the power of pretending with toddlers!

Joking, Pretending With Toddlers Gives Them Head Start in Life Skills

ScienceDaily (Oct. 27, 2011) — Parents who joke and pretend with their toddlers are giving their children a head start in terms of life skills. Most parents are naturals at playing the fool with their kids, says a new research project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). However parents who feel they may need a little help in doing this can learn to develop these life skills with their tots.

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"Parents, carers and early years educators shouldn't underestimate the importance of interacting with young children through jokes and pretending," researcher Dr Elena Hoicka points out. "Spending time doing this fun stuff with kids helps them learn how to do it themselves and gives them a set of skills which are important in childhood and beyond."

The latest research findings on joking and pretending with children will be highlighted at a half-day event organised as part of the ESRC's Festival of Social Science 2011. One key aim of the event will be to boost parents' confidence in joking and pretending with their toddlers through a range of hands-on activities.

Dr Hoicka's study has examined how the two very similar concepts of joking and pretending develop in children aged between 15 and 24 months. Explaining the difference between joking and pretending, Dr Hoicka says: "Both involve intentionally doing or saying the wrong thing. However, joking is about doing something wrong just for the sake of it. In contrast, pretending is about doing something wrong which is imagined to be right. For example, parents might use a sponge like a duck while pretending but use a cat as a duck when joking."

The study examined whether parents offer different cues such as tone or pitch of voice in order to help their toddlers understand and differentiate between joking and pretending. Findings reveal that parents rely on a range of language styles, sound and non-verbal cues. For example, when pretending, parents often talk slowly and loudly and repeat their actions. Conversely, parents tend to cue their children to jokes by showing their disbelief through language, and using a more excited tone of voice.

"We found that most parents employ these different cues quite naturally to help their toddlers understand and differentiate these concepts," Dr Hoicka points out. "While not all parents feel confident in their natural abilities, the research does show that making the effort to interact in this way with toddlers is important. Knowing how to joke is great for making friends, dealing with stress, thinking creatively and learning to 'think outside the box'. Pretending helps children learn about the world, interact with others, be creative and solve problems."

Parents can learn more about the different cues used in joking and pretending during an event to be held later this week. "We will be offering a range of activities to help parents experiment with joking and pretending," says Dr Hoicka. "We will also give some short talks on the early development of joking and pretending in toddlers as well as some initial findings from our research project."

Nurture is what matters the most for the kids. Science Rocks.

Over-Reactive Parenting Linked to Negative Emotions and Problem Behavior in Toddlers

ScienceDaily (Feb. 21, 2012) — Researchers have found that parents who anger easily and over-react are more likely to have toddlers who act out and become upset easily.

The research is an important step in understanding the complex link between genetics and home environment. In the study, researchers from Oregon State University, Oregon Social Learning Center, and other institutions collected data in 10 states from 361 families linked through adoption -- and obtained genetic data from birth parents as well as the children.

They followed the children at nine, 18 and 27 months of age, and found that adoptive parents who had a tendency to over-react, for example, were quick to anger when children tested age-appropriate limits or made mistakes. These over-reactive parents had a significant effect on their children, who exhibited "negative emotionality," or acting out and having more temper tantrums than normal for their age.

Genetics also played a role, particularly in the case of children who were at genetic risk of negative emotionality from their birth mothers, but were raised in a low-stress or less-reactive environment.

The study was published in the latest edition of the journalDevelopment and Psychopathology.

"This is an age where children are prone to test limits and boundaries," said lead author Shannon Lipscomb, an assistant professor of human development and family sciences at OSU-Cascades. "However, research consistently shows that children with elevated levels of negative emotionality during these early years have more difficulties with emotion regulation and tend to exhibit more problem behavior when they are of school age."

Researchers also found that children who exhibited the most increases in negative emotionality as they developed from infants to toddlers (from nine to 27 months of age) also had the highest levels of problem behaviors at age two, suggesting that negative emotions can have their own development process that has implications for children's later behaviors.

"This really sets our study apart," Lipscomb said. "Researchers have looked at this aspect of emotionality as something fairly stable, but we have been able to show that although most kids test limits and increase in negative emotionality as they approach toddler age, the amount they increase can affect how many problem behaviors they exhibit as 2-year-olds."

Lipscomb said the take-away message for parents of young children and infants is that the way they adapt to toddlerhood -- a challenging time marked by a child's increasing mobility and independence -- can have an impact on how their child will develop.

"Parents' ability to regulate themselves and to remain firm, confident and not over-react is a key way they can help their children to modify their behavior," she said. "You set the example as a parent in your own emotions and reactions."

Researchers from the Oregon Social Learning Center, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania State University, University of New Orleans, University of Minnesota, University of California, Davis and Yale Child Study Center contributed to this study, which was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health.

Babies know best.

Babies Know What's Fair

ScienceDaily (Feb. 18, 2012) — "That's not fair!" It's a common playground complaint. But how early do children acquire this sense of fairness? Before they're 2, says a new study. "We found that 19- and 21-month-old infants have a general expectation of fairness, and they can apply it appropriately to different situations," says University of Illinois psychology graduate student Stephanie Sloane, who conducted the study with UI's Renée Baillargeon and David Premack of the University of Pennsylvania.

The findings appear in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science.

In each of two experiments, babies watched live scenarios unfold. In the first, 19-month-olds saw two giraffe puppets dance around at the back of a stage. An experimenter arrived with two toys on a tray and said, "I have toys!" "Yay!" said the giraffes. Then the experimenter gave one toy to each giraffe or both to one of them. The infants were timed gazing at the scene until they lost interest. Longer looking times indicated that something was odd -- unexpected -- to the baby. In this experiment, three-quarters of the infants looked longer when one giraffe got both toys.

In the second experiment, two women faced each other with a pile of small toys between them and an empty plastic box in front of each of them. An experimenter said, "Wow! Look at all these toys. It's time to clean them up." In one scenario, one woman dutifully put the toys away, while the other kept playing -- but the experimenter gave a reward to both the worker and the slacker. In another scenario, both women put the toys away and both got a reward. The observing 21-month-old infants looked reliably longer when the worker and the slacker were rewarded equally.

