Stories about the 'Mad Monk" Grigori Rasputin suggest that he possessed some mystical healing powers and that he was able to sway to the royal family's rule over Russia. Other accounts indicate that he was nothing more than a poor man who pulled a lucky straw, making his way to the capital and influential notoriety. However, many of these stories are just that, stories. It's fun to believe that... Source

Was actor James Dean's car cursed? It may sound like an odd question, but many strange theories have been developed throughout the years since the Hollywood icon’s deadly 1955 collision in a Porsche 550 Spyder with the ominous nickname "Little Bastard." Movie buffs and car aficionados alike have found plenty of intrigue about the car and the alleged curse it carried. Read on for the background... Source

St Kilda is Britain's most isolated archipelago. Today, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its natural features and unique breed of sheep. But St Kilda has a long, dark history before it was abandoned in 1930. Residents knew nothing of the world, ate multiple birds a day, and struggled to survive. Keep reading to learn about the disturbing history behind these abandoned islands. St Kilda... Source

Although gardening is one of the most rewarding lifestyle habits, it can also be messy – and stressful! With lots of tools spread over lots of space, it’s easy to get lost in the maze of your gardening supplies. We’ve got some easy and creative garden tool organization hints and tips that will not only help to arrange your tools and make the most effective use of your space, but will also minimize your stress and ensure that your garden looks the best it can this summer! Garden Tool Organization Make use of wall space Professional organizers stress the importance of keeping floor space clean and tidy. To do this, gardeners should start to view their empty or exposed walls are canvases for potential works of art – and the tools themselves are like paint for the canvas! Look into hanging a slotwall system, which is a versatile series of grooved panels, on your garden shed or garage walls. You can attach various accessories to these panels, such as hooks, shelves, baskets, and brackets. These tend to be more affordable systems than investing in cabinet installation, and they make much more effective use of vertical spaces due to the number of creative additions a gardener can choose to add. A pegboard is another option to considerwhen transforming empty walls into works of gardening tool art. These are perforated panels that can be attached to a wall, and hooks and brackets can easily be placed on the panel to store and display tools. Behind closed doors If you’re not too keen on the idea of your gardening tools being displayed outright, or worry about potentially knocking them off the walls, consider storing your supplies in a tall cabinet lined with slotwall or customized shelf inserts. As mentioned above, slotwall is an easier DIY option to install inside of your cabinet; shelves require slightly more work, and typically require basic carpentry knowledge in order to be executed. However, this is a visually clean and safe option for your garden tool storage. Reuse and Repurpose Chances are you’ve got tons of old household items that are sitting around, just waiting to be used creatively to help store your garden supplies! An old metal or wire basket can be mounted to your wall and used as storage for a hose. A file box that’s not currently in use is a good space to store any bags of seeds, and file separators can be used to divide different types based on planting seasons. Got an old rake that’s no longer much use and taking up space in your shed? Remove the head of the rake from the handle and mount it on your wall. The prongs can be used as hooks to hang tools or bundles of drying flowers! The same strategy can be applied to an old belt hanger in your closet. Remember that old spice rack and spice jars that you never got around to filling? Small accessories for tools such as nails, matches and screws fit perfectly into your tiny spice jars, and the spice rack will keep everything organized and in one place. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the tools that are required to make a big beautiful garden! These tips and tricks will surely keep all of your supplies safe, sorted, and stored, which will in turn help your garden to flourish! Up Next: Throwback Thursday | Midwifery: Caring For Mothers Then And Now Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook!

NYT: Special Counsel to Resign Before Inauguration

Where’s Waldo’s got nothing on these guys.

Inscribed coffins, jars of organs, and other grave goodies were recovered.

