– Con­cept art devel­oped for the Jun­gle Book movie by Annis Naeem

Q: What do our thought process­es have in com­mon with walk­ing through the jun­gle?
A: We only make real progress after acknowl­edg­ing going in cir­cles.

Q: What is the worst kind of echo?
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Head­space rais­es $93 mil­lion in equi­ty and debt as it pur­sues clin­i­cal val­i­da­tion for mind­ful­ness (TechCrunch):

“Head­space, the Los Ange­les-based mind­ful­ness and med­i­ta­tion com­pa­ny locked in a bit­ter com­pet­i­tive strug­gle with Calm for lead­er­ship in the men­tal well­ness world, has raised new cap­i­tal to try to take the pole posi­tion.

The com­pa­ny has just closed on $93 mil­lion in new equi­ty and debt financ­ing Read the rest of this entry »

Just a few weeks ago, a group of mid­dle school stu­dents in Alaba­ma made the news for post­ing pos­i­tive notes on the lock­ers of fel­low stu­dents. For Christ­mas, a few Attle­boro, MA, stu­dents chipped in to buy their beloved school jan­i­tor new boots as a present. And in Decem­ber, a Michi­gan wait­ress received a $2,020 tip for a $23 din­ner bill, spark­ing the “2020 Tip Chal­lenge.”

Peo­ple per­form acts of kind­ness both to do good and to feel good. Research finds that being kind makes us hap­py, can help to low­er our blood pres­sure, and encour­ages stronger social con­nec­tions. Now Read the rest of this entry »

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Brain-wave pat­tern can iden­ti­fy peo­ple like­ly to respond to anti­de­pres­sant, study finds (Stan­ford Med­i­cine press release):

“A new method of inter­pret­ing brain activ­i­ty could poten­tial­ly be used in clin­ics to help deter­mine the best treat­ment options for depres­sion, accord­ing to a study led by researchers at the Stan­ford School of Med­i­cine.

Stan­ford researchers and their col­lab­o­ra­tors used elec­troen­cephalog­ra­phy, a tool for mon­i­tor­ing elec­tri­cal activ­i­ty in the brain, and an algo­rithm to iden­ti­fy a brain-wave sig­na­ture in Read the rest of this entry »

An always delight­ful way to learn more about our brains and minds is to expe­ri­ence so-called opti­cal illu­sions and to see how we react to them.

Below you have three fun ones to tease, and prob­a­bly even puz­zle, you mind.

Ready, set, go!

1. Where is that couple’s baby?

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