on 24-Jan-2017 (Tue)

All human beings have a need to be respected, even if they objectively don't deserve it

no human being likes to feel disrespected and like they don’t matter. It’s a negative feeling that can ruin someone’s day. It’s also largely avoidable

when it comes to getting along with people, it doesn’t really matter if you think someone hasn’t earned your respect or doesn’t deserve respect any at all. You have to project the illusion of respect regardless of how you feel internally sometimes

If you don’t allow people to feel a baseline of respect, some might even go through great lengths to pay you back in a similar manner.

Let’s begin with what’s disrespectful: telling and ordering people around

Choosing whether to ask a question or make a statement impacts respect in a big way

Asking a question is more respectful than telling a statement. Indeed, when you make a statement or a comment to somebody, this can be perceived as an imposition or an order. It’s a lack of consideration for what they are doing, and creating a dominant tone for them to submit to

avoid statements in favor of questions whenever possible.

Stick to the rule: Ask, don't tell

An additional step to create an even greater illusion of respect is justification.

Hey, can you please take the trash out for me, I can’t because I’m on the stove right now.

To defuse situations and maximize the illusion of respect, you need to tell people why you are asking or explain why you are telling. Giving someone a justification for your ask turns an order into a reasonable and rational request for assistance.

The magic word is "because." According to research studies, simply including the word "because" in a request completely defuses a lot of defensiveness and reluctance on the part of the person being requested to do something

Keep in mind that people can easily feel quite touchy and defensive when there is no pre-existing hierarchy or pecking order between you and that person.

Observe the two-second rule.

In the sphere of conversation advice, it’s commonly held that people like to talk about themselves. This is undeniably true. But I’ll add an addendum in the context of this chapter – people aren’t so much interested in talking about themselves as feeling heard and like they matter.

Most people aren’t by nature inclined to brag about themselves, they talk about themselves so they can feel validated by others.

So when people have the spotlight, their goal is usually to feel heard and gain validation from others.

The worst thing you can do to someone who has the spotlight is to seize it from them, and we do this in various ways without even realizing it

the phrase “stealing someone’s thunder” comes from, where you literally seize their spotlight by continually changing the topic of discussion back to yourself.

the biggest way that we seize the spotlight is by not appearing to listen to what they are saying

Even if you are listening intently, it’s still easy for others to feel like you are not. Namely, when you jump in immediately after they have finished speaking.

Even if you are listening intently, it’s still easy for others to feel like you are not. Namely, when you jump in immediately after they have finished speaking.

Why is this negative?

The other person who just stopped speaking will likely come to the conclusion that you did not really listen to him or her. You appeared to be so eager to talk that you give that other speaker the impression that whatever they said wasn't that important to you

Note that this is an entirely different phenomenon from interrupting artfully and gracefully. With positive interruptions, you are interrupting because you agree with them so much, here you are just waiting for them to finish so you can say your

The two-second rule is simple. After someone speaks, especially longer, more thoughtful, and more personal statements, you pause for two seconds before saying anything

During those two seconds, be mindful that your facial expression reflects thought and isn’t just a blank stare.

When somebody stops talking, they usually look at your face. What they're looking for is some sort of cue that you paid attention to them and what they said sank in.

One common solution that people use in place of a two-second pause is to say That’s really interesting… However, this can get annoying if you habitually do this. It's very easy for this statement to be taken as some throwaway phrase that you are making to cloak the fact that you just want to talk immediately after they stop talking

The best way to use this phrase (That's really interesting) or similar phrases is to do the two-second pause and then say it.

There are three ways to reference elements: by numerical position, by logical inclusion, and by name.

We can get the elements of the vector by referring to the rank positions inside square brackets after the vector name. Thus, x[c(2,4)] returns the second and fourth elements, as the vector

Another way to get at elements is by telling R which position not to include, by using a negative sign. For example, if you want all the elements except the first and third, you can type x[c(-1,-3)].

Another way to access elements of a vector is by a sequence of logical true and false values that specify whether or not to return the corresponding element. For example, x[c(FALSE,TRUE,FALSE,TRUE)] also returns the vector 3.14, 47405

The elements of a vector can also, optionally, have names.Forexample,wecan name the elements of the vector x with the command, names(x)=c( "e" , "pi" , "sqrt2" , "zipcode" ) . Notice that the names are in quotes. Then we get at the components of the vector by specifying their names in square brackets. For example, x[c("pi","zipcode")] returns the vector 3.14, 47405 along with the names of those components

Factors are a type of vector in R for which the elements are categorical values that could also be ordered. The values are stored internally as integers with labeled levels.

