imagens para "world grain production" e descobri duas coisas: apesar da tal produtividade "plateauing", a produção mundial de grãos continua aumentando, talvez devido a um aumento da suferfície plantada. Porém, a produtividade *per capita* vem caindo desde os mid-90s, o que já é meio preocupante. Aqui: http://www.wrsc.org/sites/default/files/images/2011/global_grain.gif
I fly so many times in my dreams
LuciocPara o Massa. :)
Flying is definitely the most common action in my dreams.
Tonight I had a dream where I was attending a church function and there were 2 priests and *a lot *of guys, some of them are friends IRL. I get bored and since I was pretty far from the priests I sneaky get out from the church, and I start to fly. I fly over that place and it was sort of a big church in a big prison, there were really high walls and barbed wire everywhere. I started to get closer to the church and close to it, outside, I found the two young priests and I used to know them IRL, one of them has a mobile phone in his hands and looks like that he was calling my father in order to report him my bad behavior, then I go back inside, near my friends and they show me weird gore pics. And then I wake up
I've stopped going to church some years ago. Despite the fact that the two priests were young they were really annoying and they kept asking me to keep going there to help them with church stuff, one of the reasons I quitted.
Thoughts?
[link] [comment]
Chikungunya fever pops up in Western hemisphere for the first time
LuciocParece que é uma doença parecida com a dengue, mas "pior" porque a população do Novo Mundo não tem ainda barreiras de imunidade (pessoas que já foram infectadas e ficaram imunes) contra isso.
Ainda tinha dois vírus de dengue para pegar, agora pelo jeito tem "mais um" na lista! 8-)
Orion’s first mission, Exploration Flight Test-1 is less than a year away now, and the team building the spacecraft is meeting milestones left and right as they prepare the vehicle for its debut.
LuciocNessa primeira missão vão lançar uma cápsula sem gente a bordo para dar duas voltas em torno da Terra e depois pousar com pára-quedas.
Gostei dessa foto onde dá para ver *como* a cápsula Orion é grande, porque tem um cara perto do escudo térmico: http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/2013-4354.jpg?itok=LmcPHO8a
nightmares anyone?
LuciocÉ impressionante a quantidade de gente no r/dreams que vive tendo pesadelos recorrentes - e um grande número deles usa maconha, que segundo eles tem uma capacidade de suprimir sonhos (ou a lembrança deles).
Felizmente o máximo que tenho são temáticas, cenários e personagens sinistros que aparecem em vários sonhos - são "elementos oníricos recorrentes", e não sonhos recorrentes propriamente ditos. Na verdade, alguns desses elementos são até agradáveis para mim (apesar de que seriam depressivos para a maioria das pessoas) - por exemplo, a versão-fantasma de Belo Horizonte que aparece nos meus sonhos, que chamo de "Horizonte Sombrio", é muito melhor que a de verdade porque lá o sol nunca aparece, o céu está sempre completamente coberto de nuvens cor-de-chumbo; e as ruas estão sempre vazias, sem carros e silenciosas, as únicas "pessoas" são os fantasmas que de vez em quando me olham das janelas. 8-)
Hey Reddit,
I wondered if anyone out there constantly has bad dreams. Any time I remember mine they seem to be disturbing. Personally I often dream of discovering a significant others infidelity, being replaced, beaten up, etc. obviously these are probably related to personal issues but it's such a drag to only have bad dreams. I remember this from when I was a child as well. Smoking a little marijuana before bed used to ensure that I didn't have or at least didn't remember my dreams, but last night was the first time this failed and I'm honestly afraid. Two nights ago I had the same nightmare ten times with different circumstances each time.
Anyone out there also plagued by nightmares? What do you do?
[link] [5 comments]
An incredibly vivid nightmare I had last night, written as a short story [x-post NoSleep]
LuciocDe alguma forma me lembrou aquele desenho espanhol deprê, o De Profundis - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnM8TYVtJEk
‘Come closer, you sissy!’ Jane shouts as the crashing spray of yet another wave falls just short of the step she’s standing on. ‘It’s only the sea.’