Kelly Lambert: We crafted our first rodent car from a plastic cereal container. After trial and error, my colleagues and I found that rats could learn to drive forward by grasping a small wire that acted like a gas pedal. Before long, they were steering with surprising precision to reach a Froot Loop treat. As expected, rats housed in enriched environments – complete with toys, space and companions – learned to drive faster than those in standard cages. This finding supported the idea that complex environments enhance neuroplasticity: the brain’s ability to change across the lifespan in response to environmental demands. After we published our research, the story of driving rats went viral in the media. The project continues in my lab with new, improved rat-operated vehicles, or ROVs, designed by robotics professor John McManus and his students. These upgraded electrical ROVs – featuring rat-proof wiring, indestructible tires and ergonomic driving levers – are akin to a rodent version of Tesla’s Cybertruck. As a neuroscientist who advocates for housing and testing laboratory animals in natural habitats, I’ve found it amusing to see how far we’ve strayed from my lab practices with this project. Rats typically prefer dirt, sticks and rocks over plastic objects. Now, we had them driving cars. But humans didn’t evolve to drive either. Although our ancient ancestors didn’t have cars, they had flexible brains that enabled them to acquire new skills – fire, language, stone tools and agriculture. And some time after the invention of the wheel, humans made cars. Although cars made for rats are far from anything they would encounter in the wild, we believed that driving represented an interesting way to study how rodents acquire new skills. Unexpectedly, we found that the rats had an intense motivation for their driving training, often jumping into the car and revving the “lever engine” before their vehicle hit the road. Why was that? The new destination of joy Concepts from introductory psychology textbooks took on a new, hands-on dimension in our rodent driving laboratory. Building on foundational learning approaches such as operant conditioning, which reinforces targeted behavior through strategic incentives, we trained the rats step-by-step in their driver’s ed programs. Initially, they learned basic movements, such as climbing into the car and pressing a lever. But with practice, these simple actions evolved into more complex behaviors, such as steering the car toward a specific destination. The rats also taught me something profound one morning during the pandemic. It was the summer of 2020, a period marked by emotional isolation for almost everyone on the planet, even laboratory rats. When I walked into the lab, I noticed something unusual: The three driving-trained rats eagerly ran to the side of the cage, jumping up like my dog does when asked if he wants to take a walk. Had the rats always done this and I just hadn’t noticed? Were they just eager for a Froot Loop, or anticipating the drive itself? Whatever the case, they appeared to be feeling something positive – perhaps excitement and anticipation. Behaviors associated with positive experiences are associated with joy in humans, but what about rats? Was I seeing something akin to joy in a rat? Maybe so, considering that neuroscience research is increasingly suggesting that joy and positive emotions play a critical role in the health of both human and nonhuman animals. With that, my team and I shifted focus from topics such as how chronic stress influences brains to how positive events – and anticipation for these events – shape neural functions. Working with postdoctoral fellow Kitty Hartvigsen, I designed a new protocol that used waiting periods to ramp up anticipation before a positive event. Bringing Pavlovian conditioning into the mix, rats had to wait 15 minutes after a Lego block was placed in their cage before they received a Froot Loop. They also had to wait in their transport cage for a few minutes before entering Rat Park, their play area. We also added challenges, such as making them shell sunflower seeds before eating. This became our Wait For It research program. We dubbed this new line of study UPERs – unpredictable positive experience responses – where rats were trained to wait for rewards. In contrast, control rats received their rewards immediately. After about a month of training, we expose the rats to different tests to determine how waiting for positive experiences affects how they learn and behave. We’re currently peering into their brains to map the neural footprint of extended positive experiences. Preliminary