www.latimes.com

Congressman nominates 27 Latino films for National Film Registry

Films by and about Latinos have often been left out of historical conversations including the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. But Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), along with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, has been trying to change that.

Castro has been working for years to help increase Latino representation in multiple industries across the U.S., including entertainment. Last week he sent a letter to Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and the National Film Preservation Board listing 27 Latino films that should be considered for this year’s selection.

The goal of the registry is to select films that showcase a variety of range and diversity of American film heritage.

“This is my attempt and the Hispanic Caucus’ attempt to celebrate their contributions so that people will rightfully see us for something other than just the stereotypes,” Castro said. “As an industry that is purported to be incredibly culturally progressive in all kinds of causes, [the entertainment industry] has in fact been regressive and detrimental to the development of new voices, and the Latino community has paid the price of that exclusion.”

Castro said that the lack of representation on the registry is harmful not only to the Latino community, but also to other marginalized groups. He said he carefully selected films that break common stereotypes placed on the Latino community.

“Given the film industry’s continued exclusion of Latinos, we must make a special effort to ensure that Latino Americans’ contributions to American filmmaking are appropriately celebrated and included in the National Film Registry,” Castro said in his letter.

Every year the registry adds 25 films from the list of nominees and in recent years has increased emphasis on films by people of color and women. Even with this increase, out of the 850 titles on the registry, only 24 of them are Latino films.

Ana-Christina Ramón, the inaugural director of the Entertainment and Media Research Initiative at UCLA, has dedicated much of her work to researching access and equity in the entertainment industry. She said that including Latino films on the list of nominees and in the registry is crucial.

“Latinx people have been living here since before it was the United States and they are part of the American experience, and so for them not to be included, I think it would be a travesty,” Ramón said.

Ramón also said it is not only about the types of diverse stories that are being told, but also who is getting the jobs to play those roles.

“These films not only tell the story about Latin culture, but they influence American culture as well,” Ramón said.

Castro said the film industry seems to be more exclusive with the diversity of its lists than the music industry because it’s “layered with more gatekeepers.”

“That’s what this work is about. It’’s a celebration of the culture, but also a reminder to Hollywood that we’re here, that our contributions matter, and that they are worthy of recognition,” Castro said.

One of the films on the Library of Congress’ nomination list is “Sleep Dealer” by director Alex Rivera, which was released in 2008. The Sundance award-winning film is a sci-fi thriller about a young man, Memo Cruz, played by Luis Fernando Peña, in near-future Mexico who tries to survive a “misguided drone attack.”

Cruz tries to find safety near the U.S.-Mexico border but finds out migrant workers are unable to cross the border. He then tries to connect his body to a robot in the U.S. to help find a better future.

For over two decades, Rivera, who is a MacArthur “Genius Grant” winner and professor at Arizona State University, has dedicated his career to telling adventurous Latino stories. He said that Latino stories are not given adequate support to be successful. He said there is no shortage of Latino stories, but the problem is that there is not enough interest in Latino stories from decision makers.

“It’s so important that someone like Rep. Castro is using his platform and his power to highlight the simple reality of our community as part of this country,” Rivera said.

The official list of films added to the registry will be announced in December.

Here are the films nominated by Castro:

“... and the Earth Did Not Swallow Him” (1994)
“Blood In Blood Out” (1993)
“Raising Victor Vargas” (2002)
“Frida” (2002)
“I Like It Like That” (1994)
“Walkout” (2006)
“Mosquita y Mari” (2012)
“The Milagro Beanfield War” (1988)
“Under the Same Moon” (2007)
“American Me” (1992)
“Tortilla Soup” (2001)
“Mi Vida Loca” (1993)
“Instructions Not Included” (2013)
“Maria Full of Grace” (2004)
“Girlfight” (2000)
“La Mission” (2010)
“Sleep Dealer” (2008)
“Alambrista!” (1977)
“Our Latin Thing” (1972)
“Cheech & Chong’s Up in Smoke” (1978)
“A Better Life” (2011)
“Gun Hill Road” (2011)
“In the Time of the Butterflies” (2001)
“Roberto Clemente” (2008)
“The Longoria Affair” (2010)

https://irle.ucla.edu/emri/

latimes.com/genius-fellows-latinx-files

asu.edu/20221027-genius-grant-fellows-launch-latino-filmmaking-lab-asus-poitier-film-school

