Category Archives: Deep Mind
Larry, Sergey, and the Mixed Legacy of Google-Turned-Alphabet – WIRED
On August 10, 2015, Google CEO Larry Page shocked the business world by announcing he was restructuring the company he cofounded into a holding company called Alphabet. Page would head the new entity, and Google itself would be one of a number of companies under Alphabets controllike Google X, Google Fiber, Google Ventures, and Nesteach with a separate CEO reporting to him. The idea was to make The Company Formerly Known As Google more clean and accountable.
Now Page and Brin are gone, kind of. In a letter they released on Tuesday, they explained that while they will continue to advise and stay on the board, they are removing themselves from day to day responsibilities. Thats an interesting claim, because the Alphabet structure had freed them of a lot of those responsibilities already, allowing them to pursue the bigger, moonshot-y ideas they preferred to corporate wranglings. Brin embedded himself in X, Alphabets long-range research division. Page also pursued his passions, while doing a disappearing act that didnt live up to the more accountable part of the bargain. He gave no press interviews, stopped participating in earnings calls, and didnt even go to the last shareholders meeting.
Now Sundar Pichai, while still running Google, will add CEO of Alphabet to his chores, with oversight from the board. Hes inheriting a sprawling entity thats more determined by the ambitions and fever dreams of the cofounders than what necessarily makes sense for the worlds most important search, video, and artificial intelligence company. So maybe its time to assess how well the Alphabet move worked out.
The Alphabet structure seemed motivated by two factors. The first was to allow Page to remove himself from the rigmarole of running the Google business. I used to half-joke that he did it so hed never have to talk to a reporter again. Now Im down to 30 percent joke. (Oddly, in interviewsmy last with him was in 2013Page can be fascinating, candid enough to provide an illuminating view of his innovation-obsessed mindset.)
The second was to become more friendly to Wall Street, a factor usually attributed to Alphabets canny CFO Ruth Porat. Breaking out Google from the as-yet-unprofitable Other Bets, like the capital intensive health-care division Verily or new spin-offs like Loon, makes the companys financial reporting more palatable to bankers and analysts. Also, by making the individual CEOs responsible for the performance of their domains, they might find themselves more compelled to make their divisions profitable.
In one sense this seems to have worked brilliantly. Alphabets share price has skyrocketed, roughly doubling since the announcement. Could a non-alphabetized Google have performed better? That depends on whether you think the move made the pieces more valuable, or whether it created a mlange of companies worth less than the sum of its parts. In the original Google structure, the point of those other ventures was to bolster the mothership itself. In an Alphabetized world, the focus is on incubating companies that will one day become big businesses themselves. Its the Berkshire Hathaway model, a corporate Gladstone bag where Geico and NetJets and Sees Candies are happily stuffed inside. But Warren Buffet doesnt have a flagship to nurture.
Consider the VC firm Google Ventures. It originally made its investments with a strong eye towards companies that might enhance Googles business. But by running Ventures as an independent entity, the incentive shifts naturally to wagers that pay off, as opposed to financially less promising bets that would nonetheless make Google more valuable to users. Some might counter that Ventures has reaped hundreds of millions with big wins like Uber; but that haul is relatively insignificant compared with the billions Google brings in every quarter. Starting a great VC firm is nice, but an investment arm that could accelerate the mature search business might be even better.
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Larry, Sergey, and the Mixed Legacy of Google-Turned-Alphabet - WIRED
Of course Facebook and Google want to solve social problems. Theyre hungry for our data – The Guardian
We hear it said all the time, most recently in a national campaign for BT: Technology will save us. The slogan was plastered on billboards across the country as part of BTs new advertising campaign, linked to a UK-wide digital skills movement developed partly with Google. The sentiment is so ubiquitous that it even led to a dispute with a startup of a similar name. But in an era dominated by the big four (Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple) the idea that tech will save us rings hollow, an example of utopian messaging being used to conceal the simple pursuit of profit.
Having proposed solutions to everything from food shortages to suicide prevention to climate breakdown, companies such as Google and Facebook two of the leading western companies in the artificial intelligence arms race claim theres almost nothing that cannot be tackled through tech. But there are reasons to be sceptical. These companies business models depend on the development of ever more complex algorithms, sustained by enormous quantities of data. This data is used to improve the algorithms but access to it is also sold to advertisers and third-party businesses.