"We think children are born with a skeleton of general expectations about fairness," explains Sloane, "and these principles and concepts get shaped in different ways depending on the culture and the environment they're brought up in." Some cultures value sharing more than others, but the ideas that resources should be equally distributed and rewards allocated according to effort are innate and universal.

Other survival instincts can intervene. Self-interest is one, as is loyalty to the in-group -- your family, your tribe, your team. It's much harder to abide by that abstract sense of fairness when you want all the cookies -- or your team is hungry. That's why children need reminders to share and practice in the discipline of doing the right thing in spite of their desires.

Still, says Sloane, "helping children behave more morally may not be as hard as it would be if they didn't have that skeleton of expectations."

This innate moral sense might also explain the power of early trauma, Sloane says. Aside from fairness, research has shown that small children expect people not to harm others and to help others in distress. "If they witness events that violate those expectations in extreme ways, it could explain why these events have such negative and enduring consequences."

CA gay marriage ban is unconstitutional

February 07, 2012 10:09 AM

In a monumental decision today, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Proposition 8 unconstitutional.  

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal appeals court on Tuesday declared California's same-sex marriage ban to be unconstitutional, putting the bitterly contested, voter-approved law on track for a likely appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Their move upholds a lower court's decision that anti-gay bigotry was behind Prop. 8, the hateful law that denied gay and lesbian Californians the freedom to marry.  This  decision further affirms what we all know to be true – our Constitution exists to protect the basic civil rights of all Americans .  "ALL AMERICANS"

This fight is about people like Kristin and Sandy and Jeff and Paul – the two courageous plaintiff couples in this suit who have sacrificed so much to help bring about this victory.

We all need a larger Hippocampus! Great study.

 

" I would say Primary Care Giver/Mom/ Dad"

"I would say from birth. Absolutely from Birth"

"School Age is too late everyone..." 

Early Right brain development is the foundation of all other healthy development and Gene expression across childhood and a life span.... "

Mom's Love Good for Child's Brain

ScienceDaily (Jan. 30, 2012) — School-age children whose mothers nurtured them early in life have brains with a larger hippocampus, a key structure important to learning, memory and response to stress.

The new research, by child psychiatrists and neuroscientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, is the first to show that changes in this critical region of children's brain anatomy are linked to a mother's nurturing. Their research is published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition.
"This study validates something that seems to be intuitive, which is just how important nurturing parents are to creating adaptive human beings," says lead author Joan L. Luby, MD, professor of child psychiatry. "I think the public health implications suggest that we should pay more attention to parents' nurturing, and we should do what we can as a society to foster these skills because clearly nurturing has a very, very big impact on later development."
The brain-imaging study involved children ages 7 to 10 who had participated in an earlier study of preschool depression that Luby and her colleagues began about a decade ago. That study involved children, ages 3 to 6, who had symptoms of depression, other psychiatric disorders or were mentally healthy with no known psychiatric problems.
As part of the initial study, the children were closely observed and videotaped interacting with a parent, almost always a mother, as the parent was completing a required task, and the child was asked to wait to open an attractive gift. How much or how little the parent was able to support and nurture the child in this stressful circumstance -- which was designed to approximate the stresses of daily parenting -- was evaluated by raters who knew nothing about the child's health or the parent's temperament.
"It's very objective," Luby says. "Whether a parent was considered a nurturer was not based on that parent's own self-assessment. Rather, it was based on their behavior and the extent to which they nurtured their child under these challenging conditions."
The study didn't observe parents and children in their homes or repeat stressful exercises, but other studies of child development have used similar methods as valid measurements of whether parents tend to be nurturers when they interact with their children.
For the current study, the researchers conducted brain scans on 92 of the children who had had symptoms of depression or were mentally healthy when they were studied as preschoolers. The imaging revealed that children without depression who had been nurtured had a hippocampus almost 10 percent larger than children whose mothers were not as nurturing.
"For years studies have underscored the importance of an early, nurturing environment for good, healthy outcomes for children," Luby says. "But most of those studies have looked at psychosocial factors or school performance. This study, to my knowledge, is the first that actually shows an anatomical change in the brain, which really provides validation for the very large body of early childhood development literature that had been highlighting the importance of early parenting and nurturing. Having a hippocampus that's almost 10 percent larger just provides concrete evidence of nurturing's powerful effect."
Luby says the smaller volumes in depressed children might be expected because studies in adults have shown the same results. What did surprise her was that nurturing made such a big difference in mentally healthy children.
"We found a very strong relationship between maternal nurturing and the size of the hippocampus in the healthy children," she says.
Although 95 percent of the parents whose nurturing skills were evaluated during the earlier study were biological mothers, the researchers say that the effects of nurturing on the brain are likely to be the same for any primary caregiver -- whether they are fathers, grandparents or adoptive parents.
The fact that the researchers found a larger hippocampus in the healthy children who were nurtured is striking, Luby says, because the hippocampus is such an important brain structure.
When the body faces stresses, the brain activates the autonomic nervous system, an involuntary system of nerves that controls the release of stress hormones. Those hormones help us cope with stress by increasing the heart rate and helping the body adapt. The hippocampus is the main brain structure involved in that response. It's also key in learning and memory, and larger volumes would suggest a link to improved performance in school, among other things.
Past animal studies have indicated that a nurturing mother can influence brain development, and many studies in human children have identified improvements in school performance and healthier development in children raised in a nurturing environment. But until now, there has not been solid evidence linking a nurturing parent to changes in brain anatomy in children.
"Studies in rats have shown that maternal nurturance, specifically in the form of licking, produces changes in genes that then produce changes in receptors that increase the size of the hippocampus," Luby says. "That phenomenon has been replicated in primates, but it hasn't really been clear whether the same thing happens in humans. Our study suggests a clear link between nurturing and the size of the hippocampus."
She says educators who work with families who have young children may improve school performance and child development by not only teaching parents to work on particular tasks with their children but by showing parents how to work with their children.
"Parents should be taught how to nurture and support their children," Luby says. "Those are very important elements in healthy development."
Funding for this research comes from grants awarded by the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

I thought this decades ago? Science Rocks!