results suggest that rats required to wait for their rewards show signs of shifting from a pessimistic cognitive style to an optimistic one in a test designed to measure rodent optimism. They performed better on cognitive tasks and were bolder in their problem-solving strategies. We linked this program to our lab’s broader interest in behaviorceuticals, a term I coined to suggest that experiences can alter brain chemistry similarly to pharmaceuticals. This research provides further support of how anticipation can reinforce behavior. Previous work with lab rats has shown that rats pressing a bar for cocaine – a stimulant that increases dopamine activation – already experience a surge of dopamine as they anticipate a dose of cocaine. The tale of rat tails It wasn’t just the effects of anticipation on rat behavior that caught our attention. One day, a student noticed something strange: One of the rats in the group trained to expect positive experiences had its tail straight up with a crook at the end, resembling the handle of an old-fashioned umbrella. I had never seen this in my decades of working with rats. Reviewing the video footage, we found that the rats trained to anticipate positive experiences were more likely to hold their tails high than untrained rats. But what, exactly, did this mean? Curious, I posted a picture of the behavior on social media. Fellow neuroscientists identified this as a gentler form of what’s called Straub tail, typically seen in rats given the opioid morphine. This S-shaped curl is also linked to dopamine. When dopamine is blocked, the Straub tail behavior subsides. Natural forms of opiates and dopamine – key players in brain pathways that diminish pain and enhance reward – seem to be telltale ingredients of the elevated tails in our anticipation training program. Observing tail posture in rats adds a new layer to our understanding of rat emotional expression, reminding us that emotions are expressed throughout the entire body. While we can’t directly ask rats whether they like to drive, we devised a behavioral test to assess their motivation to drive. This time, instead of only giving rats the option of driving to the Froot Loop Tree, they could also make a shorter journey on foot – or paw, in this case. Surprisingly, two of the three rats chose to take the less efficient path of turning away from the reward and running to the car to drive to their Froot Loop destination. This response suggests that the rats enjoy both the journey and the rewarding destination. Rat lessons on enjoying the journey We’re not the only team investigating positive emotions in animals. Neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp famously tickled rats, demonstrating their capacity for joy. Research has also shown that desirable low-stress rat environments retune their brains’ reward circuits, such as the nucleus accumbens. When animals are housed in their favored environments, the area of the nucleus accumbens that responds to appetitive experiences expands. Alternatively, when rats are housed in stressful contexts, the fear-generating zones of their nucleus accumbens expand. It is as if the brain is a piano the environment can tune. Neuroscientist Curt Richter also made the case for rats having hope. In a study that wouldn’t be permitted today, rats swam in glass cylinders filled with water, eventually drowning from exhaustion if they weren’t rescued. Lab rats frequently handled by humans swam for hours to days. Wild rats gave up after just a few minutes. If the wild rats were briefly rescued, however, their survival time extended dramatically, sometimes by days. It seemed that being rescued gave the rats hope and spurred them on. The driving rats project has opened new and unexpected doors in my behavioral neuroscience research lab. While it’s vital to study negative emotions such as fear and stress, positive experiences also shape the brain in significant ways. As animals – human or otherwise – navigate the unpredictability of life, anticipating positive experiences helps drive a persistence to keep searching for life’s rewards. In a world of immediate gratification, these rats offer insights into the neural principles guiding everyday behavior. Rather than pushing buttons for instant rewards, they remind us that planning, anticipating and enjoying the ride may be key to a healthy brain. That’s a lesson my lab rats have taught me well. Kelly Lambert, Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Richmond This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The post Neuroscientist Teaches Lab Rats to Drive appeared first on Anomalien.com.