Labours plans to part-nationalise BT opens up a new front in this battle especially with the proposed tax on big tech
Conquering new sources of data has therefore become their primary mission. And thats why theyre eyeing our public commons: telecommunications, energy and even urban space, which continuously generate enormous quantities of real-time data. In 2017, it was reported that Googles AI outfit DeepMind was in talks with the National Grid. DeepMinds founder, Demis Hassabis, expressed an interest in expanding technology similar to that used to minimise energy wastage at Google data centres where electricity usage had been cut by 15% across the energy grid. This is an improvement, of course, but as one of the main examples of how AI systems might be used to tackle climate change it is hardly inspiring.
It also neglects to mention that unprecedented access to our critical infrastructure and publicly generated data would be given to a US tech giant. The collaboration between DeepMind and the (privatised, shareholder-paying) National Grid has for now been abandoned for reasons that are unclear. A recent article in Forbes speculates that the two companies couldnt reach an agreement on costs and intellectual property rights, in perhaps the most telling example of big techs ambitions to boost revenues through the commandeering of national infrastructure. Could Googles recent engagement with BT be built on a similar ambition?
Giving tech giants the power to solve social problems would mean granting them an immense stake in almost everything that our society requires in order to function. Google is currently signing contracts with the NHS to process patient records, despite there being legal question marks over a similar arrangement with a London hospital a few years ago. Whats more, the climate crisis is a political, not a technological problem. Whatever improvements Google or Facebook could make to our infrastructure would still fall far short of solving it. And when environmental collapse stands to affect poorest communities the hardest, the question remains as to how an industry that drives extreme wealth inequality can really be said to help build a greener, more humane, world.
These companies are able to make it seem as though their sole ambition is to optimise and improve their systems for the greater good. But this rhetoric distracts us from the fact that they are ushering in a new kind of surveillance capitalism, whereby a small number of entities extract enormous amounts of wealth through their access to data that is generated by us, the public.
To ensure that we retain the control to manage these systems, and to avoid an unprecedented level of power and wealth being concentrated in the hands of a very small elite, our infrastructure urgently needs to be brought under state control. This is why the Green New Deal, backed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the US and taken up in the UK by the Labour party, is so important. Not only will the UK version pursue efforts to keep global average temperature rises below 1.5C, but by encompassing public ownership of energy companies it provides a democratic line of defence against the predations of Silicon Valley. Labours proposal to part-nationalise BT opens up a new front in this battle especially since the party is planning to help pay for it with a tax on big tech.
In the years to come, this will give the state a far stronger negotiating position on resources, both digital and physical, as well as on the practical applications of this potentially world-altering technology. It is absolutely essential that publicly powered technology is answerable to public power.
Nathalie Olah is the author of Steal As Much As You Can
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AI Hardware Summit Europe launches in Munich, Germany on 10-11 March 2020, the ecosystem event for AI hardware acceleration in Europe – Yahoo Finance
MUNICH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Google, Microsoft, BMW, Continental Ag, Volvos Zenuity, Xilinx, Arm and BASF among AI pioneers to join the first AI Hardware Summit Europe in Munich, March 10-11, 2020.
Following three successful events, including two sell-out shows in the US, the AI Hardware Summit is coming to Munich, Germany. The AI Hardware Summit series has previously included luminary keynotes from Dr. John L. Hennessey, Chairman of Alphabet, Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of Cadence Systems and Naveen Rao, CVP & GM of Intels AIPG.
Marchs event will feature an opening keynote from Olivier Temam, Hardware Engineer at DeepMind tasked with building DeepMinds hardware infrastructure for Artificial General Intelligence, titled Past Chip Childhood and System Teenage: Why We Need to Build a Mature Ecosystem.
Given Europes strength in automation across industrial, robotics and autonomous vehicles manufacturing, this summit will focus on inference systems in edge computing, connecting these industries through common challenges in systems architecture/engineering.
Between 200-250 attendees are expected to attend, with topics focusing on deploying machine learning at the edge, whole stack optimisation of AI, and the design of autonomous systems.