I hesitate, standing at the top of the coastal steps, watching the waters churn in the darkness below. This was a stupid idea, made even more stupid by the fact it’s night-time. Yet here I am, watching Jane descend step by step towards the thrashing ocean, and beckoning me to follow. The things you do to impress a girl.
‘Okay, okay – I’m coming. Just don’t go down any further.’
‘Fine,’ she smiles. And with that, she stands still. Thank god.
I take a few steps and a wince at the damp, slippery algae under my soles. Stupid, stupid. There’s no handrail. The flight of steps is steep and narrow, designed for emergency access, and most certainly not designed to be used in a raging storm – at night. For the umpteenth time, part of me thinks about backing out; but, as ever, the part of my mind which weighs danger vs. romantic opportunity comes down on the side of the latter.
Then I see it. A big breaker coming in.
‘Jane! Get up here!’
Too late. The wave hits the bottom steps and throws itself up into the night air, obscuring Jane and the sky with terrible, ungodly violence. But as the spray falls, I see her standing there, stock still, as if nothing’s happened.
‘What the hell?’ I scream in a weird mixture of relief and horror, as I dash down to her, take her in my arms, and bury my face in her hair.
My instinct prickles. My senses register something, but my higher consciousness doesn’t seem to process it, or its implications. She turns to me and smiles that naughty, beautiful smile of hers. For a moment I forget where we are.
Then out of the corner of my eye I see a monstrous swell rise up out of the dark sea like the hand of a god.
We’re too far down. We won’t make it back to the top.
Her hair – her hair was dry.
She’s still smiling as the wall of water surrounds us.
And then I’m being pulled out to sea, into the darkness, watching the coastal steps and the land recede, eyes stinging from the salt and chest collapsing from the tons of cold water mauling my body.
And I see her, perfect and still, standing on the bottom step, smiling.
[link] [2 comments]
A Mulher de Preto | Produtor planeja mais dois filmes
Lucioc"Se o segundo for bem".
Adorei o primeiro, espero que não sofra a Entropia de Continuações...
The UK "Porn" Filter Blocks Kids' Access To Tech, Civil Liberties Websites
LuciocNota mental: adicionar o Reino Unido à lista de Países Onde Só Vou Se For Obrigado (motivo de força maior de trabalho, etc).
Pensando bem, todos os países já estão nessa lista. O conceito de gastar dinheiro com turismo, fazendo uma viagem *porque quero*, está na minha outra lista, a de Coisas Que As Outras Pessoas Acham Naturais e Bacanas Mas Que Eu Acho Incompreensíveis. Tipo esportes! =)
Parte de rua cede e moradores precisam deixar prédio, no Bairro Cruzeiro
LuciocMais uma prova de que fiscalização da Prefeitura não serve para NADA a não ser encher cofres públicos. Buritis, São Bento, e agora Cruzeiro - a história se repete.
Alguém mencionou o CREA nos comentários e descobri com a construção da minha casa que é outra burocracia mais preocupada com papeladas que com ações de fato.
The Milky Way has twice the number of spiral arms than recent observations suggested.
LuciocNos últimos 20 anos acho que vi as estimativas de massa e configuração da Via Láctea sendo mudadas umas quatro ou cinco vezes. É um pouco desanimador como a nossa capacidade de mapeamento para distâncias além de qualquer coisa meramente interestelar (até uns 100-200 parsecs, quando ainda dá para usar o Método da Paralaxe razoavelmente bem, e quando ainda não temos muito disso tapando aquilo) ainda é uma meeeeeeerda...
Yutu moon rover sets sail for breathtaking new adventures
Lucioc"We will also explore areas 30 meters and 100 meters beneath the lunar soil."