A new powerful antibiotic, isolated from bacteria that could not be studied before, seems capable to combat harmful bacteria and even multi-resistant 'superbugs'. Named Clovibactin, the antibiotic appears to kill bacteria in an unusual way, making it more difficult for bacteria to develop any resistance against it. Researchers from Utrecht University, Bonn University (Germany), the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), Northeastern University of Boston (USA), and the company NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, USA) now share the discovery of Clovibactin and its killing mechanism in the scientific journal Cell.

Urgent need for new antibiotics

Antimicrobial resistance is a major problem for human health and researchers worldwide are looking for new solutions. "We urgently need new antibiotics to combat bacteria that become increasingly resistant to most clinically used antibiotics," says Dr. Markus Weingarth, a researcher from the Chemistry Department of Utrecht University.

However, the discovery of new antibiotics is a challenge: few new antibiotics have been introduced into the clinics over the last decades, and then they often resemble older, already known antibiotics.

"Clovibactin is different," says Weingarth. "Since Clovibactin was isolated from bacteria that could not be grown before, pathogenic bacteria have not seen such an antibiotic before and had no time to develop resistance."

Antibiotic from bacterial dark matter

Clovibactin was discovered by NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals, a small US-based early-stage company, and microbiologist Prof. Kim Lewis from Northeastern University, Boston. Earlier, they developed a device that allows to grow 'bacterial dark matter', which are so-called unculturable bacteria. Intriguingly, 99% of all bacteria are 'unculturable' and could not be grown in laboratories previously, hence they could not be mined for novel antibiotics. Using the device, called iCHip, the US researchers discovered Clovibactin in a bacterium isolated from a sandy soil from North Carolina: E. terrae ssp. Carolina.

In the joint Cell publication, NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals shows that Clovibactin successfully attacks a broad spectrum of bacterial pathogens. It was also successfully used to treated mice infected with the superbug Staphylococcus aureus.

A broad target spectrum

Clovibactin appears to have an unusual killing mechanism. It targets not just one, but three different precursor molecules that are all essential for the construction of the cell wall, an envelope-like structure that surrounds bacteria. This was discovered by the group of Prof. Tanja Schneider from the University of Bonn in Germany, one of the Cell paper's co-authors.

Schneider: "The multi-target attack mechanism of Clovibactin blocks bacterial cell wall synthesis simultaneously at different positions. This improves the drug's activity and substantially increases its robustness to resistance development."

A cage-like structure

How exactly Clovibactin blocks the synthesis of the bacterial cell wall was unraveled by the team of Dr. Markus Weingarth from Utrecht University. They used a special technique called solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) that allows to study Clovibactin's mechanism under similar conditions as in bacteria.

"Clovibactin wraps around the pyrophosphate like a tightly sitting glove. Like a cage that encloses its target" says Weingarth. This is was gives Clovibactin its name, which is derived from Greek word "Klouvi," which means cage. The remarkable aspect of Clovibactin's mechanism is that it only binds to the immutable pyrophosphate that is common to cell wall precursors, but it ignores that variable sugar-peptide part of the targets. "As Clovibactin only binds to the immutable, conserved part of its targets, bacteria will have a much harder time developing any resistance against it. In fact, we did not observe any resistance to Clovibactin in our studies."

Fibrils capture the targets

Clovibactin can do even more. Upon binding the target molecules, it self-assembles into large fibrils on the surface of bacterial membranes. These fibrils are stable for a long time and thereby ensure that the target molecules remain sequestered for as long as necessary to kill bacteria.

"Since these fibrils only form on bacterial membranes and not on human membranes, they are presumably also the reason why Clovibactin selectively damages bacterial cells but is not toxic to human cells," says Weingarth. "Clovibactin hence has potential for the design of improved therapeutics that kill bacterial pathogens without resistance development.."

