🎂✨The Nexialist #0023

Sixth Sense: Echolocation | Interoception | ASMArt | Bob Ross in Data | Permission to be Creative | Plastic Visualization | Is Bolsonaro Finished? | The Edge of Democracy | Brazilianness

Hello and welcome to a place in internet time where

Next week on Tuesday (15) I’m turning 32 (yay!) and I’m still getting used to the fact that in the northern hemisphere my birthday happens during spring. I’m loving it, especially after the long winter we had here in the Netherlands.

Also, there has been some kind of transformation in my life in the past months and I have to say I’m feeling so much better than one year ago. I started meditating, launched this crazy newsletter, I’m bullet journaling and doing the Morning Pages (and the Artist’s Way), as well as a social media detox. Somehow all of these things are helping me feel so alive and feel like I have a clearer mind, as if my brain reconnected some parts that were numb. Or maybe it’s just the spring.

So thank you for reading, for your messages, and for sharing The Nexialist with your friends. I you want to send me a present, recommend this to your loved ones :) I’ve been told it’s a good conversation starter.

*Maybe you noticed, but last week I talked about Spain’s 4-days week tests, but while distracted I typed 4-day weekend. Here’s the erratum: it’s a 4-day week. Wishful thinking I guess.

🦇Sixth Sense: Echolocation

Forget about love, intuition, gaydar, or anything else that has been called the sixth sense. Enter Echolocation:

Some mammals, most notably bats and whales, navigate in the dark by sending out sound signals to their surroundings and perceiving how they bounce back. The way those sounds travel will offer cues about where solid objects are located, so the animals know where to avoid or target. Gizmodo notes that some people dealing with blindness have, for centuries, taught themselves a version of echolocation involving mouth clicks.

Scientists believe that humans can be trained to develop similar abilities that help them “see” in the dark—a particularly essential skill for those with vision disabilities.

…

When the 10 weeks were over, the researchers reported significant improvements in participants’ echolocation skills—and it didn’t matter how old or well-sighted the people were.

A few years ago I heard the story of the blind man who could bike by using this exact same sense in Invisibilia’s podcast episode, How To Become Batman. He even opened a school to teach kids that they have this extra sense. This makes me think humans are cool.

Read: Humans Can Develop A Sixth Sense In Just 10 Weeks, According To Scientists – iDea HUNTR

Article: Human click-based echolocation: Effects of blindness and age, and real-life implications in a 10-week training program

🧠Interoception

Javier Navarro sent me this link a few weeks ago about “The Emerging Science of Interoception: Sensing, Integrating, Interpreting, and Regulating Signals within the Self.” How does an organism “sense, interpret, integrate, and regulate signals from within itself?”

Below, I left some highlights from my quick read, in case you want to read more:

Interoception has been commonly referred to as the process by which the nervous system senses and integrates information about the inner state of the body.

The brain communicates with internal organs via the peripheral nervous system and non-neuronal systems.

… the terms 'sensing' and 'integrating' seem to imply one-way communication to the brain from other organs, the links between brain and body are often bidirectional and also include communications from the brain to other organs and, in turn, modulation of internal body signals sent back to the brain. Therefore, a more comprehensive definition of interoception should encompass the complex interplay between the brain and other organs that is necessary to monitor and regulate internal states. 

…

Dysfunction of interoception may be an important component of many neurological, psychiatric, and behavioral disorders.

🎨ASMArt

Whenever I get the chance, I will bring you some ASMR. In this case, I thought about it because I really believe it is some kind of auditory-tactile synesthesia. Julian Baumgartner does painting restorations, explaining the whole process with a very calming and soothing voice. While it makes me feel like I know nothing about the subject, I just enjoy the fact that there is someone so passionate about this. And I cannot help but think about all the work of doing the restoration and then telling us about it. It’s brilliant.

Watch: Baumgartner Restoration

🖼Bob Ross in Data

Someone (Connor Rothschild) took their time to create data vizualization from Bob Ross’s paintings and I didn’t know I could find that interesting. The King of Unintentional ASMR (I might have made that up, but it’s true) deserves this.

Read: Bob Ross Was an Internet Celebrity Before the Internet - VICE

🫀Permission to be Creative

This came to me through Messy Nessy’s weekly selection: 13 Things I Found on the Internet Today. I’m on week 8 of the Artist’s Way which talks about this same issue, so I really took it as a synchronicity sign and pressed play. I was not let down. I chose one story he shared in case you don’t have time to watch it now.

My great-grandmother, Della Hall Walker Green, on her deathbed, she wrote this little biography in the hospital, and it was only about 36 pages long, and she spent about five pages on the one time she did costumes for a play. Her first husband got, like, a paragraph. Cotton farming, of which she did for 50 years, gets a mention. Five pages on doing these costumes. And I look -- my mom gave me one of her quilts that she made, and you can feel it. She was expressing herself, and it has a power that's real.

🥽Plastic Vizualization

The UK (and the world) is having a serious plastic problem. The US was sending containers full of plastic waste to China until they put a stop to it a couple of years ago. The UK also exports its plastic waste to other countries, like Turkey. This makes all the single-use plastic we consume pretty much invisible after we use it. This campaign makes all that plastic very visible.

How Greenpeace trashed UK gov’s plastic export scam with ‘Wasteminster’

🤷Is Bolsonaro Finished?

I just love when there is good content about my country in English, especially on issues that need to be seen. I’ll leave it here in case you’re interested.

🤦The Edge of Democracy

In case you haven’t seen, The Edge of Democracy tells the story of Brazilian democracy through the personal and unique lens of Petra Costa. It was rightfully nominated for Best Documentary in 2020, so if you have Netflix, I recommend that you watch it. Just the trailer already gives me chills.

A cautionary tale for these times of democracy in crisis, the personal and political fuse in The Edge of Democracy to explore one of the most dramatic periods in Brazilian history.

Combining unprecedented access to Presidents Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff with accounts of her own family's complex political and industrial past, filmmaker Petra Costa witnesses their rise and fall and the tragically polarized nation that remains.

🇧🇷Brazilianness

To end this Nexialist edition on the right birthday party mood, I’ll introduce you to some great Brazilian talents who allow themselves to be creative and use their platforms to bring awareness to social issues while inspiring us.

This is fierce Tássia Reis with Monna Brutal. You can read the lyrics in English here.

They can’t stand black girls getting gigs and making money from them

They just think that girls like me were born to serve like

(Who?)

Read: Tássia Reis: ​“During hard times, art ends up playing a different role”

I think IZA should be known everywhere.

Read: 'Our Microphone Is a Weapon.' How Afro-Brazilian Pop Star Iza Is Using Her Platform to Fight Racism

Urias always fascinates me, she’s hypnotizing.

Read: Urias – a rising Brazilian star aiming to be a role model for trans girls

I wish you could understand Portuguese to delight yourself with Linn da Quebrada’s rhymes and play with words.

Read: Brazilian rapper Linn da Quebrada is a force of nature

This song is a jam for me. I love the colors, the looks, and the trio of Duda Beat, Mateus Carrilho, and Jaloo, each from a different part of Brazil.

❤️If anything made your brain tingle, click like and don't hesitate to share it with the world. It helps The Nexialist to reach more curious minds. See you next week!🦦

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