Key speakers include:
- Olivier Temam Hardware Engineer, DeepMind - Cyra Richardson General Manager, AI & Robotics Incubation, Microsoft - Uri Weiser Professor Emeritus, Technion - Michaela Blott Distinguished Engineer, Xilinx - Muralikrishna Sridhar Head, AI Services for Autonomous Vehicles, Continental Ag - Geoff Tate Co-Founder & CEO, Flex Logix - Luca Benini Professor of Digital Circuits and Systems, ETH Zurich - Mike Henry Co-Founder & CEO, Mythic - Matthew Mattina Head of Arm's Machine Learning Research Lab, Arm - Albert Cohen Research Scientist, Google - Orr Danon CEO, Hailo Technologies - Eric Flamand Co-Founder & CTO, GreenWaves Technologies
Similar to other events hosted by Kisaco Research, such as the AI Hardware Summit US, the event is expecting announcements of new AI systems solutions on both the hardware and software side.
You can register for the event at http://www.aihardwaresummiteu.com, and apply for press/media passes with the details below.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191203005947/en/
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LIVING ON PURPOSE: Being thankful is a state of mind – Times Tribune of Corbin
I was thinking this week (while in the midst of complaining about the frustrations of life), that being thankful is more of a state of mind than a celebration. Im sure you will agree its truly a blessing to wake up each morning and not be in agony. When we swing our bodies over onto the side of the bed and stand on our feet, this is nothing less than a miracle! So often, we become so busy thinking about what we are going to do that we forget how God is providing our good health which enables us to enjoy our life. I realize its easy to take our blessings for granted and since being grateful is an attitude of appreciation, let us remember to tell Jesus how much we love Him for paying the ransom for our soul.
What does Thanksgiving mean to you? Someone might reply, It means a delicious feast and we can relate as who does not enjoy a great meal? Others may say, Thanksgiving means a day off from work or school and this is always something to look forward to. Nonetheless, holidays are not only to be a celebration of indulgence but a spiritual sensitivity that recognizes all that we have and who gave it to us. As the word Thanksgiving suggests, we talk about thanks but rarely hear about the giving. Last week we considered the beauty of worship and praise as the deeper meaning of gratitude to God. Giving thanks is also more than an expression of gratitude because we can say thank you to someone and not really mean it. Genuine appreciation is not just words, but more of a sincere awareness of a particular thing or person, and then demonstrating that gratitude with honesty and sincerity. This year between the turkey, dressing, and the pumpkin pie, may we give praise to the one who made it all possible. Its more than just saying a prayer at the table, its living a life that is pleasing unto the Lord.
One of our good friends is battling a serious health issue and trust me, she is seeing life through a different perspective this Thanksgiving. Shes been taking morning walks lately and has shared with me about how quiet and peaceful the world is right before the sun rises. In these times, its the little things like hearing the birds sing and the colors of the leaves that are majestic and awe-inspiring. Have you considered lately how glorious it is to be able to take a deep breath? Breathing seems so natural but to many, it is a constant battle. The feeling of being underwater is not pleasant and yet many live in this situation every day. The heart is another involuntary function that God has designed to keep a constant rhythm without us having to think about it, but many people are not so fortunate. How often do we thank God for all of the medications and treatments He provides to maintain our health?
Franklin Roosevelt is quoted as saying, It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord. Across the uncertain ways of space and time, our hearts echo those words, for the days are with us again when, at the gathering of the harvest, we solemnly express our dependence upon Almighty God. Occasionally I will take a short nap on my cozy leather sofa while our English bulldog wedges his way in between me and the back of the couch and lets out a sigh of enjoyment that sounds more like the grunt of a hog. What a blessing it is to have a place called home. Im sure most of you feel the same way about your sanctuary of peace and security. I thank God that I can go to the refrigerator and find something to eat, then go out into the garage and get into a nice vehicle and travel wherever I need to go. We usually do not pay any attention to these luxuries but they are amazing blessings. May we remember there are many people that do not have a home, a vehicle, a couch, or any food at all. First Thessalonians 5:18 tells us to be Thankful in everything, and in all circumstances. Whether in lack or abundance we will look to God and thank Him for all He has given, and more importantly, we will worship and love Him just for who He is.
Dr. Holland lives in Central Kentucky with his wife Cheryl, where he is a Christian minister, author and community chaplain. To learn more visit: billyhollandministries.com or email him at psalmz103@gmail.com.