Take your shot!

Sciencedaily.com

A paper recently published in Nature Energy based on pioneering research done at Illinois Institute of Technology reveals a promising breakthrough in green energy: an electrolyzer device capable of converting carbon dioxide into propane in a manner that is both scalable and economically viable.

As the United States races toward its target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, innovative methods to reduce the significant carbon dioxide emissions from electric power and industrial sectors are critical. Mohammad Asadi, assistant professor of chemical engineering at Illinois Tech, spearheaded this groundbreaking research.

"Making renewable chemical manufacturing is really important," says Asadi. "It's the best way to close the carbon cycle without losing the chemicals we currently use daily."

What sets Asadi's electrolyzer apart is its unique catalytic system. It uses inexpensive, readily available materials to produce tri-carbon molecules -- fundamental building blocks for fuels like propane, which is used for purposes ranging from home heating to aviation.

To ensure a deep understanding of the catalyst's operations, the team employed a combination of experimental and computational methods. This rigorous approach illuminated the crucial elements influencing the catalyst's reaction activity, selectivity, and stability.

A distinctive feature of this technology, lending to its commercial viability, is the implementation of a flow electrolyzer. This design permits continuous propane production, sidestepping the pitfalls of the more conventional batch processing methods.

"Designing and engineering this laboratory-scale flow electrolyzer prototype has demonstrated Illinois Tech's commitment to creating innovative technologies. Optimizing and scaling up this prototype will be an important step toward producing a sustainable, economically viable, and energy-efficient carbon capture and utilization process," says Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy Program Director Jack Lewnard.

This innovation is not Asadi's first venture into sustainable energy. He previously adapted a version of this catalyst to produce ethanol by harnessing carbon dioxide from industrial waste gas. Recognizing the potential of the green propane technology, Asadi has collaborated with global propane distributor SHV Energy to further scale and disseminate the system.

"This is an exciting development which opens up a new e-fuel pathway to on-purpose propane production for the benefit of global users of this essential fuel," says Keith Simons, head of research and development for sustainable fuels at SHV Energy.

Illinois Tech Duchossois Leadership Professor and Professor of Physics Carlo Segre, University of Pennsylvania Professor of Materials Science and Engineering Andrew Rappe, and University of Illinois Chicago Professor Reza Shahbazian-Yassar contributed to this work. Mohammadreza Esmaeilirad (Ph.D. CHE '22) was a lead author on the paper.

www.vox.com

Guatemala is on the verge of electing Bernardo Arévalo, a former academic and diplomat whose campaign has focused on fighting corruption, giving many graft-weary Guatemalans hope that building strong democratic institutions could be possible in the Central American nation.

Arévalo’s Movimiento Semilla (Seed Movement in English) pulled out a surprise win in first-round elections in June and will face off against conservative establishment leader and former First Lady Sandra Torres on Sunday. But Arévalo’s path to the presidency has been fraught, as establishment politicians used the court system to disqualify or challenge anti-establishment candidates.

Indigenous leader Thelma Cabrera, businessman Carlos Pineda, and Roberto Arzú were all barred from running in June’s contest by the Constitutional Court, Guatemala’s high court. Prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche began investigating Movimiento Semilla in July, just before the June elections were certified, claiming that some 5,000 of the signatures on a petition to form the party were fake.

Guatemala’s Supreme Judicial Court granted an indefinite injunction against the effort to bar Arévalo from running, but the decision could still be appealed to the Constitutional Court. And the injunction hasn’t stopped Torres from launching specious attacks against Arévalo, including that Movimiento Semilla is trying to steal the elections and that Arévalo will make Guatemala a Communist country.

Arévalo’s support has remained significant, and the court’s decision to allow Movimiento Semilla a place in Sunday’s elections have brought cautious optimism to Guatemalans and observers alike. Arévalo, the son of the nation’s first democratic president Juan José Arévalo, was raised abroad after a military coup overthrew his father’s successor. He was polling at 61 percent as of Wednesday, compared to Torres’s 31 percent, according to Fundación Libertad y Desarrollo, an independent think tank focused on Latin America.