 " I don't get why I think of stuff and then decades later it turns out to have been a very good guess, that is why I love scientific discoveries.  I get to clean the attic up there with some awhawww moments! so satisfying sometimes. Thank you, our world scientists, for my sanity........ Now here is one of those thoughts I never revealed, but I can say, I knew it.!"

 I have followed Dr. Allan Schore, one of my most beloved Gurus of Neuroscience, Attachment, Child Development and Therapeutic treatment (UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, and at the UCLA Center for Culture, Brain, and Development).   He has stated for over a decade that the human genome is nurture dependent due to right brain activity during the first year of life.  This brain organization and re-organiztion and prunes itself  as a direct result of the dyadic regulatory mechanism that the attuned primary attachment figure provides.  He has always suggested that Opiate system, the Endorphin system and Cortisol amongst other complex RB sub systems help regulate our genetic expression almost irrelevant or at least along side of predisposition....  

Therefore,  now, I totally believe that those (-50% of infants born in US have unhealthy attachments, a 20% drop in healthy infancy in a decade--NIMH-Shaver.) poorly attached infants born in the United States every year, approx. 445,000 each year, their families and the US are in for a disturbing discovery during the next two or three decades.

Gene Regulator in Brain's Executive 

Hub Tracked Across Lifespan

ScienceDaily (Feb. 2, 2012) — For the first time, scientists have tracked the activity, across the lifespan, of an environmentally responsive regulatory mechanism that turns genes on and off in the brain's executive hub. Among key findings of the study by National Institutes of Health scientists: genes implicated in schizophrenia and autism turn out to be members of a select club of genes in which regulatory activity peaks during an environmentally-sensitive critical period in development. The mechanism, called DNA methylation, abruptly switches from off to on within the human brain's prefrontal cortex during this pivotal transition from fetal to postnatal life. As methylation increases, gene expression slows down after birth.  "This new study reminds us that genetic sequence is only part of the story of development. Epigenetics links nurture and nature, showing us when and where the environment can influence how the genetic sequence is read," said NIMH director Thomas R. Insel, M.D.

Dr. Shandiz's blog: why is this not common knowledge?

Dr. Shandiz's blog: why is this not common knowledge?: Early Childhood Brain Development & Communication. Trauma. - YouTube

Dr. Shandiz's blog: why did I fall in love with that person? Science R...

Dr. Shandiz's blog: why did I fall in love with that person? Science R...: I am asked, quite often "why did I fall in love with him or with her? I want to change me and to choose better for myself, an easier...

The other final word on weight loss?! As if January 2012.

   
       Hey everyone, could not help but share this. After years of all kinds of confusing messages from thousands of books, tapes, gurus,  infomercials, marketing tricks, sales gimmicks and numerous other real and shady pieces of information. From the South Beach Diet to Jenny Craig to Weight Watchers to thousands of Herbal supplemants and  assorted strange claims, Here are the scientific facts as of this January of 2012, published by Wall Street Journal's Personal Journal, reported by George Bray, a researcher at Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, La. The research also validated by many including the Mayo Clinic  and the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of CA. Los Angeles and others.  Are you ready?

" THE FINDINGS SUGGEST THAT IT MATTERS LITTLE  WHETHER A DIET IS HIGH OR LOW IN FAT, CARBOHYDRATES OR PROTEINS, IT IS CALORIES THAT BUILD BODY FAT. "

Carly.... you are incredible in every way.

A rare insight into the incredible painful world of Autism. She was in therapy 40 to 60 hours per week
from the age of 3. At 11 something amazing happened... she started communicating in words &
full sentences and began to discover her power.

" I am autistic, but that is not who I am, take time to know me before you judge me,  I am cute, funny, and I like to have fun, if I don't bang my head I feel like my body would explode........." 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNZVV4Ciccg&feature=email

why did I fall in love with that person? Science Rocks.

 

I am asked, quite often "why did I fall in love with him or with her? I want to change me and to choose better for myself, an easier partnership, something is wrong with my choices,  it should not be this hard.......they all say!"

I proceed to explain the blueprint of love which was intricately designed during the first 18 months of life. Difficult for most to accept because,  in my office, they are experiencing pain and difficulty with their lover/life partner and wished that they had chosen differently meaning having a different blueprint. Well, we do not have a different blueprint, we will never have a different one, our job is to embrace, examine, redesign, redefine and treasure the one we have found. Leaving and searching for another one will only give us a replica of the original and the frustrating process repeats itself without an enriching and healing outcome.  All that is required is two caring individuals who both understand and commit to this concept & willing to work hard on it. Here is the science behind the concept.

Ability to Love Takes Root in Earliest Infancy

ScienceDaily (Dec. 14, 2011) — The ability to trust, love, and resolve conflict with loved ones starts in childhood -- way earlier than you may think. That is one message of a new review of the literature in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science.

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"Your interpersonal experiences with your mother during the first 12 to 18 months of life predict your behavior in romantic relationships 20 years later," says psychologist Jeffry A. Simpson, the author, with University of Minnesota colleagues W. Andrew Collins and Jessica E. Salvatore. "Before you can remember, before you have language to describe it, and in ways you aren't aware of, implicit attitudes get encoded into the mind," about how you'll be treated or how worthy you are of love and affection.
While those attitudes can change with new relationships, introspection, and therapy, in times of stress old patterns often reassert themselves. The mistreated infant becomes the defensive arguer; the baby whose mom was attentive and supportive works through problems, secure in the goodwill of the other person.
This is an "organizational" view of human social development. Explains Simpson: "People find a coherent, adaptive way, as best as they can, to respond to their current environments based on what's happened to them in the past." What happens to you as a baby affects the adult you become: It's not such a new idea for psychology -- but solid evidence for it has been lacking.
Simpson, Collins, and Salvatore have been providing that evidence: investigating the links between mother-infant relationships and later love partnerships as part of the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation. Their subjects are 75 children of low-income mothers whom they've been assessing from birth into their early 30s, including their close friends and romantic partners. When the children were infants, they were put into strange or stressful situations with their mothers to test how securely the pairs were bonded. Since then, the children -- who are now adults -- have returned regularly for assessments of their emotional and social development. The authors have focused on their skills and resilience in working through conflicts with school peers, teenage best friends, and finally, love partners.
Through multiple analyses, the research has yielded evidence of that early encoding -- confirming earlier psychological theories. But their findings depart from their predecessors' ideas, too. "Psychologists started off thinking there was a lot of continuity in a person's traits and behavior over time," says Simpson. "We find a weak but important thread" between the infant in the mother's arms and the 20-year-old in his lover's. But "one thing has struck us over the years: It's often harder to find evidence for stable continuity than for change on many measures."
The good news: "If you can figure out what those old models are and verbalize them," and if you get involved with a committed, trustworthy partner, says Simpson, "you may be able to revise your models and calibrate your behavior differently." Old patterns can be overcome. A betrayed baby can become loyal. An unloved infant can learn to love.