The factor function read the contents of vector x and kept track of all the distinct elements, calling them the levels of the factor. By default, it ordered the levels alphabetically. It then recoded the contents of the vector in terms of the integer indices of the alphabetized levels.

To see the integer indices of the levels explicitly, we can ask R to show us the factor as a numeric vector: > as.numeric(xf) [1]13213

If we want to specify a particular order for the levels, we can do so with additional arguments in the factor function, like this: > xfo = factor( x , levels=c("low","medium","high") , ordered=TRUE ) > xfo [1] high medium low high medium Levels: low < medium < high

To reorder, just use the factor function again, explicitly indicating the desired levels and order.

There are two straightforward ways of getting output from MATLAB: Entering a variable name, assignment, or expression on the command line, without a semicolon Using the disp statement (e.g., disp( x ))

we convert the number x to its string representation with the function num2str; read this as “number to string.”

The whole point behind the 2 second practice is to make you look like a good listener.

people love great listeners because they want to be heard. They want to feel that they matter. They want other people to acknowledge that what they have to say is important.

You probably keep hearing the phrase "great listening skills." It's not really a question of whether you're actually listening and processing all this information. A lot of that perception stems from you appearing like a great listener. In other words, you give out signals that make people feel good about themselves

Give people their full spotlight but make sure that they can continually feel it.

A conversation is a performance, and social and conversation skills are muscles that aid that performance.

Runners stretch, singers sing scales. What about people engaging in conversation?

To warm up your social and conversation skills, you just need to do something we’ve done almost every day in our lives: read out loud.

It sounds simple, but reading out loud this time will be different from any other time you’ve previously done it because you will have a purpose.

Here are the steps.

Open a book, find an article, consult your favorite poet. Find an excerpt about 400 words long, preferably with dialogue from different characters. The more exciting and emotional the excerpt the better.


Read the excerpt out loud. Scream parts of it loudly, while exaggerating whispers in other parts. Use different and zany voices for different characters. Exaggerate any emotion you see in the excerpt tenfold – insane laughter, boiling rage, confusion, joy, etc.

Read the excerpt like you’re giving a performance in a contest, and the winner is judged on how emotional and ridiculous they can be! Pretend you’re a voice actor for a movie trailer, and you have only your voice to get a wide range of emotion across.

Pay attention to your voice tonality. Are you accustomed to using a monotone? Well stop it! Use the excerpt to extend your range of vocal tone: loud, quiet, expressive, and emotional mance.


Remember when your childhood teachers used voices when they read stories to you? Have fun with it like they did and realize how you can create a story based on expressive voices.

You need to adopt some of that when talking to adults – there has to be enough diversity in tonality and pronunciation to make the conversation exciting.

Your vocal tone shouldn't be flat when you're talking.

Here are the steps.

Open a book, find an article, consult your favorite poet. Find an excerpt about 400 words long, preferably with dialogue from different characters. The more exciting and emotional the excerpt the better.


Read the excerpt out loud. Scream parts of it loudly, while exaggerating whispers in other parts. Use different and zany voices for different characters. Exaggerate any emotion you see in the excerpt tenfold – insane laughter, boiling rage, confusion, joy, etc.

Th e alternation of sugar pucker gives the helix backbone a zigzag appearance, which gives Z-form DNA its name. Because RNA cannot adopt a C2 ʹ endo sugar pucker, this confor- mation is restricted to DNA.

Th e physiological role of Z-form DNA in the cell is still not completely understood. One possibility is that it triggers the opening of DNA base pairs.

requirement for alternation of C and G is not absolute: substitution of A for G (and correspondingly T for C) destabilizes the Z-form, but with a small number of such substitutions, Z-form conformations can still form.

In the Z-form structure, there are 12 base pairs per turn, the sugars alternate between 2ʹ endo and 3ʹ endo puckers, and the G (or A) residues are in the syn con- formation, while the C (or T) residues are in the normal anti conformation

Z-DNA in vivo has been diffi cult to study since it seems to be a transient structure. Intriguingly, a correlation has been found between transcription and Z-DNA formation at some genes.