Torres is the head of the Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE) party, which has long been entrenched in Guatemalan politics, including, reportedly, the less savory side, like trading votes in congress for favors and jobs. This is Torres’s third bid for the presidency, after failed efforts in 2015 and 2019, and over the years she has more closely aligned with outgoing President Alejandro Giammattei, according to InSight Crime, an investigative outlet reporting on issues in Latin America.

Arévalo’s message is powerful in a deeply corrupt nation

Torres’s coziness with the political establishment, both as a legislator and as a confidant of the unpopular Giammattei, signaled that a Torres presidency would be much the same as Giammattei’s. In a country with unstable democratic institutions — a situation aided by US meddling in Guatemalan politics under progressive leftist President Jacobo Arbenz — as well as serious inequality and violence, Arévalo’s success seems like a revelation.

In the first round of elections, Semilla was the underdog; Torres was widely expected to be a frontrunner, as was Zury Ríos, a populist legislator and the daughter of General Efraín Ríos Montt, a right-wing military dictator who took over Guatemala in a 1982 coup. Many Guatemalans were also expected to avoid voting to protest the corruption in the process.

But Semilla and Arévalo — upstarts offering Guatemala the chance to “vote different” — resonated with voters for reasons beyond Arévalo’s political pedigree, primarily because of his message that corruption would not be tolerated under his watch.

Guatemala suffers from the serious, interconnected problems of violence, inequality, and government corruption. Powerful interests, and especially business interests, can easily persuade the government to cater to their demands — increasing inequality and setting up the government as a mechanism for enrichment.

There was, starting in 2007, an attempt to address Guatemala’s corrupt politics under the Comisión Internacional Contra la Impunidad en Guatemala, or CICIG, which confronted and prosecuted criminal organizations as well as corruption in the government, as Vox previously reported:

Under CICIG, Guatemalan prosecutors were tasked with investigating crime at the highest levels, even bringing corruption charges against a former president and vice president, among others. It was enormously successful, providing a model for other Latin American countries where similar problems — state capture, organized crime, and graft — have been allowed to flourish with impunity.

Former President Jimmy Morales, himself dogged by accusations of corruption, refused to renew CICIG’s mandate in 2019. CICIG’s efforts were already under attack by corrupt and powerful forces within the country; under Morales and Giammattei, anti-corruption judges and officials have fled Guatemala following arrests and threats of prosecution.

Arévalo has made tackling corruption the centerpiece of his campaign, particularly speaking out against CACIF, the Coordinating Committee of Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial, and Financial Associations, which in June he accused of “underpinning the economy of privilege” — defined in Arévalo’s words as “the economy in which the success of a group or company depends on the level of contact or political clout it has with a powerful politician, with a minister.”

But his anti-graft message, as well as his clear-eyed view of what’s possible given powerful and antagonistic interests, has resonated in urban areas and, increasingly, smaller towns as well.

Arévalo faces obstacles, even if he wins

Guatemala’s democracy is young; it has a strong, entrenched history of dictatorship, civil war, and corrupt and weak institutions which are extremely difficult to overcome, especially in just one presidential term — the limit under Guatemala’s constitution.

Inequality and poor social services, a struggling economy, and a legacy of violence following a 36-year civil war and violent dictatorships have allowed multiple armed groups to terrorize Guatemalan society. Those groups, according to InSight Crime, comprise street gangs like MS-13 and Barrio 18, but also involve former and current police officers, as well as members of the military and intelligence officers. The groups mostly engage in illegal drug smuggling, but also “human trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, money laundering, arms smuggling, adoption rings,” and other illegal businesses.

They are also entrenched in the government, with connections to powerful people “ranging from local politicians to high-level security and government officials,” Insight Crime reports.

Even if he wins, Arévalo could face renewed calls for prosecution or attempts to overturn the election, even after the results are posted. But in a Friday interview with El País, he remained positive that his ideals would win out.