Journal Reference:

1. J. A. Simpson, W. A. Collins, J. E. Salvatore. The Impact of Early Interpersonal Experience on Adult Romantic Relationship Functioning: Recent Findings From the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2011; 20 (6): 355 DOI: 10.1177/0963721411418468

why is this not common knowledge?

Early Childhood Brain Development & Communication. Trauma. - YouTube

THE SAD REALITY OF CORRUPTION WE HAVE TO FACE.

Hi everyone, you owe it to yourself, your family, your country and the world to watch this and please
take it seriously. This is he reality of our corrupt world. 
"the smartest Guys in the Room" Based on the book of the same name by Peter Elkin, director: Alex Glibney's documentrary. 

In case you were desparately seeking this information!

Boredom can lead to madness in parrots. The birds need constant interaction, affection, and mental stimulation; bird authorities have determined that some parrots have the mental abilities of a 5-year-old human child. When caged by themselves and neglected for long periods of time, these intelligent, sociable birds can easily become mentally ill. Many inflict wounds upon themselves, develop strange tics, and rip out their own feathers. Should a neglected parrot go mad, there is little that can be done to restore it to normalcy. In England, there are mental institutions for such unfortunate creatures.

If only our eyes could speak!

 

The following research further shows that we can listen to the human eyes not the human words reporting behaviors, images or events. The eyes encode images through eye movement, tracking, time and focus. Exposed to the same visuals, recognition & memory retrieval matching -eye tracking/movement/focus/time- can be verified.
"The witness points out the criminal in a police lineup. She swears she'd remember that face forever. Then DNA evidence shows she's got the wrong guy. It happens so frequently that many courts are looking with extreme skepticism at eyewitness testimony."

Where Is the Accurate Memory? The Eyes Have It  

ScienceDaily (Dec. 5, 2011) —

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Is there a way to get a more accurate reading of memory? A new study says yes. "Eye movements are drawn quickly to remembered objects," says Deborah Hannula, assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, who conducted the study with Carol L. Baym and Neal J. Cohen of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and David E. Warren of the University of Iowa College of Medicine. Tracking where and for how long a person focuses his or her eyes "can distinguish previously seen from novel materials even when behavioral reports fail to do so." The findings will appear in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science.
The researchers gave university students 36 faces to study. These target faces were also morphed to produce images closely resembling them; the morphed phases were not seen during the study phase. The students were then shown 36 three-face displays, one at a time. Told that the studied faces wouldn't always be there, the participants had to press a button indicating which face was the studied one, or simply choose a face if they felt none had been studied. They then reported verbally whether the studied target face was present or not. While they looked at the 3-face display, their eye movements were recorded, tracking where the eyes focused first and what proportion of time was spent looking there. For the analysis, the psychologists divided the faces into three groups: studied targets; morphs mistaken for the "target" face; and morphs chosen and known to be incorrect.
Participants easily identified the target faces most of the time. They also spent more time looking at these faces, and did so soon after the 3-face display had been presented. "The really interesting finding is that before they chose a face and pressed a button, there was disproportionate viewing of the target faces as compared to either type of selected face," said Hannula. However, "after the response was made, viewing tended to mimic the behavioral endorsement of a face as studied or not, whether that endorsement was correct or incorrect." In other words, "pre-response viewing seems to reflect actual experience, and post-response viewing seems to reflect the decision making process and whether or not the face will be endorsed as studied."
Hannula theorizes as to what is happening: "Early disproportionate viewing of the target face may precede and help give rise to awareness that a particular face has been studied. Subsequently, we begin to think about the choice that we're making" -- we look closely, compare and weigh the options -- "these cognitive processes permit us to make a decision, but may also lead us down the wrong path. In this case, leading us to endorse a face as studied despite having never seen it before."
Aside from the potential for practical application, says Hannula, eye movement methods could be used to examine memory in individuals -- like some psychiatric patients and children -- who may have trouble communicating what it is that they remember. "Eye movements might provide us with more information about what exactly these individuals remember than behavioral reports alone."

No one wants to cuddle with you? It is not you, it is your GENES!! wow..

 “What ultimately makes us kind and cooperative is a mixture of numerous genetic and non-genetic factors. No one gene is doing the trick. Instead, each of these many forces is a thread pulling a person in one direction or another, and the oxytocin receptor gene is one of these threads,” Kogan said.



Yesterday, Yasmin Anwar of the UC Berkeley News Center highlighted the results of a new study co-authored by the Greater Good Science Center’s faculty director, Dacher Keltner:

There’s definitely something to be said for first impressions. New research from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests it can take just 20 seconds to detect whether a stranger is genetically inclined to being trustworthy, kind, or compassionate.

The findings reinforce that healthy humans are wired to recognize strangers who may help them out in a tough situation. They also pave the way for genetic therapies for people who are not innately sympathetic, researchers said.
“It’s remarkable that complete strangers could pick up on who’s trustworthy, kind or compassionate in 20 seconds when all they saw was a person sitting in a chair listening to someone talk,” said Aleksandr Kogan, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral student at the University of Toronto at Mississauga.

Two dozen couples participated in the UC Berkeley study, and each provided DNA samples. Researchers then documented the couples as they talked about times when they had suffered. Video was recorded only of the partners as they took turns listening. 
 A separate group of observers who did not know the couples were shown 20-second video clips of the listeners and asked to rate which seemed most trustworthy, kind, and compassionate, based on their facial expressions and body language.