CNN's Fareed Zakaria was somewhat more independent minded than most of his CNN colleagues and what he said on his Sunday show, Fareed Zakaria GPS, could make many of them feel anywhere between slightly to extremely uncomfortable. Zakaria listed three reasons for why the Democrats lost the presidency: ignoring the border crises, weaponizing the justice system to attack Donald Trump via lawfare, and identity politics. It was the first two reasons, and lawfare in particular, that would cause the most discomfort to many others at CNN.     In spelling out the reasons, Zakaria noted that Democrats missed the boat on the public's shifting attitude against the left's open border policies. He noted that instead of reflecting, Democrats just called those who opposed them racist: The first big error was the Biden Administration‘s blindness to the collapse of the immigration system and the chaos at the border. An asylum system that was meant for a small number of persecuted individuals was being used by millions to gain legal entry. Instead of shutting it down, liberals branded anyone protesting as heartless and racist. They missed a massive shift in American public opinion in just a few years. In 2020, the percentage of Americans who wanted to decrease immigration was just 28%. By this year, it was 55%. When Kamala Harris went on ‘The View’ and was asked how she would have differed from Biden, instead of basically saying, ‘Nothing different,’ she should have said, ‘I would have shut down the border early and hard.’ On the second reason, he noted that the lawsuits against Trump "piled on in rapid succession gave the impression that the legal system was being weaponized to get Trump" and how much money it helped to direct to his campaign coffers: The second error was an overzealous misuse of law to punish Trump. The most egregious of the cases pursued was Alvin Bragg‘s in New York, one that even he was once skeptical of, but was reportedly pressured by some on the left into pursuing. Some cases, like the Georgia one, were legitimate, but the host of them piled on in rapid succession gave the impression that the legal system was being weaponized to get Trump. It confirmed to his base what it had always believed: that over-educated, urban liberals are hypocrites, happy to bend rules and norms when it suited their purposes. It is worth noting that in this week‘s election, a CNN exit poll found that among those who believe that democracy in the U.S. is threatened, a majority supported Trump. Lawfare turned Trump from being a loser into a victor, and as his indictments grew, his campaign contributions surged and his poll numbers solidified. The final reason Zakaria gave was the left's swan dive into wokeism and their identity politics: The final error is a more diffuse one, the dominance of identity politics on the left, which made it push for all kinds of DEI policies that largely came out of the urban academic bubble, but alienated many mainstream voters. There is an irony in claiming to be pro-Latino by insisting that people use the term ‘Latinx,’ only to discover that Latinos themselves think the word is weird. This kind of obsession made Democrats view people too much through their ethnic or racial or gender identity, and it made them miss, for example, that working-class Latinos were moving toward Trump, perhaps, because they were socially conservative or liked his macho rhetoric or even agreed with his hard-line stance on immigration. One of Trump‘s most effective ads on trans issues had a tagline. We already know that CNN's legal analyst Elie Honig was highly critical of the use of lawfare against Trump but it remains to be seen what the attitudes will be among others at CNN on the criticisms presented by Zakaria.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's case against Daniel Penny in the death of Jordan Neely continues, revealing how the soft-on-crime DA's decision to go after Penny for protecting subway riders caused witnesses to go into self-preservation mode.Eric Gonzalez, who helped Penny restrain Neely after Neely made death threats on a New York City subway last year, testified for the prosecution on Tuesday that he lied when he was initially interviewed by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office as a suspect in Neely's death, the New York Post reported.'I’ve seen a lot of unstable people. This felt different to me.'Gonzalez said he lied out of fear of being "pinned for" Neely's death, telling the DA's office he arrived on the scene earlier than he actually did and claiming that Neely had hit him, prompting Penny to act. Neely did not physically touch anyone prior to Penny restraining him, according to witnesses. The lies were an attempt at "justifying my actions," Gonzalez said.On account of his initial false statements, Gonzalez entered a non-prosecution agreement with Bragg's office. Gonzalez further testified he told Penny he would grab hold of Neely's hands and that Penny should let him go, but Penny did not let go even as Neely motioned to be released.Gonzalez also expressed concerns regarding his role in the trial. "There’s all these protests going on. I’m scared for myself and for my family," he explained on the stand.On Tuesday, jurors were also shown a frame-by-frame video of Penny's hold on Neely. “You will see Mr. Neely’s life being snuffed out before your very eyes,” Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yoran said during opening statements.More police body-camera footage from the day of the incident shows witnesses praising Penny for his actions to keep people on the subway car safe."The guy in the tan [Penny] did take him down really respectfully. ... He didn't choke him," a woman told officers.Witnesses for the prosecution, many of whom have been subway riders for many years, testified that they have never been more scared for their lives than when Neely began threatening them.“No, I did not feel safe when he was moving around erratically. I’ve taken the subway for 30 years, and I’ve seen a lot. I’ve seen a lot of unstable people. This felt different to me," Lori Sitro said last week.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!