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LIVING ON PURPOSE: Being thankful is a state of mind - Times Tribune of Corbin
Can Synthetic Biology Inspire The Next Wave of AI? – SynBioBeta
What children and AI systems have in common
Similar to child learning, reinforcement learning is based on the AI systems interaction with its environment. It performs actions that seek to maximize the reward and avoid punishments. Driven by curiosity, children are active learners that simultaneously explore their surrounding environment and predict their actions outcomes, allowing them to build mental models to think causally. If, for example, they decide to push the red car, spill the flower vase, or crawl the other direction, they will adjust their behavior based on the outcomes of their actions.
Children experience different environments in which they find themselves navigating and interacting with various contexts and objects dispositions, often in unusual manners. Just as child brain development could inspire the development of AI systems, the RL agents learning mechanisms are parallel to the brains learning mechanisms driven by the release of dopamine a neurotransmitter key to the central nervous system which trains the prefrontal cortex in response to experiences and thus shapes stimulus-response associations as well as outcome predictions.
Biology is one of the most promising beneficiaries of artificial intelligence. From investigating mind-boggling combinations of genetic mutations that contribute to obesity to examining the byzantine pathways that lead some cells to go haywire and produce cancer, biology produces an inordinate amount of complex, convoluted data. But the information contained within these datasets often offers valuable insights that could be used to improve our health.
In the field of synthetic biology, where engineers seek to rewire living organisms and program them with new functions, many scientists are harnessing AI to design more effective experiments, analyze their data, and use it to create groundbreaking therapeutics. I recently highlighted five companies that are integrating machine learning with synthetic biology to pave the way for better science and better engineering.
Artificial general intelligence (AGI) describes a system that is capable of mimicking human-like abilities such as planning, reasoning, or emotions. Billions of dollars have been invested in this exciting and potentially lucrative area, leading some to make claims like data is the new oil.
Among the many companies working on general artificial intelligence are Googles DeepMind, the Swiss AI lab IDSIA, Nnaisense, Vicarious, Maluuba, the OpenCog Foundation, Adaptive AI, LIDA, and Numenta. Organizations such as the Machine Intelligence Research Institute and OpenAI also state AGI as their main goal. One of the goals of the international Human Brain Project is to simulate the human brain.
Despite a growing body of talent, tools, and high-quality data needed to achieve AGI, we still have a long way to go to achieve this.
Today, AI techniques such as Machine Learning (ML) are ubiquitous in our society, reaching from healthcare and manufacturing to transportation and warfare but are qualified as narrow AI. They indeed process and learn powerfully large amounts of data to identify insightful and informative patterns for a single task, such as predicting airline ticket prices, distinguishing dogs from cats in images, and generating your movie recommendations on Netflix.
In biology, AI is also changing your health care. It is generating more and better drug candidates (Insitro), sequencing your genome (Veritas Genetics), and detecting your cancer earlier and earlier (Freenom).
As humans, we are able to quickly acquire knowledge in one context and generalize it to another environment across novel multiple situations and tasks, which would allow us to develop more efficient self-driving car systems as they need to perform many tasks on the road concurrently. In AI research, this concept is known as transfer learning. It assists an AI system in learning from just a few examples instead of the millions that traditional computing systems usually need to build a system that learns from first principles, abstracts the acquired knowledge, and generalizes it to new tasks and contexts.
To produce more advanced AI, we need to better understand the brains inner workings that allow us to portray the world around us. There is a synergistic mission between understanding biological intelligence and creating an artificial one, seeking inspiration from our brain might help us bridge that gap.
Acknowledgment: Thank you to Louis N. Andre for additional research and reporting in this article. Im the founder of SynBioBeta, and some of the companies that I write about including some named in this article are sponsors of the SynBioBeta conference (click here for a full list of sponsors).
Originally posted here:
Can Synthetic Biology Inspire The Next Wave of AI? - SynBioBeta
Being thankful is a state of mind | Opinion – Athens Daily Review
I was thinking this week (while in the midst of complaining about the frustrations of life), that being thankful is more of a state of mind than a celebration. Im sure you will agree its truly a blessing to wake up each morning and not be in agony. When we swing our bodies over onto the side of the bed and stand on our feet, this is nothing less than a miracle! So often, we become so busy thinking about what we are going to do that we forget how God is providing our good health which enables us to enjoy our life. I realize its easy to take our blessings for granted and since being grateful is an attitude of appreciation, let us remember to tell Jesus how much we love Him for paying the ransom for our soul.