The listeners who got the highest ratings for empathy, it turned out, possess a particular variation of the oxytocin receptor gene known as the GG genotype.

“People can’t see genes, so there has to be something going on that is signaling these genetic differences to the strangers,” Kogan said. “What we found is that the people who had two copies of the G version displayed more trustworthy behaviors—more head nods, more eye contact, more smiling, more open body posture. And it was these behaviors that signaled kindness to the strangers.”

The study, which builds on previous UC Berkeley research on the human genetic predisposition to empathy, is published in the Nov. 14 online issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. An earlier UC Berkeley study looked at three combinations of gene variations of the oxytocin receptors AA, AG and GG.
It found that the people who were most empathetic – in that they were able to accurately interpret others’ emotions – had two copies of the “G allele.” In contrast, members of the AA and AG allele groups were found to be less capable of putting themselves in the shoes of others and more likely to get stressed out in difficult situations.

Widely known as the “cuddle” or “love” hormone, oxytocin is secreted into the bloodstream and the brain, where it promotes social interaction, bonding and romantic love, among other functions.
Kogan pointed out that having the AA or AG instead of the GG genotype does not mark a person as unsympathetic.

“What ultimately makes us kind and cooperative is a mixture of numerous genetic and non-genetic factors. No one gene is doing the trick. Instead, each of these many forces is a thread pulling a person in one direction or another, and the oxytocin receptor gene is one of these threads,” Kogan said.

His coauthors are UC Berkeley psychologist Dacher Keltner; Laura Saslow, a postdoctoral student at UCSF; Emily Impett, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Toronto; Christopher Oveis, an assistant professor at UC San Diego, and Sarina Saturn, assistant professor of psychology at Oregon State University.

Here’s a simple arithmetic question

Here’s a simple arithmetic question: “A bat and ball cost $1.10. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?”
The vast majority of people respond quickly and confidently, insisting the ball costs 10 cents. This answer is both incredibly obvious and utterly wrong. (The correct answer is five cents for the ball and $1.05 for the bat.) What’s most impressive is that education doesn’t really help; more than 50% of students at Harvard, Princeton and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology routinely give the incorrect answer.
Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Laureate and professor of psychology at Princeton, has been asking questions like this for more than five decades. His disarmingly simple experiments have profoundly changed the way that we think about thinking. While philosophers, economists and social scientists had assumed for centuries that human beings are rational agents, Mr. Kahneman and his scientific partner, the late Amos Tversky, demonstrated that we’re not nearly as rational as we like to believe.
When people face an uncertain situation, they don’t carefully evaluate the information or look up relevant statistics. Instead, their decisions depend on mental short cuts, which often lead them to make foolish decisions. The short cuts aren’t a faster way of doing the math; they’re a way of skipping the math altogether.
Although Mr. Kahneman is now widely recognized as one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century, his research was dismissed for years. Mr. Kahneman recounts how one eminent American philosopher, after hearing about the work, quickly turned away, saying, “I am not interested in the psychology of stupidity.”
But the philosopher missed the point. The biases and blind-spots identified by Messrs. Kahneman and Tversky aren’t symptoms of stupidity. They’re an essential part of our humanity, the inescapable byproducts of a brain that evolution engineered over millions of years.
In Mr. Kahneman’s important new book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” his first work for a popular audience, he outlines the implications of this new model of cognition. What are the most important mental errors that we all make? And can they be overcome?
Consider the overconfidence bias, which drives many of our mistakes in decision-making. The best demonstration of the bias comes from the world of investing. Although many fund managers charge high fees to oversee stock portfolios, they routinely fail a basic test of skill: persistent achievement. As Mr. Kahneman notes, the year-to-year correlation between the performance of the vast majority of funds is barely above zero, which suggests that most successful managers are banking on luck, not talent.
This shouldn’t be too surprising. The stock market is a case study in randomness, a system so complex that it’s impossible to predict. Nevertheless, professional investors routinely believe that they can see what others can’t. The end result is that they make far too many trades, with costly consequences.
And it’s not just investors who suffer from this mental flaw. The typical entrepreneur believes that he or she has a 60% chance of success, though less than 35% of small businesses survive more than five years. Meanwhile, CEOs who hold more company stock—taken here as a sign of self-confidence—also tend to make more irresponsible decisions, overpaying for acquisitions and engaging in misguided mergers.
Even consumers are hurt by this bias. A recent survey of American homeowners found that they expected, on average, to spend about $18,500 on remodelling their kitchens. The actual average cost? Nearly $39,000.
We like to see ourselves as a Promethean species, uniquely endowed with the gift of reason. But Mr. Kahneman’s simple experiments reveal a very different mind, stuffed full of habits that, in most situations, lead us astray. Though overconfidence may encourage us to take necessary risks—Mr. Kahneman calls it the “engine of capitalism”—it’s generally a dangerous (and expensive) illusion.
What’s even more upsetting is that these habits are virtually impossible to fix. As Mr. Kahneman himself admits, “My intuitive thinking is just as prone to overconfidence, extreme predictions and the planning fallacy as it was before I made a study of these issues.”
Even when we know why we stumble, we still find a way to fall.

disconnected & communicate! SCIENCE ROCKS

ScienceDaily (Oct. 19, 2011) — Like a bridge that spans a river to connect two major metropolises, the corpus callosum is the main conduit for information flowing between the left and right hemispheres of our brains. Now, neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have found that people who are born without that link -- a condition called agenesis of the corpus callosum, or AgCC -- still show remarkably normal communication across the gap between the two halves of their brains.

This was a real surprise," says Tyszka. "We expected to see a lot less coupling between the left and right brain in this group -- after all, they are missing about 200 million connections that would normally be there. How do they manage to have normal communication between the left and right sides of the brain without the corpus callosum?"

Science Rocks.

 This type of research and hundreds like this one are so magical and energizing to me. I have no doubt  that in the near future we will find ways to maximize the incredible potential of every single infant. The scientific community has such a rich world of knowledge about infant brain development and child rearing which is still not available to the public in simple language and applicable to all.
Can hardly wait.....
33 week fetus touching face, with the umbilical cord visible. (Credit: Image courtesy of Lancaster University)
Babies in the womb develop a range of facial movements in such a way that it is possible to identify facial expressions such as laughter and crying. For the first time, a group of researchers was able to show that recognisable facial expressions develop before birth and that, as the pregnancy progresses from 24 to 36 weeks gestation, fetal facial movements become more complex.

