A light in the dark: end-of-life conversations in advanced cancer patients improve caregiver grief

A clinical decision report using: Wright AA, Zhang B, Ray A, Mack JW, Trice E, Balboni T, Mitchell SL, Jackson VA, Block SD, Maciejewski PK, & Prigerson HG. Associations between end-of-life discussions, patient mental health, medical care near death, and caregiver bereavement adjustment. JAMA. 2008;300(14):1665-1673. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.300.14.1665 for a patient with end stage cancer and an anxious caregiver.

The Longing to Belong: Santo Semo the Language Convert

The Longing to Belong: Santo Semo the Language ConvertThe paper focuses on Santo Semo’s journey of linguistic migration, from his native language (Judezmo) to his adopted language (French), and his desire for another linguistic identity. He focused his energies on saving the world, bringing peace to the planet, and he was convinced of his mission until the dark end of his life, and subordinated everything to it. Dążenie do przynależności. Santo Semo – językowy konwertytaArtykuł opisuje językową migrację Santy Semo – od jego języka ojczystego (judezmo) do adoptowanego języka francuskiego, oraz jego dążenie ku nowej językowej tożsamości. Całe życie poświęcił misji, w którą wierzył; poświęcił wiele energii na ratowanie świata, walki o pokój dla świata i planety.

From the dark end of the street to the bright side of the road: Automated redistricting of areas using physical barriers as dividers of social space

This study examines the properties of administrative areas compared to a new method of automated redistricting when measuring social differentiation and segregation. Using physical barriers, such as roads, railways, streams, areas of uninhabited nature, and the like as dividers of social space, this study explores alternative ways of thinking social belonging and social cohesion that are beyond standard measures of geography and utilize areas of smaller size and population count. The geographical data are linked to Danish register data of the total Danish population in 2015, N = 4,986,125 on key variables of income, months of completed education, and ethnicity. The overall findings in this study suggest that rethinking geography when localizing social enclaves and segregated communities yields better results than using the more illogical administrative areas. The visual inspection, entropy levels of homogeneity, and intraclass correlation suggest that smaller areas that are divided by physical objects serve as a better reservoir of social cohesion and therefore better measurement of social inequality.

The Faintest Speck of Dirt

Purity is commonly regarded as being physically embodied in the color white, with even trivial deviations from whiteness indicating a loss of purity. In three studies, we explored the implications of this “white = pure” association for disgust, an emotion that motivates the detection and avoidance of impurities that threaten purity and cleanliness. We hypothesized that disgust tunes perception to prioritize the light end of the light-dark spectrum, which results in a relative hypersensitivity to changes in lightness in this range. In Studies 1 and 2, greater sensitivity to disgusting stimuli was associated with greater ability to make subtle gray-scale discriminations (e.g., detecting a faint gray stimulus against a white background) at the light end of the spectrum relative to ability to make subtle gray-scale discriminations at the dark end of the spectrum. In Study 3, after viewing disgusting images, disgust-sensitive individuals demonstrated a heightened ability to detect deviations from white. These findings suggest that disgust not only motivates people to avoid impurities, but actually makes them better able to see them.