What does Thanksgiving mean to you? Someone might reply, It means a delicious feast and we can relate as who does not enjoy a great meal? Others may say, Thanksgiving means a day off from work or school and this is always something to look forward to. Nonetheless, holidays are not only to be a celebration of indulgence but a spiritual sensitivity that recognizes all that we have and who gave it to us. As the word Thanksgiving suggests, we talk about thanks but rarely hear about the giving. Last week we considered the beauty of worship and praise as the deeper meaning of gratitude to God. Giving thanks is also more than an expression of gratitude because we can say thank you to someone and not really mean it. Genuine appreciation is not just words, but more of a sincere awareness of a particular thing or person, and then demonstrating that gratitude with honesty and sincerity. This year between the turkey, dressing, and the pumpkin pie, may we give praise to the one who made it all possible. Its more than just saying a prayer at the table, its living a life that is pleasing unto the Lord.
One of our good friends is battling a serious health issue and trust me, she is seeing life through a different perspective this Thanksgiving. Shes been taking morning walks lately and has shared with me about how quiet and peaceful the world is right before the sun rises. In these times, its the little things like hearing the birds sing and the colors of the leaves that are majestic and awe-inspiring. Have you considered lately how glorious it is to be able to take a deep breath? Breathing seems so natural but to many, it is a constant battle. The feeling of being underwater is not pleasant and yet many live in this situation every day. The heart is another involuntary function that God has designed to keep a constant rhythm without us having to think about it, but many people are not so fortunate. How often do we thank God for all of the medications and treatments He provides to maintain our health?
Franklin Roosevelt is quoted as saying, It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord. Across the uncertain ways of space and time, our hearts echo those words, for the days are with us again when, at the gathering of the harvest, we solemnly express our dependence upon Almighty God. Occasionally I will take a short nap on my cozy leather sofa while our English bulldog wedges his way in between me and the back of the couch and lets out a sigh of enjoyment that sounds more like the grunt of a hog. What a blessing it is to have a place called home. Im sure most of you feel the same way about your sanctuary of peace and security. I thank God that I can go to the refrigerator and find something to eat, then go out into the garage and get into a nice vehicle and travel wherever I need to go. We usually do not pay any attention to these luxuries but they are amazing blessings. May we remember there are many people that do not have a home, a vehicle, a couch, or any food at all. First Thessalonians 5:18 tells us to be Thankful in everything, and in all circumstances. Whether in lack or abundance we will look to God and thank Him for all He has given, and more importantly, we will worship and love Him just for who He is.
Check outBillys new book, Convictions and Considerations at billyhollandministries.com
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Being thankful is a state of mind | Opinion - Athens Daily Review
We have some important food safety tips to keep in mind while cooking this Thanksgiving – WQOW TV News 18
MADISON (WKOW) The ongoing E. coli outbreak in Wisconsin puts an extra spotlight on safe cooking this Thanksgiving.
Health officials say you should avoid eating lettuce from Salinas, California. There are also active recalls involving some pre-packaged salads. Chef Paul Short is a Culinary Arts instruction at Madison College. He says there are many alternatives to romaine lettuce that you can put out on the table on Thursday.
This time of year there are other greens. This time of year there are other choices, you got arugula, endive, things like that, said Short. That you can still use, but I would caution people to probably not put out that romaine lettuce right now.
Below are some other things you can keep in mind this Thanksgiving:
PREPARATION:
Do not thaw your turkey on the counter at room temperature, as bacteria can start growing at 40 degrees. Instead, put it in a container and thaw it in the refrigerator. You can also placeit in aleak-proof plastic bag in a sink of cold water. But you must change the water every 30 minutes. You can also thaw it in the microwave (follow your ovens manufacturer instructions).
Also, do notwash raw turkeys prior to cooking similar to advicetheCDC issued back in May about chicken. Even though some older recipes suggest washing raw poultry or meat before cooking it, theCDC now recommendsagainst it because washing does not prevent illness and can spread bacteria throughout the kitchen to other foods, cooking utensils, and counter surfaces.
COOKING:
Set your oven temperature to at least 325 degrees. Cook the completely thawed turkey in roasting pan that is at least two inches deep. Cooking times vary; expect it to take at least three hours for an unstuffed turkey weighing eight to 12 pounds. A turkey breast can cook faster; larger, stuffed turkeys should cook longer. For a cooking table and thawing time chart, go tothe CDCs Food Safety site.
If you cook stuffing in the turkey, put the stuffing in just prior to cooking. Use a food thermometer to make sure the turkey and the stuffing has reached a safe internal temperature of 165 degrees.