“We believe that democratic institutions must be reestablished,” Arévalo said. “We have to re-found the process that this corrupt political class has hijacked from us.”

Many links in article

psychologytoday.com

Online: Kaytee Gillis

Jessilyn slumped on the couch, eyes cast downward. "I heard from my mother last week," she said, her first time making eye contact since she had sat down 10 minutes before. I tried to hide my excitement at her willingness to go deep, instead trying to reflect a sense of neutrality and openness.

"We haven't talked in fifteen years. Maybe twenty," she began. "She left when I was about sixteen. My dad was violent, abusive really. He drank a lot. She couldn't handle it I guess, so she left. Last I knew she had remarried and had a couple other kids a few years back."

During this session with Jessilyn, she relayed a painful conversation with the mother who abandoned her when she needed her most:

I don't know why I opened this door. I knew it would upset me. But I asked her why she left so many years ago. I just came out and asked her. And do you know what she said to me? She said "you don't know how hard it was for me, Jessilyn. Living with that man. I just couldn't do it anymore.

Hard for her?! I thought. Like, she was an adult. She left a teenage girl who was barely able to drive, with this man who was so dangerous that she had to leave. What about me?!

But of course I didn't say this to her at first. I think I was in shock, honestly. She literally kept talking about how hard it was for her and how much better her life was once she got away, how much happier she is now... I couldn't even respond.

Most people would be able to see that Jessilyn's experience was traumatic. Being left with a parent who was abusive and violent, and being unable to escape, is unthinkable. Even though she was a teenager, and not a small child, this experience nonetheless changed - and completely traumatized- her. But still she spent years unable to see this experience for what it was. Instead internalizing the shame and self-blame in ways that she struggled to articulate. Her mother's refusal- or inability- to see her daughter's experiences as traumatic compounded her feelings of shame and reinforced the trauma she had experienced.

Eventually Jessilyn was able to ask her mom those terrifying three words: "what about me?" Her mom's response was that of shock and immediate denial. In her mother's eyes, she herself was the true (i.e. "only") victim of the violence and trauma within the home. During the very limited conversations that the mother and daughter had, Jessilyn's mother would say things such as "Your experience couldn't have been that bad, you turned out alright." or "You have no idea what I went through, you should be happy that I got out."

“She just won’t believe me! She can’t see what happened in my childhood and how that affects me today,” Jessilyn cried out from her spot across from me on the couch. “How do I move on if she can’t even understand the pain of my experiences, and how her leaving made it even worse for me?”

Many people come to me desperate to heal and move forward from their trauma history, yet struggling when it comes to convincing their caregivers what happened.

Sometimes, caregivers who also experienced trauma, such as in the case of Jessilyn's mother, are so stuck in their own experiences that they are unable to see the bigger picture.

In reality, Jessilyn's mother would not have to deny her own history in order to validate her daughter's. She could acknowledge her own experiences of abuse while recognizing that her daughter also experienced them- yet was powerless to leave due to being a child. However, mother was unable to focus on any reality other than her own.

Many of my clients get stuck trying to convince their caregivers of their pain because they believe they need that acknowledgement to heal. In truth, few will receive the validation they seek from their experiences this way.

This lack of validation can come from many sources, but it is often our caregivers’ own defense mechanisms keeping them in the denial stage—denial of their own actions (or inactions) but also denial of their own history of trauma that they unfortunately repeated. Shame comes in when confronted with the truth, and self-defenses take over in absence of self-esteem. They replace that shame with self-doubt, outward blame, and even rage.

This is where our own internal tools will need to take over and make up for that lack of external support and understanding from our caregivers so we can heal.

Remember, you do not need to convince others of your truth in order to move forward. No one has to acknowledge our mourning or grief for it to be authentic. Of course, this is easier said than done. Not being understood or believed comes with a feeling of invisibility, which compounds many survivors' trauma.

