eredien: Dancing Dragon (Default)
Eredien ([personal profile] eredien) wrote2002-08-13 09:57 pm

Today's Wierd Facts

I am currently reading Up From Dragons: The Evolution of Human Intelligence, by John R. Skoyles and Dorion Sagan (the son of the late Carl Sagan). It is done as a sequel and update of sorts to Carl Sagan's earlier The Dragons of Eden, which is also a good book. Perfect summer reading for me: intriguing chapters I can finish in an hour or less, with a little bit of biotech and music theory and neuroscience thrown in that I don't have to be a bio major to understand. Anyway...

p. 102: "Studies of people who live alone show that a lack of daily contact carries about the same risk of shortening lifespan as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day."

Um, wow. Second fact.

p. 58, on Alpha waves in the frontal cortex: "But in meditation, such as...zen, yoga, and qi gong, it [the waves of the alpha state] lasts longer and changes, increasing slightly in amplitude and becoming more coordinated and slightly lower in frequency than normal."

I want to read the scientific papers referenced in that one. Something I'd heard before but hadn't found any solid scienfitic literature about.

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