CLEANING:
A USDA studyfound that 60% of sinks were contaminated after handling raw poultry in the sink, so it is important to sanitize your sink and any other surfaces afterhandling the raw turkey and before prepping other foods such as raw vegetables.
Health officials recommend washing surfaces first withsoap and warm water, then with a chlorine bleach solution or an alcohol-based cleaner.
Also, wash your hands a lot. In case you forgot how to wash your hands properly, the USDA reminds you: Wet your hands with clean, running water, turn off the tap, and lather your hands with soap, rubbing them together (rememberto lather the backs of your hands, between fingers, and under your nails, too). Rinse only after scrubbinghands for 20 seconds and dryhands with a clean towel.
LEFTOVERS:
Yes, there are even safety guidelines for those coveted Thanksgiving Day leftovers. You should refrigerate leftovers as soon as possible, at least within two hours, health officials say. Bacteria can multiply rapidly when food drops below 140 degrees.
The bacteria that grows in cooked foods especially poultry and gravyat room temperature (Clostridium perfringens) is the second most common bacterial cause of food poisoning, and results in nearly 1 million cases of foodborne illness annually, the CDC says.
Even if you put the food away quickly,it wont last forever. Some common Thanksgiving menu items will last quite a while, such as cranberry sauce, which stays good for up to 14 days in the fridge. Other foods, like gravy, are only safe to eat after one or two days.
You can extend the life of most foods by freezing them. Mashed potatoes are good for up to a year when frozen, for instance. When storing food in the freezer though, make sure it is in an airtight, freezer-safe container to ensure its freshness and prevent freezer burn.
Have any questions on Thanksgiving Day or any day during the holiday season you can callthe USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline at 1-888-674-6854 on Thanksgiving Day between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. ET. (regularly Monday-Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET). You can also chat live atask.usda.gov.
SUBSTITUTES FOR ROMAINE LETTUCE:
Avoiding E.Coli: 6 Leafy Green Alternatives to Romaine
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Meditate with Urmila: Find balance of body, mind and breath – Gulf News
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Meditation requires sitting in comfortable stillness. In stillness, one is able to detach from the sensory and motor channels of experience and direct the awareness to the deeper levels of consciousness.
Movement provokes unneeded stimulus thus causing the mind to wander and to break concentration. Vrittis or waves are formed in absence of stillness that causes fluctuations in the body-mind complex, making meditation a difficult practice.
To attain the state of stillness, one can train the body and mind through asanas and pranayam. The preparatory practices allow one to slip into the state of deep meditative relaxation. In sage Patanjalis yogsutra that mentions eight limbs or steps of yoga; asanas and pranayam form the third and the fourth component, precursor elements to the meditation which occupies the seventh place.
Mind, body and breath
The body, mind and breath are connected. This is noticeable by witnessing the breath at different emotional and mental states that you go through during your waking hours. How is your breath when you are nervous or anxious? How is it when you are relaxed or in the state of contentment? Move from the breath and witness the bodily changes when you are angry, excited or crying. Also, note how your body and mind respond when you become aware of your emotions and thoughts.
Awareness is the key to the self. It unlocks you. For awareness, self-observation is necessary. Are you aware that while reading this article, you are also breathing?
Asanas are done with awareness and in the rhythm of the breathing cycle. As one can easily notice, any muscular tension in the body changes the rate and rhythm of the breath. You, your body, your mind, your breath are all connected. Doing asanas slowly and comfortably brings the energy flow to the internal organs, glands and muscles to relax the organs and the nerves. Asanas or postural patterns integrate the mind and body. Asanas release mental tensions dealing with them at physical level through body to the mind and vice versa.
Pranayam
Pran is the cosmic life force or the vital energy. It is more than the literal translation of breath, breath control or infusion of oxygen in the body. Pranayam techniques activates and regulates the life force to attain higher state of awareness. Pranayam practices energise the nadi system or the subtle energy channels, purifying, regulating and amplifying the life force. This induces physical and mental stability promoting the state of required stillness for meditation.
Breathing techniques help one to get rid of several mind-body ailments as well. More often than not, there is a tendency to breathe incorrectly and use only a small part of the lung capacity. This is due to lack of awareness of the breathing process. Incorrect breathing causes dis-ease in the body.
