Amazing Record!!!

Are their kidding me? How can a man be more than seventeen minutes under the water without breathing. It’s impossible. Well, they have showed that he cans. He has the record Guiness of being without breathing under the water.

He had to go beyond his proper record. As we can see he hasn’t got it really easy. He suffers a lot but with the psychological help of his women he finally beets his record. This is not easy at all, they strictly recommend to don’t try it at a swimming pool, because behind these are hours and hours of training.

When I first saw the video I was amused, and I had to watch it again to believe it. Because it’s really amazing what he has done. If I did it I maybe arrive to one minute but no more, and he has arrived to more than seventeen minutes, that is really incredible.

We can see he first will not beet it, but he finally did. Of all the records there are, this is the most wonderful and amazing in my opinion, because you have to be prepared. You don’t born with this record, this is not like having the most long tongue or something like this. This is something he has done because of his training and sacrifices.

Do you think that if you trained you will be able to beat him?

Do you think that someone will beet this record?

What do you think about it?

Man dies trying to cross a river hanging by his hair

Nath Roy has died today of a heart attack while trying to cross the river Teesta (India) hanging by with nothing but his hair when he was trying to beat his own Guinness record who got the past 2011.

He was trying to cross the river with a rope slide of 600 meters long and 20 meters tall. People who were watching the event say that he stopped moving when he passed 300 meters. He was screaming and trying to stop while he moved 30 meters and then stopped moving.

It´s not the first time Roy did things like this, in 2008 he dragged a train waggon using only his ponytail; and on 2007 he crossed from a building to another attached only to his hair.

Do you thinks brutal things like these should be prohibited?

No two ways about it!

You'd have to compromise - there's no two ways about it!

For siamese twins Abby and Brittany, their ability to work together has led them through high school, university and on to a possible career in teaching. As they say, one can be asking questions while the other monitors student responses or behaviour.

The full story about these amazing girls can be found on the BBC site here.
But could you live that close to someone else? Now or at twenty years' old?

Boston nightmare

Last week, during the Boston marathon two bombs exploded near the finish line. 3 people were killed and more than 100 wounded. A few minutes after the attack police cars and firemen appeared to help and peony of spectators immediately tried to do as much as they could helping people to move away from the scene and comforting others. 

There are two suspicious seen by the cameras around, they are two brothers from Chechnya which have been in the States since 2007. One had been shot when he got coughed while they were being chased and his younger brother managed to escape. To everyone’s relief, the second one has been caught in the place where he was hiding.

A day, which started as beautiful and memorable where the mythical marathon was going to take place, ended as a nightmare to remember.

What do you think about this?

Should there be more security in this class of events

The voice of the people?

As protests become a part of daily life across Spain, it is increasingly difficult to ensure that your complaints are listened to and catch the eye of the media.

One protest group in Andalucia have taken steps - literally - to make their presence felt. They dance. 

By bringing together the fun of flash-mob dancing with the power of flamenco and the vibrancy of scathing lyrics, flo6x8 have really caught the public's attention.

But while they have hit the headlines in the UK, for example, will they have any effect back home?  What would you do to get noticed and to bring about change? Or is protest a waste of time and little more than a safety-valve for society?

God is dead

God is dead

Religion loses devotees every day at a seemingly accelerated rate, giving rise to the question of whether religion is necessary or not anymore.

The purpose of religion has always been a hot debate between evolutionary psychologists. Religions, by all means, are practical: they give clearly defined life guidelines thus are useful from an evolutionary point of view. This has lead to the theory of religion being an ideal trait for survival, thus individuals with religious beliefs being higher up in the natural selection pyramid.

While some attribute religion as a factor that has been navigating the river of History up to the present day, others argue that religion is a by-product of evolution, that being, or course, human intelligence. Many consider Stephen Jay Gould as the father of this theory, which elegantly ponders upon the fact that evolution led to consciousness, and religion seemed a satisfactory explanation to many metaphysical questions, such as mortality. Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins also argues that the non-questionable nature of religion leads to it propagating like a "virus".

Intriguingly, very recent studies have also related the VMAT2 gene as predisposing to mystic beliefs, opening the debate of whether religion is simply a human protective mechanism, therefore not related to 'pure' devotion.

Religion is based on faith, and faith requires believing in something without evidence. Professor Dawkins said in an interview that believing in God or in unicorns is comparable, as "the evidence that supports them is equally poor".

On the other hand, many consider religion helpful for the answers it offers to commonly questioned philosophical problems. Believing in God is seemingly a way of perceiving what we see, but faith is naturally spoon-fed by the society in which one lives, so an open mind may lead a believer to question the reality of their faith and if, from a rational point of view, is or not satisfactory.

Besides, believing in something without evidence can be very dangerous and interfering, as some believers have extrapolated sacred writings to a ridiculous extent, strongly defending ideas such as 'intelligent design' and immoral teachings from the Old Testament, for instance.

Figure 1. Intelligence leads to a more powerful ability to question things and thus to extract rational conclusions. This graph correlates intelligence with moderate religious belief. Do note that this is a present-day survey, considering that nowadays less families raise their children under the sticky influence of religion therefore people being more able to construct own ideas based on a higher span of arguments.

Religious belief is nowadays experiencing a notable decrease due to new scientific developments and the establishment of new moral values, such as sex equality and

Animal respect. So, if you are a believer, perhaps it may be interesting for you to strip off unthought-of believes and critically ask yourself: why do I believe in God?

To which argument do you attribute religion's existence?

 Do you find any advantages of religious-thought before rational reasoning?

When intelligence is not (only) in our genes

When intelligence is not (only) in our genes

Scientific evidence has showed that environmental factors have an almost equal effect on intelligence than genetics, opening the nature versus nurture debate.

“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select". Psychologist John Watson pronounced this bewildering statement in the early nineteenth century, seemingly ignoring the importance of our genome in determining our intellectual traits. But, are we really just coded by our genes?

In 1996, Benjamin et al. published a paper showing the importance of a certain gene, DRD4, in determining one's personality. Perhaps their findings were not elucidating under the light of explaining the biological mechanism intelligence, but scientists are nowadays working on the so-called 'quantitative trait loci', a map denoting key genetic combinations that can lead to superior intelligence.

But here psychology kicks in. Murray and Herrnstein showed in 1994 that identical twins, with very similar intelligences during childhood, experienced remarkable variations in their IQ score as adults. Their findings were trailblazing, and opened the debate of the extent to which the environment can affect one's intelligence.

A recent study analysed IQ scores in malnourished Bolivian children before and after the intake of a series of protein supplements. It was discovered that the IQ increased notably after six months, proving nutrition key in intellectual performance. Interestingly, breast-feeding has moreover been shown to increase 4.6 IQ points in contrast to those who were bottle-fed.

Another hot-topic in the field is the alleged 'Mozart Effect', which indicates that children taking IQ scores after listening to classical music can improve their results in a magnitude of almost 10 IQ points.

However, being a 'genius' is not only about intelligence. Before reaching maturity, the brain is active, plastic, and will develop certain connections when exposed to specific influences. For instance, it is well known that Albert Einstein was intrigued by physics since an early age, as he was grown in a culturally stimulating environment.

Figure 1. One of the most studied factors determining acquired intelligence is the family's socioeconomic status.

DNA has been proved to be key in intellectual development, but environmental factors seemingly can affect one's natural intelligence to a remarkable extent. Taking the dual importance of genetics and environmental factors into consideration, one may ask himself: is our educational system ideal, or are we simply feeding children crude culture?