Instead, move towards self-validation. When working with clients with this experience, we focus on self-validation as a form of healing. Focus on acknowledging and validating your history. Whenever you feel the beginnings of denial or self-gaslighting creeping in, stop and say "no, I will not deny my history. What happened to me was traumatic, and I am allowed to feel this way." Validating your own history is a crucial part of the healing process.

Adapted, in part, from the book: Breaking the Cycle, the 6 Stages of Healing from Childhood Family Trauma.

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psychologytoday/self-esteem

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Online: Harper Collins Author Profile

The foundation for verbal abuse in an adult-on-adult relationship is an imbalance of power; one person has it and is highly motivated to keep it and continue to control the relationship.

It’s important to remember that verbal abuse—whether it’s of the overt or covert variety—is highly motivated and goal-oriented as well as consistent, despite the fact there will likely be so-called “honeymoon” periods where the amount of abuse decreases or stops entirely.

While the person who is the target of the verbal abuse will likely believe that the respite reflects a change of heart on the abuser’s part, the sad truth is that it’s usually a tactic to keep the target emotionally confused and hopeful and, most important, fully committed to staying in the relationship.

Understanding the Imbalance of Power in an Abusive Relationship

While a healthy and satisfying adult relationship would be based on a partnership model, in verbally abusive relationships, one person seeks to maintain control. That’s made possible by certain factors such as these:

• One person has a greater emotional investment in the relationship than the other.
• The abuser exploits what he or she knows about the target’s insecurities and self-doubts to control the him or her.
• One person has greater financial resources than the other or the target is financially dependent on the abuser; each affects both the decision to stay or to leave.
• The abuser and the target have children and the target is concerned that any action of her/his part will involve the abuser’s retaliation and that the children will be hurt emotionally or psychologically.

Verbal Abuse can be Subtle or Covert to Maintain Control

The culture tends to picture verbal abuse as loud, involving yelling, put-downs, name-calling, and shaming; while verbal abuse certainly can and does take these forms, it’s the more subtle forms of verbal abuse that are more likely to entrap you and render you feeling powerless. That was certainly true for Casey, now 42:

“My ex-husband never raised his voice or called me a name; instead, he undermined me at every turn in subtle ways. Plans I’d made or initiated were always changed because he had a ‘better’ idea or solution that included everything from dinner reservations to renovating our kitchen and family vacations. He dismissed any complaints I had by telling me that I was ‘sensitive to rejection’ and that I was ‘emotionally over-reactive;’ it took me years to recognize that he was effectively shutting me up and shutting me down without ever saying so. There wasn’t a single domain in our lives where he didn’t insist on having the final say and, for a long time, I honestly believed that I had little or nothing of value to contribute to him or anyone. I went into therapy and when my counselor suggested I was being abused, I pushed back and denied it but it was the truth. When I tried to talk to him about it, he laughed at me and then refused to discuss it further. I was lucky, though. I ‘only’ wasted six years of my life with him.”

Among the more difficult-to-recognize forms of verbal abuse are:

• Blame-shifting: The abuser exploits your own self-doubts or insecurities by making whatever has happened your fault; that leaves the abuser with zero responsibility and more control and often makes you feel that you should apologize. A true sleight-of-hand.
• Brinksmanship: Threatening you with leaving or asking why you just don’t leave if you’re so unhappy. This is enabled by the abuser’s knowledge that you aren’t ready to give up on relationship and that you’re still hopeful a corner can be turned.
• Stonewalling or ignoring that you’ve said anything. This will put you into a defensive crouch and perhaps feeling panicked; this often ends up with your being a peacemaker and apologizing for something you didn’t do.
• Gaslighting: Telling you that your perceptions are dead wrong or that you’re projecting or making things up. Again, this preys on your insecurities as well as your hopefulness that things will get better somehow.

Will Your Abuser Ever Change?

Again, this comes down to motivation. We’ve seen how control is established through verbal abuse so the question becomes this: What’s in it for the abuser to stop?

