Insanity?

Brainpower Newsletter

I found a bit of research on that proverbial fine line between creative genius and madness. Hope you find it interesting.

Ana (my wife) and I are on our way to Ecuador this week, but the newsletter will still go out on schedule. I have some help with the writing coming, and I have other materials prepared, so I can get the newsletter mailed out while traveling for a few weeks. In any case, if it seems shorter than normal or has a few typos, you know why.

Enjoy the newsletter!

Here is some interesting information I found on the link between creativity and insanity.

A study at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee has found that people known as "schizotypes" may be able to function normally and still have enhanced creativity due to their schizophrenic tendencies. It seems that their greater creativity comes from using more of the right side of the brain than most of us use. They seem to be able to walk that proverbial fine line between insanity and genius.

Schizotypes are generally considered somewhere between normal and insane. They often have their own unique eccentricities, but not the more extreme symptoms of ...

Continued here:
http://www.increasebrainpower.com/creativity-insanity.html

- The estimated cost of owning a dog to the age of 11 in the United States: $6,500.

- On average, there are more than 60,000 people in airplanes over the United States during any given hour.

- Which is the only country in the middle east without a desert? Lebanon.

You have read about ginkgo biloba's in this newsletter before. It's antioxidant action helps to protect brain cells from free radical damage that and it stimulates blood flow to critical regions of the brain. How much should you take? Medical researcher Dr. David Williams suggest that 10 milligrams of ginkgo (standardized to contain 24% of the flavonoid glycosides) will help you maintain brain function and cognitive performance as you age, but up to 120 mg per day seems to be safe.

Find a way to fill any empty time with brainpower exercise. This can be as simple as carrying one of those tiny crossword puzzle or word-find books that are sold at grocery store checkouts. Do the puzzles whenever you are waiting for an appointment, or on the bus or in a taxi cab. Other ways to use "empty" time for brainpower exercise include listening to books on CDs or tapes while driving, and having intelligent conversation with strangers on the train.

What number has the same number has the same number of letters (when written in English) as its value?

(Answer is below)

Found this one somewhere online, and thought it might make you smile. If you are sitting down at a desk right now, lift your right foot up a little and make clockwise circles in the air with it. While doing that, use your right index finger to draw the number six in the air. Most people, when trying this, will find that their foot changes direction.

(Don't ask - I don't have an explanation at the moment.)

Do polygraph tests, also known as lie detector tests, really work? If you want the yes or no answer that is closest to the truth, it is NO! Of course they sometimes "work," since much of the time they are used to scare people into confessions or admissions of guilt. But they are very unreliable as a way of detecting lies.

After 9/11, the polygraph failure rate went to 50% for agent applicants at the FBI. Did liars suddenly start applying for jobs? No, but the testers were instructed to read the tests differently. Unfortunately this meant ...

Continued here... http://www.increasebrainpower.com/polygraph.html

While doing some keyword research recently, I couldn't help but laugh. Last month there were 10,700 searches for the "meaning of life," which seemed like a lot, until I saw that there were 840,000 searches for "payday loan." It got me to thinking about what the keywords we use to search for things online say about our emerging world culture. Some of what I found follows.

Within the database I checked, (Yahoo's keyword selector tool), there are many men looking for women online. But what kind of women do they want? Last month there were 944,000 searches for a "sexy woman." How many searched for an "intelligent woman?" 158. That's 158, not 158,000. To put that into an easy to understand ratio, for every man searching for an intelligent woman, there are...

Continued here:
http://www.999ideas.com/search-engine-anthropology.html

Until next time,

Steve

www.IncreaseBrainpower.com

Riddle Answer: Four