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The group of researchers include Dr Nadja Reissland, a psychologist and Professor James Mason Director of Research in Medicine and Health of Durham University, Professor Brian Francis, Professor of social statistics at Lancaster University and Dr Karen Lincoln, consultant in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough, where the fetal scans are collected.
The group examined video-taped fetal facial movements obtained by 4D ultrasound machines in the later stages of pregnancy.
They recorded the same fetuses after they had been found to be healthy at their 20 week scan, several times between 24 and 36 weeks of gestation. They found that the movements of the fetal face become more complex over time.
Fetuses at the first stage of observation (24 weeks) were able to move one muscle in their face at a time. They would for example stretch their lips or open their mouth. By 35 weeks gestational age, fetuses combined a number of facial muscle movements, combining for example lip stretch, lowering of the eyebrows and deepening the nasolabial furrow, thereby turning isolated movements into recognisable and increasingly complex expressions.
Professor Brian Francis from the Department of Maths and Statistics at Lancaster University said: "This is a new and fascinating insight into the remarkable process of fetal development. This research has for the first time demonstrated that in healthy fetuses there is a developmental progression from simple to complex facial movements, preparing the fetus for life post birth."
Although the fetus cannot make any sounds, the development of facial expressions means that at birth, the baby has already developed the facial movements to accompany crying and laughing.
Dr Nadja Reissland from Durham University said: "We have found so much more than we expected. We knew that the baby blinks before birth and that some research has identified scowling before birth. However in this study for the first time we have developed a method of coding and analysis which allows us to objectively trace the increasing complexity of movements over time which results in recognisable facial expressions."
The researchers argue that these patterns of the motor movements are developed before the baby feels the emotion, just as the baby practises breathing movements in the uterus even before it has drawn a breath.
The discovery could help potentially identify health problems in utero, since there is a link between fetal behavioural patterns and the development of the fetal brain. Looking at differences between normal and abnormal fetal facial developments may indicate problems with brain development.
The researchers now plan to look at whether fetal facial movement might help differentiate between fetuses of mothers who smoke during pregnancy and non-smokers. They will also examine the development of facial expressions relating to anger, smiling and sadness.
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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Lancaster University, via AlphaGalileo.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Nadja Reissland, Brian Francis, James Mason, Karen Lincoln. Do Facial Expressions Develop before Birth? PLoS ONE, 2011; 6 (8): e24081 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0024081

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Lancaster University (2011, September 13). Facial expressions develop before birth, researchers show. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 26, 2011, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2011/09/110913090927.htm

GENERATION X not such underachievers!

Generation X ScienceDaily (Oct. 25, 2011) — They've been stereotyped as a bunch of insecure, angst-ridden, underachievers. But most members of Generation X are leading active, balanced and happy lives, according to a long-term University of Michigan survey.

"They are not bowling alone,"
said political scientist Jon Miller, author of The Generation X Report.
"They are active in their communities, mainly satisfied with their jobs, and able to balance work, family, and leisure."  

Miller directs the Longitudinal Study of American Youth at the U-M Institute for Social Research. The study, funded by the National Science Foundation since 1986, now includes responses from approximately 4,000 Gen Xers -- those born between 1961 and 1981.
"The 84 million Americans in this generation between the ages of 30 and 50 are the parents of today's school-aged children," Miller said. "And over the next two or three decades, members of Generation X will lead the nation in the White House and Congress. So it's important to understand their values, history, current challenges and future goals."
The first in a new quarterly series of Generation X Reports describes how Gen Xers are faring in terms of employment and education; marriage and families; parenting; community involvement and religion; social relationships; recreation and leisure; digital life; and happiness and life satisfaction.
Among the many findings:

• Compared to a national sample of all adults, Gen Xers are more likely to be employed and are working and commuting significantly more hours a week than the typical U.S. adult, with 70 percent spending 40 or more hours working and commuting each week.
• Two-thirds of Generation X adults are married and 71 percent have minor children at home.
• Three-quarters of the parents of elementary school children say they help their children with homework, with 43 percent providing five or more hours of homework help each week.
• Thirty percent of Generation X adults are active members of professional, business or union organizations, and one in three is an active member of a church or religious organization.
• Ninety-five percent talk on the phone at least once a week to friends or family, and 29 percent say they do so at least once a day.

"In sociologist Robert Putnam's influential book, 'Bowling Alone,' he argued that Americans were increasingly isolated socially," Miller said. "But this data indicates that Generation X members are not bowling alone.
"Although they may be less likely to join community-based luncheon clubs, they have extensive social, occupational and community networks. They are active participants in parent-teacher organizations, local youth sports clubs, book clubs and other community organizations."
In addition, Miller points out, nearly 90 percent of Generation X adults participated in at least one outdoor activity, such as hiking, swimming, boating or fishing, and 40 percent engaged in two or more recreation and leisure activities per month.
On the cultural side, 45 percent of the Generation X adults surveyed reported attending at least one play, symphony, opera or ballet performance during the preceding year, and 13 percent said they had attended three or more cultural events during the last year.
"Generation X adults are also readers," Miller said. "Seventy-two percent read a newspaper, in print or online, at least once a week, and fully 80 percent bought and read at least one book during the last year. Nearly half said that they read six or more books in the last year."
Finally, Miller reports, Generation X adults are happy with their lives, with an average level of 7.5 on a 10-point scale in which 10 equals "very happy."
"That is not to say that some members of this generation are not struggling," Miller said. "And in future issues of the Generation X Report we will address some of the challenges many members of this group are facing."
The second Generation X Report will be issued in January 2012, on the topic of influenza. Using data collected during the 2010 influenza epidemic, the January report will explore how young adults kept abreast of the issue and what actions they eventually took to protect themselves and their families. Subsequent reports will cover food and cooking, climate, space exploration, and citizenship and voting.

Does anyone ask why? Anyone out there?