If you find yourself in this situation, do speak to a counselor about strategies and what he or she thinks can happen given the nature of the relationship. Be cognizant of the possibility that confronting your verbal abuser may lead to escalation and remember that verbal abuse is always the foundation for physical abuse even if your relationship has never included it.

Do examine your expectations and ask yourself the following questions, answering as honestly as you can:

• Is he/she willing to acknowledge the verbal abuse without resorting to defensiveness or blame-shifting?
• Is he/she willing to hear you out thoughtfully without pushing back, dismissing your remarks, objecting, or starting a fight?
• Will he/she accept your pointing out verbal abuse and instituting respectful boundaries?
• Is he/she willing to go into counseling and commit to working on change?
• Is he/she willing to work on new ways of communicating and resolving conflict?
• Is he/she willing to commit to a partnership model of relationship?
• Is he/she willing to commit to a series of steps you mutually decide on if he/she backslides into old behaviors?
• If there are children involved and they have been targets, is he/she willing to apologize for past behaviors and willing to work on acquiring new parenting skills?

The truth is that if the answers to any of these questions is “no,” it will not be possible to repair or recover the relationship.

psychologytoday.com/therapy

Psychologytoday.com/forgiveness

Psychologytoday.com/gaslighting

Psychologytoday.com/motivation

Psychologytoday.com/parenting

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Intuition is the ability to understand something instinctively, without any need for conscious reasoning or an explanation. The use of intuition is sometimes referred to as responding to a "gut feeling" or "trusting your gut."

It's a phenomenon that many people experience, but its biological basis is still an area of ongoing research and exploration. Here, I will review some of the most relevant biological findings and address the question, "Can we really rely on intuition, or is it a counsel to failure?"

What the Research Says

Recent evidence from Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, suggests that by 12 months, infants have an intuitive notion of probability that applies to never-experienced events and that they use it to predict subsequent events. The researchers suggest that extremely simple concepts of probability and causation, along with the concepts needed to form very basic epistemic (relating to knowledge or to the degree of its validation), statistical, and logical generalizations are present in very young children from an early age. It is this inborn ability to make inferences about things that are relevant to form accurate beliefs and retain new knowledge.

Rollin McCraty and his colleagues at the HeartMath Institute have performed experiments demonstrating how people respond to an emotionally arousing stimulus. The results were fascinating, showing that both the participants’ hearts and brains appeared to indicate receiving and responding to information about the emotional quality of pictures presented to them before a computer randomly selected them, as if they were responding to a future event.

Even more startling, perhaps, was data showing the heart received information before the brain. "It is first registered from the heart," Rollin McCraty explained, "then up to the brain (emotional and pre-frontal cortex), where we can logically relate what we are intuiting, then finally down to the gut (or where something stirs)."

The gut and the heart contain a significant amount of neural tissue and are connected to the brain by way of the vagus nerve, the so-called gut-brain and heart-brain axes. In addition, we know that neurotransmitters and hormones, such as dopamine and serotonin, can influence cognitive processes and emotions. These biochemical signals might also contribute to our intuitive responses.

Intuition relies on evolutionarily older, automatic, unconscious, and fast mental processing, primarily to save our brains time or energy. It also is prone to make mistakes, such as cognitive biases.

Intuition later in life arises from the accumulation of knowledge and experiences that are processed and stored in our brain's neural networks, as well as other cells and tissues in our bodies, allowing us to access this information quickly, often unconsciously.

Intuition is at the core of an epiphany; it is our own recognition and awareness of an idea or thought or vision for something that has yet to be discovered in the world. We all have access to that place, if we only learn to trust that internal voice.

Daniel Kahneman, who won a Nobel prize in economics for his work on human judgment and decision-making, theorizes that human beings are intuitive thinkers and that human intuition is imperfect, with the result that judgments and choices often deviate substantially from the predictions of normative statistical and economic models. Kahneman believes that intuitive thinking has both advantages and disadvantages: it is faster than a rational approach but more prone to error.

Kamila Malewska of the Poznán University of Economics and Business in Poland has studied intuition in real-world settings and concluded that people often apply a combination of strategies. When managers at a food company were asked how they use intuition in their everyday work, the majority of them said that, in addition to rational analyses, they relied on their gut feelings when making decisions. Interestingly, upper-level managers tended more toward intuition.

