Month: June 2020

Scientists have shown that the brain does not fully harden in a person until the age of 25, which is remarkable based on the fact that our brain needs lots of years to fully develop and makes many changes as we are getting old, and then once we actually hit the age of 25, our brains harden and stay like that for the rest of our lives.
So, when mastering a task, we have to change and start up places in our brain. When we first start this goal we want to achieve, such as a sport or talking in front of others, our brain knows what we want to say or how we want to carry out the performance, but when it is time to actually do it, it goes the opposite way of how we wanted it to go, and soon our brain gets more comfortable with the action as we do it more. So, during these twenty-five years before the brain is fully hardened or close to fully hardened, many changes happen through our brain. As the ted talk mentioned, overdoing a performance can worsen the performance itself, but underdoing will get you nowhere, this is why moderation should be a key to making and helping your brain achieve the goal.
Practicing moderation is so good for health to your brain, staying healthy physically, and even achieving your goals. For example, you want to run a distance in a specific amount of time, and you barely eat because you are just so focused on doing it right. This is not only unhealthy, but a bad way to achieve and accomplish something. With moderation, you could practice a little every day or every other day, or even a couple of days week at minimum and have the nutrients you need to practice for running. However you do still need to practice a good amount in order for your brain structure to change and for you to be more comfortable doing it and with moderation, it gives you a steady pace to slowly but successfully achieve your goal rather than doing the all or nothing way, which sometimes ends up working but could also drastically fail.

According to the TED talk video, it showed me a new way to think about my brain. It is a truth that our brain are changing everytime, like when we learn some new skills, when we read some books… We learn new staff and think all the time, our brain change. Every time when we learn new things or skills, that called neuroplasticity, it help us to be a better person, because since we know that thing we can practice skills that we good at. And we can also try new things or give up some parts that we are not good at.

The speaker, Dr. Lara Boyd also said, ” The best driver of neuroplastic change in your brain is your behavior.” We are acting all the time, so change our behavior I think it’s not a big deal, but keep doing that and make it become a habit, is kind of difficult to do. For example, there is a person who do not know how to speak English and one day he need to learn how to speak it, so he try to memorize 50 English words every day. Well, he never memorize English words untill that day, maybe it is easy to do that on the first day, sencond day or third day. But after a week, there might be some “give up” ideas show in his brain, because it doesn’t become into a habit. If he keep doing that for a month, I think when there is one day he do not memorize English words, he will feel weird, because he already be used to do that. That is how our behavior change, it takes time. In real life, that is the truth. If we want to become better or learn a new skill, what can we do? The answer is practice. ” Practice makes perfect.” Every time you see someone is very good at doing something, you can admire them, but also you should think how much time do they spend on practicing it. And we also need know there are many differences from person to person. Maybe we are not good at sport, but we show our talent on painting, then we can carry forward the advantages and learn more about art.

Our brain has infinite creative power, it’s waitting for us to discover it, to arouse potential, and to make it better. The way we can change our brain and become better is keep learing and practicing, face to the difference between you and others, keep doing right things, you will succeed.

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson poses a very difficult yet simple question. In the short story, the villagers come together once a year to sacrifice a randomly chosen person, believing that it will ensure a good harvest. Obviously, stoning a fellow villager has nothing to do with the success of their crops, but they still do it anyway because of tradition. Just like this “lottery”, many traditions in the real world are being questioned as if they should be abolished. I believe that there are two main factors to whether if a tradition should continue: practicality and morality.

First, I must explain what these two factors mean. Practicality refers to how successful the tradition is in actually doing something useful. For example, the goal of setting off firecrackers during Chinese New Year is to scare away evil spirits. The morality factor is basically what it sounds like. It takes into account how moral the tradition is. Many old cultures and some religions involve the sacrifice of animals or even humans to please their god(s). In return, they would ensure a plentiful harvest, good sailing, no natural disasters, etc. Now that the factors are clarified, next is how they come into play.