In pranayam, with awareness, one engages in rhythmic, deep and slow inhalation-exhalation, thereby stimulating a calm and content state of mind. And a calm mind in turn, stimulates a deep and long respiration. As the natural rhythms of the mind and body are restored, dis-eases are eliminated, when ease returns.
When asanas and pranayam are done with conscious awareness, it establishes a connection between the conscious and subconscious mind. This is when positive affirmations are most effective and this is the state when self-healing is possible.
Removing blockages
As articulated earlier, the mind-body complex is one. Every physical, muscular knot has a corresponding mental or emotional knot. Stiffness in the body is due to blocked pran and accumulation of the impurities of thoughts and emotions. When the body is infused with energy or pran, the impurities are removed. Pran is visible on the physical plane as motion and action, and on the mental plane as thought (Swami Sivananda).
So, when the thoughts and actions are purified, tranquillity is attained and this allows meditation to become an easy, effortless and joyous practice.
Disclaimer: Urmila Rao is a chakra balancing meditation coach, Theta Healer and a sound therapist. All the ideas expressed herein are her own and not professional advice or medical prescription. She can be reached at: milarao2018@gmail.com.
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Meditate with Urmila: Find balance of body, mind and breath - Gulf News
Hannah Fry, the woman making maths cool | Times2 – The Times
She has 11,500 Instagram followers, a bestselling book and her TED talk went viral. Susie Mesure meets the mathematics sensation
There is a photo on Hannah Frys Twitter feed from June that tells you everything you need to know about one of the UKs hottest mathematical talents. She is sitting outside a caf, lost in David Spiegelhalters The Art of Statistics, a newborn snoozing on her chest and sunglasses clamped to her face.
So far, so maternity leave, except that Fry, a 35-year-old associate professor in the mathematics of cities at University College London, wasnt idly catching up on reading, but madly researching an essay The New Yorker had asked her to write when she was 41 weeks pregnant. It nearly killed me. Especially in those early days, when youre only getting two hours sleep at a time, she says. But I just cant turn
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Hannah Fry, the woman making maths cool | Times2 - The Times
Parkinson’s Patients are Mysteriously Losing the Ability to Swim After Treatment – Discover Magazine
For Parkinsons patients, deep brain stimulation (DBS) can help control a number of neurological symptoms, like muscle spasms and stiffness. But one weird side effect has surfaced in a string of case studies: Some patients, no matter how good their motor skills, lose their ability to swim after the procedure.
Researchers from the University of Zrich in Switzerland published a report today in Neurology identifying nine cases where patients couldnt stay afloat after DBS. And these people werent water-shy, first time doggie paddlers two of the cases involved former competitive swimmers.
And, researchers report, the entire cohort had had no trouble swimming even after their Parkinsons diagnosis. Rather, it seems that the invasive procedure which involves implanting electrodes around the brain and heart to intercept erratic electrical signals is what triggered the patients lack of buoyancy.
Despite the puzzling pattern, researchers arent sure exactly why DBS could make patients sink. The report notes that the patients had seen an improvement in motor function after DBS but after jumping into the water, their coordination vanished.
Christian Baumann, a neurologist at the University of Zrich, said the research team garnered interest in the topic after they learned one of their DBS patients had jumped into a lake and almost drowned.
"We clinicians usually do not ask questions about swimming and other sport activities, and therefore this effect might have been hidden from our attention," Baumann said in an email. After the patient's brush with death, the doctors began asking others with DBS devices about their swimming abilities.
Three of the nine patients, they learned, had turned off their deep brain devices and immediately were able to swim.
This isn't the first time researchers have observed this odd connection. In 2015, four similar case studies spanning two decades were reported by researchers in Australia. Three of those patients drowned after suddenly losing their swimming ability after DBS.
Baumann said disruptions in other, specific physical abilities, such as golfing or skiing, have also been observed in DBS patients. Like swimming, those skills are learned, are developed after birth, and involve a network of nerves working together to complete a task.
With only anecdotal evidence so far, the odd condition leaves researchers with more questions than answers. Further study is needed to understand whats happening in patients bodies.
Although the new paper represents just a few cases, Baumann said the main reason the doctors chose to write up a report was to increase awareness of this side effect. Though the underlying cause may be murky, trying to go for a swim after DBS could lead Parkinson's patients into dangerous waters.
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Parkinson's Patients are Mysteriously Losing the Ability to Swim After Treatment - Discover Magazine