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released new guidelines for diagnosing and treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in preschoolers as young as 4. Previous guidelines, issued in 2000 and 2001, focused on children aged 6 to 12, but the new recommendations expand the targeted age group to 4 to 18 to include both preschoolers and older teens.

The reason for the expanded advice? New data released in the past decade has revealed that ADHD can begin earlier, and that children may benefit from behavioral treatments before they enter school, where attention problems can impede learning.

"Treating children at a young age is important, because when we can identify them earlier and provide appropriate treatment, we can increase their chances of succeeding in school," said Dr. Mark Wolraich, chair of the AAP subcommittee responsible for writing the report.
Kids with ADHD typically have problems focusing and paying attention. They are hyperactive and behave impulsively. But the condition may look different in different age groups. Among school-aged children (age 6 or older), about half don't have issues with hyperactivity, according to Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York, who specializes in studying preschool ADHD. In this age group, attention problems are more common, likely because they become more obvious in the school setting, where children need to sit in class and concentrate for longer periods of time.
Hyperactivity is more common among preschoolers, however. They may be accident-prone or have trouble playing with other kids. According to the AAP, it's the number of symptoms, and the number of different caregivers who notice them, that is important. It's not enough, for example, for only parents to complain of their child's overactive behavior. In order to meet the bar for diagnosis and justify treatment, at least one other party, such as a day care teacher or babysitter, must also note the same behaviors. And these symptoms must be persistent and severe enough to impair the child's ability to function, which could involve anything from their inability to get along with other children to being consistently unable to follow directions.
The new advice is similar to that in the diagnostic manual for diagnosing adult mental health disorders, and the AAP is advising pediatricians to follow the same guidelines in diagnosing the disorder among youngsters. It gives doctors something to look for in preschoolers, which may help parents and pediatricians to know when their child's energetic activity is normal, and when it crosses the line to become ADHD.
As far as treatments go, the Academy is recommending that preschoolers under age 6 start with behavioral therapies first, and to consider medications such as methylphenidate (known as Ritalin or Concerta) only if they don't improve. The AAP only recommends starting with medications in the most severe cases, in which both children and their families may benefit from more immediate alleviation of hyperactivity symptoms.
While the Food and Drug Administration has not approved methylphenidates for patients under age 6, the committee is basing its advice on clinical trials that suggest that the drugs are safe and effective in preschoolers. Trials on the effects of other ADHD medications, such as amphetamines, haven't been done in younger users. For older children in school (over age 6) the AAP advises either behavioral therapy, medication or, preferably, both, to address attention problems and hyperactive behaviors.
"For kids who present during preschool with symptoms of hyperactivity and attention deficit, pediatricians have been wrestling with how to approach and manage their symptoms," says Adesman. "What the AAP has done is provided clarification and guidance to pediatricians in terms of how to assess and treat them."

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2011/10/17/new-adhd-guidelines-include-kids-as-young-as-4/#ixzz1b5ZVXmSh

The Beatles are right .. again?

MONEY CANNOT BUY LOVE NOR HAPPINESS

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Scholars at Brigham Young University studied 1,734 married couples across the United States. Each couple completed a relationship evaluation, part of which asked how much they value "having money and lots of things."
The researchers' statistical analysis showed that couples who say money is not important to them score about 10 to 15 percent better on marriage stability and other measures of relationship quality than couples where one or both are materialistic.
"Couples where both spouses are materialistic were worse off on nearly every measure we looked at," said Jason Carroll, a BYU professor of family life and lead author of the study. "There is a pervasive pattern in the data of eroding communication, poor conflict resolution and low responsiveness to each other."
The findings will be published Oct. 13 in the Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy.
For one in five couples in the study, both partners admitted a strong love of money. Though these couples were better off financially, money was often a bigger source of conflict for them.
"How these couples perceive their finances seems to be more important to their marital health than their actual financial situation," Carroll said.
And despite their shared materialism, materialistic couples' relationships were in poorer shape than couples who were mismatched and had just one materialist in the marriage.
The study's overall findings were somewhat surprising to Carroll because materialism was only measured by self-evaluations.


ScienceDaily (Oct. 14, 2011) — New research to be published Oct. 13 confirms The Beatles' lyrical hypothesis and finds that "the kind of thing that money just can't buy" is a happy and stable marriage.

  Pondering the science of Happiness! Learning tingles!
             
The happiness of people in our social networks is much more significant than you think.  Our friends influence what we think of as normal, and that influences our habits, feelings, and behavior, which, in turn, make us happy. Or unhappy. As Christakis and Fowler have found in their research in "Connected"  only 50% of happiness is genetically based, 10% about life circumstances and the rest from our social network. research shows  that our colleague's next-door neighbor's best-friend or office mate --someone we have never met... influences how happy we are!   Isn't that amazing?

“Changes in individual happiness can ripple through social connections and create large-scale pattern in the network,” write Christakis and Fowler, “giving rise to clusters of happy and unhappy individuals.” 3 degrees of separation.

 Dr. Christine Carter from UC Berkeley sums it up really well:
"Research suggests that happiness is a set of skills we can teach and practice with our children. But, it turns out, the people in our social networks—in schools, especially, because proximity plays a role—are also teaching and practicing things that influence how happy our kids are.
Think about your friends. Are they a little weak in the happiness department? Are they super-busy and talking obsessively about our country’s leadership problems? Are they always complaining about how they hate their boss and how their son’s teacher is an idiot? Are they burdened by a classmate’s peanut allergy or whiny about a hubby who never gets his socks in the hamper?
Or maybe you have friends with excellent happiness habits. Perhaps they are more grateful for what they have than whiny about what they don’t. Maybe your friends get lots of exercise, and enough sleep, have tight connections to friends and family, and these things make them frequently cheerful.
Our habits make us happy—or not. And our habits are influenced, in large part, by our friends’ habits. What do we see as normal? Busyness and cynicism? Or gratitude and mindfulness? Materialism and fancy vacations? Or time with close friends and dinner at home? 
Make no mistake: Our social connections influence our happiness. While all three of those choices in the above pop quiz do affect how happy we are, the one we often overlook is the invisible ties we have to everyone in our social networks. This means that increasing your own happiness, and the happiness of your children, is a great way to contribute to the greater good.  And encouraging happiness habits among your friends has positive ripple effects throughout their social networks, your family included. I hope you will join our discussion about this!
"© 2011 Christine Carter, Ph.D  Greater Good the science of a meaningful life."

