The world according to Chris

alright, it took me a while to come over with it, but I finally took the time to upload some pictures and write a few lines … first things first: I took a position at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (www.kaust.edu.sa) at the Red Sea Science and Engineering Research Center. This is a top-notch, all-new university with direct ocean access! The faculty is great, good and super smart people and in my 3 weeks since I moved here I already experienced so many priceless things (in every aspect) that I have to start writing about this in a more steady way. But I am good, life is full of food and heat, and I will update you soon.

I miss CA and all my pals, but I already found new great guys to hang out with, so hopefully we ll all connect in the future.

pictures are in the next post.

hope everyone is fine!

talk to you soon,

chris

PS: I probably should find a new category: going KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia)!

Despite lowered fuel prices, American Airlines just can't seem to figure out how to make money. That's too bad for you — because you'll be paying higher bag fees.

DowJones says the airline reported a 21% drop in second-quarter revenue last week. Get your wallet out, travelers.

The fees "will rise to $20 for the first bag and $30 for the second on tickets bought after Aug. 13. The changes will also affect regional affiliate American Eagle and AmericanConnection flights."

How angry does this make you?

How Angry Does This Make You?(survey)

By Azadeh Ensha, 1:30 PM on Wed Jul 29 2009, 87,485 views (Edit, to draft, Slurp)

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Apart from more obvious signs, non-verbal gestures and other cues can also help to determine whether someone is telling the truth or not. Forbes outlines 11 ways to potentially sniff out a liar, including several phrases to watch out for.

Photo by cursedthing.

Apart from avoiding eye contact, breaking out in a sweat, and other possible physiological triggers, Forbes says that liars may be more likely to ask you to repeat your questions than those making honest claims. Also, liars may preface their pronouncements with "to tell you the truth" and "to be perfectly honest" more so than their truth-telling counterparts. Finally, liars also tend to use pronouns like "we" and "they" as a way to "psychologically distance themselves from a lie".

You should also take note of consistently evasive answers to direct questions. According to the article, many liars haven't thought through their stories and so prefer to keep their answers short (think one-word responses) and non-specific.

Of course, not everyone using the above phrases is being dishonest and vice versa, so you should use this advice as a possible warning sign and not as a blanket rule, and judge according to the person and situation in question. Check out the full post for the other ways to potentially catch a liar in the act.

By Kevin Purdy, 4:30 AM on Mon Aug 3 2009, 44,351 views (Edit, to draft, Slurp)

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Your brain's natural tendencies don't easily accommodate international flights, all-nighters, or rotating shift work. Refusing to eat for about 16 hours before waking up, however, can help reboot your sleep cycle.

Photo by arvindgrover.

Harvard researcher Clifford Saper explains that one's body has more than just a single clock dictating some magical eight-hour sleep period. Sleep needs are regulated in part by exposure to light, but also by food intake. By fasting for 16 hours before your breakfast in a new time zone or on a new sleep/wake schedule, or perhaps after some really rough sleep nights, one can "override" the body's other sleep clocks that have a really aggravating way of demanding obedience. The Wise Bread blog suggests 12 hours might be a decent compromise if you can't hold off for 16 hours, though Saper seems to suggest 16 is the magic number.

By Kevin Purdy, 6:05 AM on Tue Aug 4 2009, 39,263 views (Edit, to draft, Slurp)

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Scientists say there's an optimal temperature range for inducing your brain to get sleepy. If your own body is the temperature problem, a hot water bottle might help fix it.

Photo by Alyssa L. Miller.

A National Institutes of Health study suggests that the optimal temperature range for good sleep is between 60 and 68 degrees Fahrenheit. In those temperatures, the core body temperature lowers, and one's body usually begins to fall into a sleepy state. If you've just eaten a big meal, though, or have regular problems with insomnia or feeling generally restless, it may be that your own core temperature hasn't gotten there.

In that case, the Times and a study by the journal Nature (direct PDF link) suggest putting a bottle of hot water near one's feet. Sounds strange, indeed, but as blood vessels dilate in the feet, it can help lower one's internal temperature to a more sleep-ready state. For other tips on staying cool at night, try the previously mentioned "Egyptian Method".

… this is a particularly good one as it explains why we re so slaves to the money …  however, beneath it all is the message that our brain is designed to be addicted … and to be loved :) …

If you've ever thought of money as a drug, you may be more right than you know. New research shows that counting money — just handling the bills — can make things less painful.

"It is surprising," says Kathleen Vohs, a professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management who participated in the research. "It still surprises me."

Then, some of the students were asked to put their fingers in bowls of water heated to 122 degrees Fahrenheit and rate how uncomfortable it felt.

"The subjects who had earlier been counting money and had their hands in the painfully hot water reported that the water didn't feel so hot to them, compared to people who had counted slips of paper," Vohs says.

How hot is 122 degrees Fahrenheit? Not hot enough to do lasting damage, but hotter than the Consumer Product Safety Commission recommends setting your home water heater. I heated some water in the microwave and used a thermometer to make sure I'd hit the mark — I can testify that 122 degrees is uncomfortable. "Like a hot hot tub?" Vohs asked during our interview. Yes. "Good, OK," she said, then confessed, "Boy, you know I never did that."

Money As A Substitute For Love

The experiment and related ones are described in a research paper titled The Symbolic Power of Money, published in the journal Psychological Science. Combined with earlier work, it maps out a curious connection. As far as your brain's concerned, money can act as a substitute for social acceptance, reducing social discomfort and, by extension, physical discomfort and even pain.

Researcher Xinyue Zhou, of the department of psychology at Sun Yat-Sen University in China, puts it in very human terms. "We think money works as a substitute for another pain buffer — love."

Past research has shown that a social relationship can make things hurt less. "If you dip your hand in hot water, if someone is standing there beside you, then you feel less pain," Zhou says. "That was a classic experiment."

Money as a substitute for social acceptance and love? Zhou laughs and admits that it's kind of sad. "All substitutes are sad."

Vohs found the results of the money-handling experiment especially surprising because the effects last so long. Sometimes a full 10 minutes had elapsed between the time students handled the money and the instant they put their fingers in the water.

The researchers had them fill out surveys as they waited. The responses offered some clues as to what was going on in the brain. The students were asked a litany of questions: Did they feel happier after counting the money, or sadder? What stood out, Vohs says, was a feeling of strength. "When subjects had been reminded of money, 10 minutes later they said inexplicably they just felt stronger," Vohs says.

The Power Of 'Priming'

The experiment could prove groundbreaking. "It's a substantial finding," says Nicholas Epley, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. The research "has the potential to be something of a discovery, which we don't always have all that often in psychology."

Epley says the long-lasting connection between being reminded of money and feeling less pain appears to be an elaborate example of something psychologists call priming, in which thinking about one thing can subconsciously trigger a related response.

Epley cites another experiment where subjects were primed to think about old people. "It turns out that if you make people think about old people, lo and behold, they walk more slowly!"

Economists have studied money for ages — how prices, for instance, can efficiently direct the flow of resources. But meanwhile, in our brains, money has become a curious force, in this case behaving a bit like aspirin.

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