The way to evaluate whether a tradition should continue is by looking at these two factors. If it has both practicality and morality, then it can remain. That means that it can be applied in everyday life without the worry of offending anyone or futility. When a tradition only has morality but is obsolete/a waste of time, it is still acceptable. I will use the Chinese New Year example again. Everyone who celebrates the holiday knows that setting off fireworks doesn’t do crap, but people still do it anyway because it isn’t harming anyone for a nonexistent reason. Besides, it’s fun. However, when a tradition has utility but is somewhat immoral, it has to be considered. The ends must justify the means, and the two factors must be weighed. But when a tradition has neither one of these factors, it should end. The ancient Aztecs used to cut out people’s hearts to please their gods. Unlike setting off fireworks, it harms others while also having a nonexistent reason. It lacks practicality and morality, which is why people don’t do it anymore. I conclude by saying that before calling for an end or the maintaining of an age-old tradition, consider these factors.

In The Lottery, the inhabitants of a small village attend a lottery every year. Having done the same thing for years on end, they unquestioningly accept what is happening, even as they are murdering their friends and neighbors.

This lottery is only an extreme example of what can happen if people just follow what their predecessors have done without question. Despite the lottery having existed for so long that many of the rules, and even the purpose of the event, have been forgotten, the inhabitants of the village still cling to it. With every new generation, more of the lottery is being forgotten, until one has to wonder if the current lottery holds the same purpose as the original, or if it is just an empty skeleton of what it had previously been. After all, parts of the lottery had been “allowed to lapse,” and other parts had been “changed with time.”

When Mr. Adams mentions that some other towns were abandoning the lottery, Old Man Warner contemptuously says, “Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves…” His belief that society would fall apart without the lottery indicates why the tradition is kept, among other reasons. Old Man Warner is also the one who urges the other inhabitants to stone Mrs. Hutchinson. He not only encourages these acts of violence, but he also vastly overestimates the effect of the lottery. However, he can’t exactly be blamed for that, as nobody investigated the event. His character is a warning to be wary of blindly following tradition. Old Man Warner also boasts that he has attended the lottery for seventy-seven years. He does so freely, as if it’s some sort of strength, not realizing that there are very real people being affected very seriously by such an event.

In this story, Mrs. Hutchinson seems to be the only one to truly understand the implications of the lottery, as she is the only one really affected (familial ties don’t seem to be too important in this village). But by the time she fully realizes it, it’s too late. At first, she, like everybody else, unquestioningly attends the lottery. However, the way she treats the lottery was different from her neighbors — while everyone else treats it as a solemn occasion, her tardiness, among other events, shows that Mrs. Hutchinson thinks of the lottery more lightheartedly, at least initially. But when she draws the slip of paper spelling out her death sentence, the full weight of what is going to happen hits her hard. The only thing she can do is cry out that “it’s not fair.” Despite her obvious hypocrisy, it is difficult not to feel sorry for Mrs. Hutchinson.

The people in this story are, as stated previously, committing murder, but it doesn’t weigh on their conscience at all. They, simply because they are not affected, do not realize what is happening, nor do they bother to wonder about it. This story is a warning that traditions should be appraised and questioned critically. When the purpose is lost, even if a tradition provides comfort in its regularity, there is little reason to continue following it.

The lottery is a story about a town that has a weird religion. Each year your name gets raffled up in a box and the name chosen’s family gets put into the box and one of them will end up getting stoned to death. The main character of the story is Tessie. Her husband got chose and it was up to luck to keep her alive. But unfortunately her name was chosen, but before they killed her she complained about how it wasn’t fair. I believe the theme of this story is to stand up to others before it is too late. In the story everyone doesn’t feel so bad doing it but once you are chosen, it will already be too late.

I think everything about this story is normal when the kids were playing and the people talking about the event. But, when the event goes on I realize that something might go wrong when the Hutchinson’s family realizes that they won’t get money and they get something else and when the children start to pile up rocks for no reason. So, I start to wonder what they get instead of money. Then, each family member got a piece of paper and one piece of paper had a black dot on it. When they all opened their paper every family member had a blank paper excepted Tess. Tess had a black dot on her paper. Then the people attacked her by throwing rocks at Tess. I think that was a violent ending. I think Shirley Jackson (the author) used a lot of irony in this story. I didn’t notice a moral in this story.

In the past months at school, I’ve been hearing black hole conversations a lot. I was wondering about them until today when I read this article. I learned that black holes are holes with strong gravitation, meaning that they basically suck things into them like an outer space tornado. Black holes are formed when a star that suddenly increases greatly in brightness because of a catastrophic explosion, also called supernovas.