Malewska thinks that intuition is neither irrational nor the opposite of logic. Rather, it is a quicker and more automatic process that taps into the many deep resources of experience and knowledge that people have gathered over the course of their lives. Intuition, she believes, is an ability that can be trained and can play a constructive role in decision-making.

Intuition Essential Reads

Whether we rely on our intuition or turn to sensible analysis to make a decision will largely depend on our past experiences. Most cognitive scientists maintain that intuitive and analytic thinking should not be viewed as opposites. Studies indicate that our decision-making often works best when we blend both strategies.

Conclusion

Clearly, the biological basis of intuition is complex and likely involves a combination of factors. There is growing evidence suggesting that all humans are born with a basic ability for intuitive thinking and that, as we mature, as our links between the embodied mind, emotional processing, and intuitive thinking strengthen with experience, we may get better at it. Of course, if we fail to listen to this channel, like a muscle not exercised, our intuitive abilities will decline.

References

Cesana-Arlotti, N., Téglás, E., & Bonatti, L. L. (2012). The probable and the possible at 12 months: Intuitive reasoning about the uncertain future. Advances in child development and behavior, 43, 1-25.

Epstein, S. (2010). Demystifying intuition: What it is, what it does, and how it does it. Psychological Inquiry, 21(4), 295-312.

Fedyk, M., Kushnir, T., & Xu, F. (2019). Intuitive epistemology: Children’s theory of evidence. Advances in experimental philosophy of science, 122-43

Kahneman, Daniel (2017). Thinking, fast and slow.

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McCraty, R., Atkinson, M., & Bradley, R. T. (2004). Electrophysiological evidence of intuition: Part 1. The surprising role of the heart. The Journal of Alternative & Complementary Medicine, 10(1), 133-143.

McCraty, R., Atkinson, M., & Bradley, R. T. (2004). Electrophysiological evidence of intuition: Part 2. A system-wide process?. The Journal of Alternative & Complementary Medicine, 10(2), 325-336.

I was gonna submit a pull request, but I see they say no new feature request rn with big changes coming.

Just wanting to throw out there my wish for a new feature.

I like the current ability to switch from video to audio, so would like that to stay the same

But I'd love to be able to set it to a default codec option for each.

It's a pain to have to always have to switch it to those free as in freedom codecs everytime

stereogum

By gawd! OSEES, the frantic psychedelic punk band led by the endlessly prolific one-man underground rock institution John Dwyer, will drop their new LP Intercepted Message next month, and we’ve already posted the album’s title track. Today, the band once known as Thee Oh Sees has followed that track with a trebly and insistent synth/guitars/drum attack called “Stunner.”

“Stunner,” the opening track from Intercepted Message is a chaotic jumble that constantly threatens to fall apart but holds together through sheer velocity. The band’s energy and stop-start dynamics simply don’t exist anywhere else, and it’s always a blast to hear them in rocker mode. “Stunner” is the sort of song that might make you want to kick someone in the stomach, spin around, grab them in a headlock, and then violently sit down. In the video, director Matt Yoka captures the band, all wearing cameras, doing their double-drummer attack in a crowded practice space. Here’s what John Dwyer says about it.

they’re not so bad for you
all of those drugs you do
and in the future you, find something else to do

they’re looking up to you
you looks so beautiful
sick, fix up in the queue
so, now let’s all review’

Life is a short hot mess
take a breath in the moments when you’re not taking it right in the face
frenetic tunes for scattered times

Matt Yoka came up with the idea of filming us playing the song in our rehearsal space with as many people as we could fit
and as many formats as he could stomach.
Hi vis on all the kids
Constricted & claustrophobic just as contemporary routines can be
Noise, obstacle and pointless spectacle
There is no escape!
good luck

Check out the “Stunner” video here.

Intercepted Message is out 8/18 on In The Red. stereogum.osees-intercepted-message