Surprise, I am still alive!

         Checked my pulse this morning.  Still alive on this birthday, wow...Really? It has been too rough in my head, brain bruise you know,  too many questions bouncing about,  too many raised eye brows when  I would constantly ponder  the meaning of life, the future of humanity.... why are we so violent, why do we destroy others, why and why .... tiring..blablabla.. too many this and thats. 
I mean it.  

        You ask how I made it this far?  I do too,  quite often..
I have made it because of  the loving people in my life without whom I would not exist. Thanks for all of your love and good wishes. I am so deeply grateful......

        but left to my own devices, humm,  
looking to the right, to the left, index finger to chin,  
index finger to temple, .............pretty questionable.

        I think I am figuring it out .... Curiosity does kill the cat, but, CURIOSITY , LEARNING & REFLECTION has kept me alive. 
Literally, alive... so I would like to share one small example with you.

          This morning as is my inner 24/7 ritual even during my sleep, I was occupied by the incredible process of evolution, the human condition... blabla...this computer that is built out of a bunch of outdated refurbished parts belonging to other brands....an outdated operating system,  a primitive fight or flight software contained in a fancy high tech state of the art cortex package, lugging around ten or more different body parts that not only unnecessary, but causes of terrible misery, high medical expenses and tons of antibiotic usage... have you had a sinus infection lately? Appendicitis? Tonsillitis? Strep Throat?  

             Up and off to work, I noticed so much activity in my email boxes... just to find out that my own email accounts were beeping me, notifying me of my birthday and wishing me a happy birthday... having many accounts, this was a mess... 

             Then dozens of seemingly loving birthday notes from any entity that I had ever purchased from, written to, talked to, or barely checked out.. So, the fascinating part is that Godaddy, Amazon, Microsoft, Aol , the local Pilate studio, the local Dermatologist, ... etc.  can actually become your friends & make you feel special....  Think about it, you can definitely count on them like a secure and stable parent.  They never ever forget your birthday, they always provide you money as a birthday gift, I could be a rich woman if I could cash out all the gifts I got today!   they are very validating and appreciative of your attachment and loyalty.  Most importantly, they never judge or criticize you. .........

            So, for today, I  am speculating that evolution is taking us to new human condition frontiers of secure attachment, love and safety. May be a few thousand years from now, anxiety and depression will be no longer since we can feel noticed, adored, mirrored, remembered, gifted, talked to, appreciated, validated, on every special occasion or every day for that matter... that would be interesting to ponder!  Here I go pondering and speculating yet again.  I bet tomorrow another evolutionary matter will come up. Keep u posted.

Before DADT Repeal, Gay Soldier Comes Out on YouTube

Randy Phillips, you are a star:   “Dad, I’m gay. I always have been. I’ve known for … forever.Will you still love me?”  Dad: " I will always love you."

Dear Randy, You have known it forever because just as you have light color eyes, blonde hair and a are of a certain height, you were born with your sexuality. Not only Your dad loves you, your country loves you and those kids who were also born gay love you forever.   I know, love and deeply admire and respect many gay individuals. You are also now on my list of favorites, great job, very courageous, well done Randy. 

The U.S.Air force should be so proud & lucky to have you on their team.

 

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ABC News’ Elizabeth Kreutz reports:
Just hours before the official end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the policy prohibiting gays from serving openly in the military, a U.S. solider decided to come out in perhaps one of the most open ways imaginable: YouTube.
In the video he posted Monday, 21-year old, Randy Phillips, under his handle “AreYouSurprised,” calls his father to tell him — as the video description says — “the hardest thing that gay guys will ever have to say.”
“You promise you’ll always love me? Period?” he asks his father, his voice shaking.
He takes a beat, and then says it: “Dad, I’m gay. I always have been. I’ve known for … forever.”
But this video is not his first. The “faceless soldier,” currently serving in the Air Force in Germany, has been garnering Internet fame since April, when he first began chronicling his experiences coming out, while serving abroad.
Six months ago he wouldn’t even reveal his face. But with last night’s midnight appeal of DADT, he’s slowly revealing much more.  And using the power of the Internet as his guiding tool.
If there’s one thing he hasn’t been secretive about though, it’s his mission online, openly describing himself on Twitter as a “military member in the closet, using social media to build up the courage to come out to family, girlfriend, friends, and coworkers.”
“I am tired of hiding this,” he says.
And while he no longer has to, his story — and courage —  has already touched thousands along the way. And as of 2 p.m. today, his video already had more than 3,000 likes and 30,000 views. And counting.

SHOWS: World News

Want to know what you think?

Question:  What color is your brain?     Does your brain get more wrinkled with age or are you born with wrinkles?

Lerning Rocks!Evolution and useless body parts we are stuck with, Did you know?

Hey everyone, just like our funny brains, our body is also a mess of an evolutionary process. Our brain is layered with a primitive fight or flight system super imposed with a cortex of a rational thinking human. On an hourly basis we are completely and utterly conflicted between primitive emotional overwhelm and what we know to be the fact.  Yet we cannot reconcile the two systems because the operating mechanism is build with old refurbished parts that don't communicate too well yet, may be in a couple of million years it will get better. Anyway, here are some useless body parts we are still stuck with and suffer from, just four reflection and fun:

Erector Pili: Body hair sticking up to intimidate others but now just irritating goose bumps

Wisdom Teeth: Yanking meat off the bone and losing them through time with rough usage

but now every poor college student spends one summer vacations recuperating from

wisdom teeth removal...

Appendix: Early roughage processor, can burst and kill you

Male nipples:   Have no idea?

Plica semilunaris - Third eye lid:  Left over from the lizards, just to get red and irritated

Body hair: Just to make human miserable. Men and women lasering, tweezing, shaving and  waxing their legs, faces, backs, private parts, arms, faces etc…

Sinuses:  Purely for painful sinus infections, otherwise not needed any longer

and of course, Tonsils,  Coccyx, adenoids and many more.....