parasites
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On happiness and mind control.
We could change our brains enough to feel happy with the world as it is … or we could use our unhappiness as a motivation to fix things.
abusive research, addiction, America, animal emotions, animal empathy, asylums, bad medical advice, bioethics, biomedical ethics, brain modification, brain parasites, brain stimulation, brain’s pleasure center, Carl Elliott, cat shit, chemically modulated happiness, cocaine, consciousness, conversion therapy, DCS, deep brain stimulation, depression, direct current stimulation, dopamine, drug abuse, drug crisis, drug use, eating cat shit, electrical brain stimulation, electrochemical stimulation of desire, empathy in rats, evolutionary rationale for pleasure, fighting depression, Frans de Waal, free will, happiness, homosexuality, human choice, human free will, Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal, induction of empathy, Lone Frank, love potion, Mama’s Last Hug, mind control, nucleus accumbens, opiate use, painkillers, parasites, parasitic mind control, psychiatric patients, psychiatric wards, psychiatry, psychological crisis, psychology studies, psychosurgery, rat empathy, rats free their friends, research ethics, research subjects, review of The Pleasure Shock, Robert Heath, science, scientific ethics, scientific progress, sex in a laboratory, suicide, toxo, toxoplasma, toxoplasmosis, unethical experiments, unethical research, unethical science, United States
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On mind control versus body control
In jail last week, we found ourselves discussing mind control. Ants that haul infected comrades away from the colony – otherwise, the zombie will climb above the colony before a Cordyceps fruiting body bursts from its spine, raining spores down onto everyone below, causing them all to die. Several parasites, including Toxoplasma gondii, are known…
body control, brain, consciousness, free will, infection, jail, magnetic pulse, mass incarceration, mind control, neurobiology, parasites, parasitic mind control, perception of free will, phantom limb, teaching in jail, toxoplasma, toxoplasmosis, transcranial magnetic stimulation, zombi, zombie, zombie ants, zombies
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On playing outdoors, and allergies.
K has been on a big kick reading books about sending students outside. Obviously, I approve. Being outdoors seems to make most humans happier, and people who spend time outside seem more likely to care about preserving our environment. Plus, K even has scholastic reasons to ask students to sit contemplatively outside — it’s reasonable…
allergies, allergy, allergy epidemic, AP biology, asthma, autoimmune disorders, cute kid photos, David Strachan, eating peanuts to cure a peanut allergy, expecting to fight makes us more aggressive, farm animals, farmed-animal sanctuary, fatherhood, fieldwork, Hay Fever Hygiene and Household Size, hygiene, hygiene hypothesis, immune system, immunology, let your kid eat dirt!, oral immunotherapy, outdoor learning, outdoors, outside, parasites, parasites as medicine, parenting, pathogens, peanut, play, spending time on a farm to prevent allergies, The Watchmen, Uplands PEAK, vegan animal sanctuary
Frank Brown Cloud 