"Yutu, which translates as 'Jade Rabbit' will use its suite of four science instruments to survey the moon's geological structure and composition to locate the moon's natural resources for use by potential future Chinese astronauts^W corporations"
FTFY :)
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submitted by raja_2000 [link] [2 comments] |
BP Geologist: " we are pretty much at peak today... expect more famine, more drought, more resource wars and a steady inflation in the energy cost of all commodities."
LuciocEsse artigo é tipo o Espírito do Natal Futuro, cheio de mensagens depressivas:
"A former British Petroleum (BP) geologist has warned that the age of cheap oil is long gone, bringing with it the danger of "continuous recession" and increased risk of conflict and hunger." (Acho que "permanent recession" descreve bem a economia global desde 2008. 8-)
"We're like a cage of lab rats that have eaten all the cornflakes and discovered that you can eat the cardboard packets too." (Isso é na parte em que o cara fala do óleo de xisto. =)
Battlestar Galactica 10th anniversary: How the show predicted today’s AI debates.
LuciocDa série "como o tempo voa".
A comparação de como a IA era na época da série e como é hoje em dia é bem interessante. "Você não vê? Já começou!"...
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submitted by Melanismdotcom [link] [comment] |
Médico é condenado a devolver dinheiro que recebeu acumulando cargos públicos
LuciocNão é por nada não mas além de punir o cara o MP devia mover uma ação contra o Estado por ter um sistema de acompanhamento de frequência completamente ineficaz. (Se é que isso é legalmente possível, não entendo os mistérios transcendentais do nosso sistema legal.)
Por outro lado, pode ser que o cara seja tipo o Dr. Manhattan mesmo e consiga existir em vários lugares ao mesmo tempo. 8-) Se for isso, ele deveria mover uma ação contra o Estado também, por discriminação contra meta-humanos! ;)
TIL Japanese spider crabs can be 12 ft long and weigh up to 41 lbs
LuciocAcho que no museu de história natural do Rio (que não sei se ainda existe) tem um espécime pequenininho (tipo um metro de altura) desse bicho dentro de um vidro, e já causa uma reação de "O HORROR!!! Os bichos do 'The Mist' existem de verdade!"...
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submitted by pokepoke [link] [262 comments] |
Some unknown object has blocked the progress of the biggest-diameter tunnel-boring machine in use on the planet
LuciocDeve ser tipo a nave marciana enterrada do Quatermass and the Pit, só que maior...
TIL Dallas / Forth Worth Airport is bigger than the island of Manhattan.
LuciocQuando eu estive lá não me pareceu tão enorme assim porque a gente não consegue ver tudo. Só vi o terminal de onde entrei/saí e pronto, sem idéia da escala. (Ah, sim, mas cada terminal em si é enorme, tipo um shóps de BH.)
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submitted by gianthobbit [link] [42 comments] |
Dangerous MRSA bacteria expand into communities. Investigation shows MRSA bacteria, once confined to hospitals, are emerging in communities to strike an increasing number of children, as well as schools, prisons, even NFL locker rooms.
Lucioc"By the time he staggered into the hospital in London, Ky., the next day, he was coughing up bits of lung tissue."
"Same with the next victim, a 54-year-old man, who came in days later and died within hours. And the victim after that, a 28-year-old woman, dead on arrival."
VAMOS TODOS MORREEEEEEERRRRRR!!!
(OK, mas apesar desse cenário estilo comecinho do Contagion e da foto horrorosa de mão necrosada no meio do artigo, eles falam que na maioria das pessoas a infecção não é grave - o problema é que nos casos raros em que chega ao ponto da pessoa ter de ir ao hospital aí as chances de sobrevivência são muito reduzidas.)
TIL Kim Jong-il was granted 54 titles, including 'Glorious General, Who Descended From Heaven', 'Highest Incarnation of the Revolutionary Comradely Love' and 'Amazing politician'.
LuciocEle também é o "Sol do Futuro Comunista" e o "General com Vontade de Ferro Que Sempre Vence". 8-)
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submitted by thenewlove [link] [65 comments] |