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My Favorite 2013 TED Talks #1

There were so many extraordinary 2013 TED talks, it’s going to be hard to keep my list down to 10 this year. I’m excited to be able to share #1 today: Dan Pallotta’s talk just went up! I think it has the power to do something that is rare in human life – change people’s minds. I’ll post the others as they become available. Enjoy!

Dan Pallotta

 

The Way We Think About Charity Is Dead Wrong 
By Dan Pallotta

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What Is Consciousness?
Here is an excerpt from a fascinating conversation between psychologist, Susan Blackmore and philosopher, David Chalmers, in the book Conversations On Consciousness, by Susan Blackmore:

Flowers Sky


I think someone could know all the physical facts about the world and still not know about consciousness. So if the relationship between brain processes and conscious experience isn’t one of reduction, what is it?
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Mindfulness For Children #3: Mindful Breathing
Here is another guided mindfulness exercise for children from my InnerKids class.

Mindful awareness exercises help children develop concentration and self-awareness. In this exercise, children are guided through a process of paying attention to their breathing.
There are two versions of the guided exercise below – the first is the full exercise and is intended for children who have had some practice, and the second is a slightly modified version for beginners. They are both designed for children ages 6-10.

Logo Blue

 

Mindful Breathing For Children
Full Exercise

 

 

Logo Orange

 


Mindful Breathing For Children
Modified For Beginners

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The History Of Homeopathy
An Excerpt From Challenging Nature, By Lee Silver

homeopathy
Homeopathic medicine, or homeopathy, was the creation of a single person, Samuel Hahnemann, who graduated from a German medical school in 1779 and practiced the “healing arts” until 1843, first in Germany and then in Paris…
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Life’s Beginning
An Excerpt From The Selfish Gene, By Richard Dawkins 

…Chemists have tried to imitate the chemical conditions of the young earth. They have put these simple substances in a flask and supplied a source of energy such as ultraviolet light or electric sparks – artificial simulation of primordial lightning. After a few weeks of this, something interesting is usually found inside the flask…
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Mindfulness For Children #2: Mindful Hearing
Here is another exercise from my InnerKids class, designed for children ages 6-10.

Mindful awareness techniques help children develop concentration and self-awareness. In this exercise, children are guided through an experience of paying attention to sounds. After some practice, children may find this exercise to be helpful in their daily lives – before doing homework, when they are having difficulty settling down at bedtime, or at other any other time when it would be useful to settle the mind.

 

Mindful Hearing For Children
Paying Attention To Sounds

 

 

Note to parents / educators: In our classes, we often add sounds – bells, drums, shakers, etc. I didn’t include other sounds here, because the element of surprise would be lost after only one use. But the fun of guessing the source of a wider range of sounds can also help children concentrate.

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Music and Happiness
An Excerpt From The Happiness Trip, By Eduardo Punset

The most recent research has revealed that music, by acting on the central nervous system, raises levels of endorphins, the brain’s own opiates, as well as other neurotransmitters such as dopamine, acetylcholine, and oxytocin. Endorphins have been found to provide motivation and energy for life, to cause joyfulness and optimism, to decrease pain…
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I Wonder Update #1


I’m happy to announce that John Rowe has completed all of the paintings for I Wonder. I went to visit John at his studio yesterday, and it was magical to be surrounded by all of the illustrations for the book – the paintings are truly spectacular!
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The Future Of Intelligence
An Excerpt From On Intelligence, By Jeff Hawkins


Like a supersmart diplomat, intelligent machines may play a role in reducing conflict and human suffering. You might think intelligent machines would need emotions to foresee patterns involving human behavior, but I don’t think so…
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On Changing Your Mind
An Excerpt From The Blank Slate, By Steven Pinker

When law enforcement vanishes, all manner of violence breaks out; looting, settling old scores, ethnic cleansing, and petty warfare among gangs, warlords, and mafias. This was obvious in the remnants of Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and parts of Africa in the 1990′s, but can also happen in countries with a long tradition of civility…
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The Limits Of Our Imagination
An Excerpt From Many Worlds In One, By Alexander Vilenkin


A striking feature of the new worldview is the existence of multiple “other worlds” beyond our observable region. Some of them are rather uncontroversial. Very few people, for example, would question the reality of other O-regions…
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Earth’s Beginning
An Excerpt From The Canon, By Natalie Angier

…Earth’s crust had cooled down, and the swirling molten iron at its core had begun generating the magnetic fields that help deflect the searing solar wind. So shielded, the vast clouds of volcanic reflux were not peeled off into space, but instead hovered above the ground, gathering and glowering portentously, as storm clouds do…
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Fundamental Science And The Big Machine
My Interview With Lisa Randall

In Knocking On Heaven’s Door, you have interwoven two projects: describing the awe-inspiring details of the Large Hadron Collider, while simultaneously leading a conversation about the importance of science. Why did you decide to write about these two topics together?
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Mindfulness For Children #1: Friendly Wishes
Some of you have asked me to share more of my work with InnerKids, so have posted a few of my guided visualization podcasts for children.

Mindful awareness exercises help children develop concentration and self-awareness. The exercises I have chosen to share are called “Friendly Wishes”, and they focus specifically on developing compassion, in addition to concentration and awareness. They are designed for children ages 6-10.

 

The Jewel
Sending Friendly Wishes To A Friend

 

 

 

Floating Above The Earth
Sending Friendly Wishes To Everyone

 

 


Colors
Sending Friendly Wishes To Ourselves

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TED-Ed


Use engaging videos on TED-Ed to create customized lessons. You can use, tweak, or completely redo any lesson featured on TED-Ed, or create lessons from scratch based on any video from YouTube.
www.ed.ted.com

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Why I Stopped Taking Vitamins

In 2007, I stopped taking vitamins after hearing Larry Norton speak at the Aspen Ideas Festival. He fielded a fascinating Q&A, and his answer to the first question completely changed the way I think about the immune system and vitamins. FYI: Men are 11 times more likely to develop an aggressive prostate cancer if they take a daily multiple vitamin.

For those of you short on time, the most interesting stuff is in response to the first question at 12:50 in the audio:

 

Aspen Ideas Festival: Larry Norton

 

 

Click here to read my update to this post on January 10, 2013