In reality, local regions of DNA deviate considerably from the B-form while still maintaining a double-helical structure that preserves the Watson-Crick base pairing and has average helical parameters that correspond well to those of B-form DNA

Molecules containing heterocyclic aromatic rings (usually with N or O atoms in them) can bind to DNA through intercalation—that is, slipping between base pairs of the DNA and stacking with the bases.

the antibiotic distamycin, which binds in the minor groove of DNA segments that have specifi c sequences (Figure 2.22B and C). Up to two molecules of distamycin can bind side by side in a single region of the minor groove, but the minor groove has to expand considerably in order to accommo- date two distamycin molecules. Since both types of complex can form at the same DNA sequence, with similar binding energetics, the change in groove width must be a fairly low-energy process

Th e deformability of double-stranded DNA is critical for its packaging in the cell, for its recognition by other molecules, and for the opening up of base pairs for replication, repair, and transcription. One measure of deformability is how easily DNA can be bent. Th e stiff ness of DNA is characterized by its persistence length. DNA segments that are longer than the persistence length can bend without a signifi cant energy penalty, whereas DNA segments shorter than the persistence length are relatively rigid. Th e persistence length of B-form DNA is approximately 500 Å. Th is corresponds to 14 or 15 helical turns, or roughly 140–150 base pairs

The persistence length of DNA corresponds to the maximum length of a segment of DNA that behaves as a rather rigid rod.

In nucleosomes, which compact chromosomal DNA (discussed in Chapter 1), the DNA is bent much more sharply than would be expected from its the persistence length; roughly 150 base pairs of DNA wrap twice around the nucleosome core

Supercoiling is a large-scale conformational eff ect in DNA in which the whole double helix winds into a superhelix

Th is eff ect is a con- sequence of the elastic deformation of DNA when the ends of the double helix cannot rotate relative to one another.

How you say something is as important as what you say.

Another key element of how you say something is, of course, your pacing – the speed at which you talk.

Have you ever noticed that liars and those with hidden agendas tend to speed up at certain points? Also those who are nervous, uneasy, and uncomfortable. Their pacing tends to implicate their intent.

Speed can either be your friend or undermine what you're trying to say.

Speed and pace are how you can emphasize certain points. When you’re making a big point, you should slow down your pace to increase the impact felt

You can't be a good conversationalist if the key points of the story are easily overlooked. Unfortunately, this is what happens when you zip through them. So it's a good idea, generally speaking, to slow down to emphasize the key points of the story.

You are also able to consciously pair elements of the story with emotional signals and your body language. By the same token, it's also a good idea to speed up when talking about less important points.

Rett syndrome

an autism spectrum disorder caused by loss of the transcriptional factor MeCP2

Microglia and inflammation

Peripheral macrophages are known to exist in different activation states, primarily M1 and M2

Why is jumping right after someone said something important negative?

The other person who just stopped speaking will likely come to the conclusion that you did not really listen to him or her. You appeared to be so eager to talk that you give that other speaker the impression that whatever they said wasn't that important to you

The function of a neuron is to transmit and receive action potentials, or stimulate electrical activity in a target tissue such as skeletal or cardiac muscle.

Functions of astrocytes BBB1. Energy2. Potassium3. Support4. Guidance5. Trophic6. Water7. Phagocytosis8. Regulating [neurotransmitter]9. Collaboration with neurons10. Synaptogenesis11. Radial Glia12.

Except for well-tested and proven knowledge (such as 2+2=4), it is highly recommended that you include sources from which you have gathered your knowledge. In real-life situation you will often be confronted with challenges to your knowledge

Sources should accompany your items but should not be part of the learned knowledge (unless it is critical for you to be able to recall the source whenever asked).

The middle brain links mainly with our emotions: fear, anger, love, affection, and communication. It’s called the family, or limbic brain

Limbic brain goals are short-term and focus primarily on good/bad, right/wrong, and yours/mine. It’s habitual, hierarchical, and simplistic. It does not have a capacity to visualize or grow because it thinks in terms of polarities

Limbic brain started to evolve as we began to socialize.

we unconsciously use body language for 55 percent of all communication.

the language that we use now still has words that were formulated sixty-five thousand years ago to describe the feelings and emotions that were emerging from the middle brain’s polarity thinking.