Some cool facts about animals images:
PhotonQ-Feeling Dodo
Image by PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE
The yawn reflex is often described as contagious:
if one person yawns, this may cause another person to "sympathetically" yawn.
Observing another person's yawning face (especially his/her eyes), even reading, or thinking about yawning, can cause a person to yawn.
The proximate cause for contagious yawning may lie with mirror neurons, i.e., neurons in the frontal cortex of certain vertebrates, which upon being exposed to a stimulus from conspecific (same species) and occasionally interspecific organisms, activates the same regions in the brain.
Mirror neurons have been proposed as a driving force for imitation which lies at the root of much human learning, e.g., language acquisition. Yawning may be an offshoot of the same imitative impulse.
A 2007 study found that young children with autism spectrum disorder do not increase their yawning frequency after seeing videos of other people yawning, in contrast to typically developing children.
This supports the claim that contagious yawning is based on the capacity for empathy.
To look at the issue in terms of evolutionary advantage, if there is one at all, yawning might be a herd instinct.
Other theories suggest that the yawn serves to synchronize mood in gregarious animals, similar to the howling of the wolf pack.
It signals tiredness to other members of the group in order to synchronize sleeping patterns and periods.
This phenomenon has been observed among various primates. The threat gesture is a way of maintaining order in the primates' social structure. Specific studies were conducted on chimpanzees and stumptail macaques.
A group of these animals was shown a video of other conspecifics yawning; both species yawned as well. This helps to partly confirm a yawn's "contagiousness."
----------------------------------for the frenchies
Le bâillement est un acte contagieux. Le baillement d'une personne implique bien souvent le baillement des personnes se trouvant dans son entourage. Ce comportement se retrouve chez les animaux. Il a ainsi été étudié chez les loups vivant en meute
Il est aussi amusant de savoir que le baillement est contagieux également chez les aveugles et que donc la contagion ne se fait pas que visuellement.
Cette contagion est probablement due à un groupe de neurones spécialisés appelés neurones miroirs. (Wikipedia)
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(By the way a great article to read by Joshua Greene for Edge.org Max Brockman new mindfood book, on Moral evolution :
"Mirror neurons are thought to be the seat of empathy, so our brains, you might say, are wired for morality.
But our social brains evolved in small, localised communities, and as the pace of technological innovation accelerates, global communication increasingly becomes a fact of daily life. Will communications technologies lead us to evolve a broader moral sense?
Joshua Greene, a cognitive neuroscientist and philosopher at Harvard, explains why humans are apt to save a child who is dying right in front of their eyes, but not a child who is dying halfway across the world.
"Nature endowed us with tuggable heartstrings, a crucial design feature for creatures whose survival depends on cooperation. But nature couldn't foresee that our survival might someday depend on cooperation across oceans and continents, and so neglected to outfit us with heartstrings that are readily tugged from a distance," he writes." www.edge.org/3rd_culture/brockman_next09/brockman_next09_... )
Toyosu Photo Walk
Image by localjapantimes
These days however, my haters are mostly of the online variety.
My theories as to why folks start to hate you are:- - Human instinct is to protect him/herself. You see this reaction if somebody falls over - their arms naturally extend to protect them from the fall. If a human feels threatened by your existence, they may try to harm you directly or indirectly. - Humans with low self esteem may find that attacking you makes them feel better about themselves as it 'places them above you.' I notice this *a lot* on the Japanese Internet. Many folks in Japanese society are given the "I'm-your-boss-so-shut-up-and-listen-to-what-I-say" treatment - needless to say that they feel like poo on the shoe when they get home. They then proceed to take it out on people/companies on the Internet with foul language. This form of gang bashing is known as "Matsuri" which literally means "Festival" - a group of folks having a good time bashing others. - Many humans hate the unknown. And because something is unknown, the only means a hater has to protect themselves is hatred which they try to use to expel you. I also personally experienced this form of hatred at school too. I lived many of my years bullied by a particular person - the guy who I mentioned before who wanted to smash my head in with a metal bat. I was a quiet weak child who was brought up with foster parents who bullied me at home too - didn't exactly leave me feeling confident at school. Haters took advantage of this fact to make them feel better about themselves. - Some humans may 'blame' you for how well you are doing at school or in society and see you as the cause of their current predicaments. You do well because of your hard work while others want your abilities (or what you have) by doing nothing. Jealousy is a trait that can even be seen in animals but if they could learn how to feel good about themselves, they need not be jealous of anything or anybody. - Some humans hate you for not being how they want you to be. In their mind they have already decided how certain sets of humans should behave and when you are being just you and not behaving as they expect, they will hate you because you are not meeting their expectations. They could possibly see this as a threat to them because they don't know how to handle people who are not in their presets. - Another reason why humans may choose you as a target of hatred is because they use you as a benchmark to 'do better' than you. This is annoying and a compliment at the same time ^^; I see this going on between companies. A particular company that I worked at hated another company and used them as a benchmark. - Some humans may hate you due to some sort of misunderstanding. I always employ and encourage open communication especially for sensitive topics. If the hater is somebody you care about, take the initiative to try to find out the cause of you being hated as it could be something over something very silly indeed.
The original article for this image lives at tokyo.japantimes.co.jp/post/en/658/Toyosu+Photo+Walk.html
