Knowing how human DNA changes over generations is essential to estimating genetic disease risks and understanding how we evolved. But some of the most changeable regions of our DNA have been off-limits to researchers—until now.
A team of researchers from University of Utah Health, University of Washington, PacBio, and other institutions has used multiple DNA sequencing technologies to develop the most comprehensive atlas yet of genetic change through generations.
The new investigation revealed that parts of the human genome change much faster than was previously known, laying the foundations for new insights into the roots of human disease and evolution.
“It’s mutations that ultimately differentiate us from other species,” says author Lynn Jorde, PhD. “We’re getting at a very basic property of what makes us human.”
Anxiety isn’t just one thing—there are different types, each with its own causes and treatments
Unfortunately, doctors often treat it as if it’s all the same, frequently giving medications that make it far worse. As a result, despite the billions being spent on treating anxiety, the condition affects more and more people.
In many cases, anxiety can only be treated if you understand the root cause of it.
This article dives into the different types of anxiety and their causes so you can seek the correct treatment and avoid the harmful therapies frequently prescribed by rushed physicians.
One of the most common treatments for anxiety are benzodiazepines. Unfortunately, these drugs have many severe side effects, including being highly addictive. As a result, once individuals are started on them, they often cannot stop.
In contrast, many natural therapies exist for anxiety which work in harmony with the body and do not create the immense issues benzodiazepines often do.
Symbolic Interaction Theory, also called symbolic interactionism, provides the best large-scale framework I have found so far for explaining FIML practice.
Three basic premises of symbolic interactionism are:
“Humans act toward things on the basis of the meanings they ascribe to those things.”
“The meaning of such things is derived from, or arises out of, the social interaction that one has with others and the society.”
“These meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the things he/she encounters.”
These basic premises have been taken from the Wikipedia article linked above. I tend to agree with most of the general framework, as I understand it, of symbolic interactionism and believe that FIML practice can reasonably be understood as a method that can fit fairly comfortably within that framework.
FIML differs from symbolic interactionism in that FIML is much more a form of interpersonal psychotherapy than a sociological theory. FIML is a communication technique that focuses on meaning as it arises and is apprehended during short periods of time. FIML’s focus on very small units of interpersonal communication is what allows partners to understand how their sense of meaning intertwines with their emotional responses.
From a FIML point of view, society does not appear very well structured in many of its contexts, especially interpersonal contexts involving emotions, friendship, and intimate bonding. From this point of view, a great deal of social structure appears to be a substitute for authentic interaction between individual minds.
FIML seems also to show that a great deal of human suffering arises from the paucity of meaning that can be exchanged between individuals in most social contexts. Indeed, even in intimate contexts, most individuals, if not all of them, have great difficulty in attaining profound mutual understanding. This happens because our perceptions of our selves and others—due to how we use language and semiotics—are too crude and vague to allow for communicative complexity equal to the complexity of our minds/brains.
FIML corrects this problem by focusing on the details of interpersonal communication. Incidentally, FIML theory/practice can be falsified by having many couples do FIML practice and measuring the results. A criticism of symbolic interactionism is that it is not falsifiable. FIML differs from symbolic interactionism in that it is a practical technique that uses objective data (agreed upon by both partners) to optimize communication and improve psychological well-being.
I am pretty sure I will have more to say about symbolic interactionism in the days to come. A friend just sent me the article linked above, so I put down a few thoughts after one reading. FIML partners may find that symbolic interactionism helps with a general understanding of FIML practice.
UPDATE 01/13/22: The Wikipedia page has been updated since the excerpt above. I found this update interesting:
[Symbolic interactionism] is a framework that helps understand how society is preserved and created through repeated interactions between individuals. The interpretation process that occurs between interactions helps create and recreate meaning. It is the shared understanding and interpretations of meaning that affect the interaction between individuals. Individuals act on the premise of a shared understanding of meaning within their social context. Thus, interaction and behavior is framed through the shared meaning that objects and concepts have attached to them. From this view, people live in both natural and symbolic environments.
I agree with this and would add that the the shared understanding and interpretations of meaning that affect the interaction between individuals occurs all-importantly and very profoundly on the level of intimate interpersonal relationships. What FIML does is discover, foster, and create a much more accurate shared understanding and interpretations of meaning between FIML partners. The benefit of this is enormous since it has an extremely profound effect on individual psychology and all other shared understanding and interpretations of meaning encountered in society everywhere. ABN
What people thought America could be – a beacon of democracy – was the last thing it became. In reality, it’s a corporate machine that has given rise to the Transnational Private Sector (TPS).
The TPS is a coalition of corporate giants, led by the Financial-Industrial Complex (FIC) with firms like JPMorgan, Goldman, and BlackRock, alongside the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC), Consumer-Industrial Complex (CIC), and Techno-Industrial Complex (TIC).
This collective force operates beyond borders, transcends nationality, and prioritizes profit over public welfare.
When Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s CEO, warned in October 2024 that wars in Ukraine and the Middle East could destabilize the global economy, he wasn’t just forecasting. He was asserting the TPS’s dominance over policy.
To understand this power, you have to examine the game theory driving the TPS’s clash with nations.
This concept that I have developed deliberately sets aside the idea of good, evil, right, or wrong. Geopolitical dynamics are examined through the lens of incentives, power, and measurable outcomes, not moral judgments. The focus is the strategic interplay of actors, stripped of ethical narratives.
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Game theory provides a framework for understanding geopolitical strategies by analyzing the incentives that drive actors’ decisions.
There are two distinct game types: finite and infinite. Both these games shape global interactions. Finite games are zero-sum with defined endpoints, and clear winners and losers. It’s akin to a corporate quarter where profit maximization is the sole objective.
One player wins, the other loses.
Infinite games, conversely, lack a conclusion, have no end, prioritizing sustained participation through long-term stability, akin to a nation’s multi-generational survival strategy.
President Trump’s education boss Linda McMahon has defended the administration’s decision to resume student loan debt collections — insisting that greedy colleges have “profited massively” from Biden-era forgiveness measures.
The Department of Education announced Monday it would start recouping federal student repayments again from May 5 from the roughly 5.3 million borrowers who are currently in default on their loans.
In a fiery Wall Street Journal op-ed addressing the move, the education secretary blamed the Biden administration and universities for making “empty promises to students while pocketing their loan dollars.”
UPDATE: We all know the punishment must fit the crime. This is the pragmatics of the law, as well as its morality and ethics. What few people understand is the law itself must also fit the situation. If our country is flooded illegally with illegal aliens, many of them hostile, the law must fit this situation. Thus, when SCOTUS meets literally in the middle of the night and rules on punctilios, they have violated not just the pragmatics of the law but also the very meaning of Constitutional interpretation, which is their only job. Please give this some thought. It’s a glaring philosophical and legal mistake. ABN
Norway has issued a chilling alert to the rest of the world after the nation’s leading scientists exposed a cover-up of data linking a global surge in excess deaths to Covid mRNA “vaccines.”
A group of Norwegian scientists is sounding the alarm after a major study of international mortality data exposed a global cover-up of excess deaths among the “vaccinated.”
While the link between deaths and Covid shots is not new, the researchers found evidence that reporting on the official data had been manipulated to hide the link to the injections.
They uncovered previously unreported data showing that excess deaths skyrocketed among the Covid-vaxxed.
This has been known for a long time among brilliant conspiracy theorists, but it is good to see it going mainstream. Empires rule by lying all the time and it works because the public is slow to see what is really going on and no one is ever punished for the lies, which reveals the deep perfidy of the entire scheme. ABN
Psychologists have revealed the tell-tale sign that could indicate a person is a psychopath.
Among the many infamous people who are considered to be psychopaths, are serial killers Ted Bundy, Fred West, and Richard Ramirez.
Although it’s not possible to gauge whether someone is a psychopath simply by looking at them, there are some interesting signs to be aware of.
Researchers at Cardiff and Swansea Universities examined the effect of showing unpleasant images to offenders who are psychopathic and offenders who aren’t.
They saw a marked difference in the eyes of the two groups when they looked at the pictures.
They noted that the psychopathic participants had a unique reaction to horrific scenes – their pupils did not widen.
In contrast, pupils of non-psychopaths dilate when they see upsetting or distressing images as part of a natural response.
Professor Nicola Gray is a clinical and forensic psychologist from Swansea University, who provided clinical supervision for the project.
Speaking at the time, she said: ‘This is one of the first times we have objective, physiological, evidence of an emotional deficit underpinning the offending behaviour of psychopathic offenders that does not depend on invasive methods or expensive equipment.
‘We hope to be able to develop this methodology to assist with clinical assessment and intervention in offender populations.’
Donald Trump is planning to pull another billion dollars in funding from Harvard, in the latest brutal blow to the Ivy League.
The White Housefroze more than $2.2 billion in funding to the school after it rejected demands from the government to reform its hiring, admissions, and teaching practices in order to help fight antisemitism on campus.
White House officials believed the long list of demands they sent Harvard on Friday was a private starting point for negotiations, and they were surprised when Harvard released a letter to the public hitting back.
The shock move by the Ivy League has prompted the Trump administration to be even more heavy-handed with its response, the officials told the WSJ.
Earlier this week, the Department of Education’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announced the freeze of $2.2billion in multi-year grants and $60million in multi-year contract value to Harvard after it refused to comply with reform demands.
The department said that the school is not taking the problem of campus antisemitism seriously and must ‘commit to meaningful change if they wish to continue receiving taxpayer support.’
One can only hope Trump’s purpose is to showcase how unreasonable the hold of Jewish Supremacy is on the federal government and this administration. ABN
American Buddhist Net 