Astronomers found a black hole close to the earth by spotting two stars orbiting around a giant mass four times bigger than the sun. A team of astronomers from the ESO also spotted a black hole lying just 1000 light-years from the earth.

By studying black holes, we can find out more about the evolution of rare stars: from how they begin their lives with a mass about than eight times the sun to how the end their existence with a supernova explosion which sometimes form black holes.

1000 light years away, there is a black  hole named HR 6819. Now, that may sound far, but really, we can see it with our own eyes! Astronomers have discovered this black hole and claimed that we can see this black hole without even using binoculars or telescopes. This black hole is incredible for the future of astrology. Because it is so near, scientists and astrologers will be able to study black holes more up close. They can discover if what they estimated about black holes is correct.

The idea of black holes has been around for just over a century, yet the name “Black Hole” wasn’t coined until 1967; a whole 50 years later. This means that scientists have had a century to make predictions and estimates surrounding the idea of a black hole. So far, they have identified three types of black holes: stellar black holes, supermassive black holes and intermediate black holes. 

Stellar black holes are known to be smaller, but they are very lethal or deadly. Supermassive black holes are known to be the biggest black holes. These black holes sort of “dominate” the playing field. There are many smaller black holes, but these supermassive ones are the largest.  Lastly, intermediate black holes are identified as the mid-size black holes. Before these intermediate black holes were discovered, however, scientists believed that only small and large black holes existed. The discovery of intermediate black holes really threw a screw in the thought process of scientists.

Black holes have three layers to them: the outer event horizon, the inner event horizon, and the singularity. The event horizon is the area on the circumference of the black hole; it doesn’t allow light to escape. When an object or particle enters the event horizon, it can never escape. That is what lends to the idea that black holes are giant vacuums. Last of the three, the singularity; it is the inner part where the black hole is concentrated.

This new black hole was estimated to be 1000 light years away by Thomas Rivinius. According to Rivinius, since this black hole is so close, that means that it is common. “Our neighborhood is nothing special… if it’s here, it must be everywhere.” Even though this black hole is deemed common, it is still thrilling to have such a scientific fascination so close to our earth, allowing for tremendous research. 

All in all, black holes are pretty riveting. It is even more thrilling when there is one just a glance away. It is needless to say that scientists and astrologers will work long and hard to find a way to learn more about this black hole. Therefore, learning and experimenting with this new black hole will lead a gateway to tremendous opportunities for science and astrology in the future. It may be in the far future, or even a fantastical stretch, but maybe one day, we can explore the inside of a black hole; and it will all have started with HR 6819.

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is a story about a a group of people who blindly follow a tradition of stoning the lucky person who “wins the lottery”. The story introduces many themes and portrays many symbols, emphasizing that blindly following something, specifically a tradition or belief, shouldn’t happen merely because it is a tradition. The Lottery itself is a symbol of an action, behavior, or idea that is passed down and accepted and followed unquestioningly, no matter how illogical, bizarre, or cruel. The lottery has been taking place in the village for as long as anyone can remember. It is a tradition that no one has thought to question. Nevertheless, the lottery continues, simply because there has always been a lottery. The result of this tradition is that everyone becomes party to murder on an annual basis. The lottery is an extreme example of what can happen when traditions are not questioned or addressed critically by new generations. The shabby black box represents both the tradition of the lottery and the illogic of the villagers’ loyalty to it. The black box is nearly falling apart, but the villagers are unwilling to replace it. They base their attachment on nothing more than a story that claims that this black box was made from pieces of another, older black box. There is really no reason why the villagers should be loyal to the black box yet disloyal to other relics and traditions, just as there is no logical reason why the villagers should continue holding the lottery at all.

The lottery By: Shirley Jackson. The lottery is a story about a village who hosts a lottery every year. If you win you lose because the winner gets killed by rocks but its one out of 300 chance. I think this story is weird but suspenseful to see who dies. This story is probably historical fiction though it could have really happened. It is said that it is “lucky” that that person was picked to die.

I think this story has no moral and is just a story. In this story the Lottery, the lottery is a traditions but some don’t want to participate. This story is weird because the lottery is actually a lottery of death why would anyone participate. You’re just risking death and you don’t even get money out of it but its probably free. It feels like its worthless but instead of losing money you might lose your life.