Part 1 of the TED Radio Hour episode Hardwired.

About Robert Sapolsky's TED Talk

Neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky says nearly all aspects of human behavior are explained by biology: from developments millions of years in the past to microscopic reactions happening in the present.

About Robert Sapolsky

Robert Sapolsky is a primatologist and a professor of neuroscience at Stanford University. His current research examines how stress alters personality patterns and social behavior.

Sapolsky's latest book, Behave: The Biology of Humans At Our Best And Worst, tries to answer the question, why do we do the things we do?

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Robert Sapolsky: How Much Agency Do We Have Over Our Behavior? - NPR

An innovative and new behavioral study is being conducted on Block Island using a free smartphone app to examine how daily activities expose people to the risks of acquiring diseases transmitted by ticks. The all-mobile research study app, called the Tick App,is available to IOS and Android smartphone users.

The app was created by Columbia Universitys tick and Lyme disease research team, led by Dr. Maria Diuk-Wasser, a professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology (E3B). It offers the Block Island community a way to understand what activities and specific locations on the island lead to the highest risk of tick exposure. The pilot study is open, and is seeking residents and visitors on Block Island to participate by utilizing the app through September 2017. Dr. Diuk-Wasser intends to report her findings before next spring.

A summary from the research team noted that the goal of the study is to evaluate the use of ecological momentary assessments as a tool to assess risk factors for Lyme disease. This study will be conducted on Block Island, and data on human behavior will be obtained from a smartphone application using momentary assessments methodology to assess real time behavior and movement.

Were excited about the app, said Dr. Diuk-Wasser, who noted that the pilot study was hatched out of collaboration with a colleague. Dr. Diuk-Wassers team began using the app in June, and will share the results with Dr. Peter Krause, a Senior Research Scientist studying vector borne diseases at Yale University. Dr. Krause and his team will test participants at the conclusion of the study at the end of September.

Dr. Diuk-Wasser said subjects will participate using the app for about three weeks during the study. She said the app tracks the participants range of movement daily providing mapping information about dangerous areas on the island. She is hopeful that her research draws a large field of participants.

Dr. Diuk-Wasser has been working on Block Island since 2010, investigating links between the islands environment, animal populations, and human cases of Lyme disease. Other members of her research team are Pilar Fernandez, an Earth Institute post-doctorate fellow, and Pallavi Kache, who will be starting her PhD program at E3B in the fall.

Fernandez, who has been leading the teams communication efforts, said the app provides a way to use new tools and resources to conduct our research.She noted that users can participate using either a username, or their own name if they choose. Were the only ones who will be accessing the data from the study, she said.

According to a press release, The Tick App uses a combination of pop-up survey questions and geolocation technology to collect data. With these functions, Dr. Diuk-Wassers research team will be able to uncover how peoples day-to-day activities and movement around the island play a role in their risk for tick bites and tick-borne diseases. This information can help develop disease-control programs that take the lifestyle of the Block Island community into consideration and help develop educational programs to reduce disease risk.

The Tick App asks participants to:

Answer two multiple-choice questions sent at random times each day about their current activity

Answer two multiple-choice questions at the end of each day about all the activities they did that day

Answer one fill-in-the-blank questionnaire at the end of each day about how many ticks they found on themselves and their pet (if applicable)

Turn on location services so that the participants movement around the island can be detected

The summary states that the aim of the research is to recruit 100 Block Island residents and 100 visitors who have a personal smartphone. Vulnerable populations, such as pregnant women, the elderly, or children, will be excluded. The study will produce highly precise behavioral data about tick exposure which will lead to deepen our understanding on what intervention strategies might be most needed and most effective, pertaining to the fight against tick-borne disease.

The Block Island Times reported on Dr. Diuk-Wassers five-year research study that she presented at the Island Free Library on July 11, 2016. During her presentation she explained the pivotal role that deer and mice play in the spread of tick-borne diseases on Block Island.

To learn more about the app or to schedule an interview, contact: Maria Diuk-Wasser, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology at Columbia University. Phone: 212-854-3355 E-mail: bitickapp@gmail.com, Website: http://www.columbia.edu/~mad2256, Study Website: https://thetickapp.org/ and Twitter: @diukwasserlab. Dr. Diuk-Wasser said she is seeking additional funding to further the evolution of the app and her studies, which she hopes to continue into the near future.

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New mobile app studies tick disease risks - Block Island Times (press release) (subscription) (blog)

Too often, letters, words, and sentences get the credit for conveying information. But the human brain also makes meaning out of pitch. Like how upspeak turns any sentence into a question? Or how emphasizing the beginning of a sentence (Tom and Leila bought a boat) helps clarify that it was in fact Tom and Leila who bought the boat, not some other couple. If you emphasize the end of that sentence (Tom and Leila bought a boat) however, youre just pointing out that your friends didnt buy a car, dirt bike, or pony.

Pitch matters, and youve got the brain cells to prove it. A new study, published Thursday in Science, found groups of neurons that listen for changes in someones speaking tone. Some are tuned for shifts upward, others for shifts downward, and some that fire only when a sound goes up, and then down in pitch. Whats more, these cells arent trained for absolute pitchthey cant tell an A sharp from a D flatbut they listen for relative shifts, taking each voice on its own merit. This gives scientists a big boost in understanding how our brains turn sounds into meaning.

I think most people just take for granted how good humans are at making meaning out of sound, says Edward Chang, a neurosurgeon at UC San Francisco and lead author of the new study. This makes sensepeople communicated through sound for millennia before they started to scribble their thoughts down. And obviously, language and grammar matter. In previous research, Chang and some other co-authors showed that human brains had cells specialized to pick out the sounds of consonants and vowels. But vocalized communication contains nuances beyond the order that letters and words get strung togetherfor instance, the way humans modulate their voices up or down to emphasize a word or phrase. These differences are all really important, because they change the meaning of the words without changing the words themselves, says Chang. So he and his new co-authors reasoned that there might also be neurons tuned to intonation.

To find the answer, they needed direct access to the brain. Functional MRI, the famous (and occasionally maligned) method for mapping brain activity, is noninvasive, and lets you look at the whole brain all at once, but the signal is much too slow. So they enlisted some helpful epileptic patients who had electrodes implanted under their skulls. These electrodes allow their doctors to pinpoint exactly where seizures originate, and do so on the millisecond time scale. In some cases we can cure epilepsy if we can identify precisely where the seizures are coming from, says Chang. That millisecond resolution is a huge advantage if you are looking for how auditory signals light up the brain.

Chang and his crew recruited 10 of these electrode-outfitted patients, who volunteered to listen to sentences repeated over and over again. The sentences, four in total, were simple: Humans value genuine behavior; Movies demand minimal energy; Reindeer are a visual animal; Lawyers give a relevant opinion. The researchers recorded each using three different voicesone male, and two femaleand four different intonation patterns. The first intonation was neutral (Think Ferris Buellers econ teacher calling Bueller . Bueller Bueller). Then they spiced it up. The next intonation emphasized the first word (Humans value genuine behavior.); and another emphasized the third word (Humans value genuine behavior.). The last intonation was upspeak: A question?

And voila! When they ran the data, they clearly saw that the brain had specific sets of neurons tuned to pitch, distinct from those tuned to consonants and vowels. So what it tells us is the ear and brain have taken a speech signal and deconstructed it into different elements, and processes them to derive different meanings, says Chang. Chang says these multiple axes for meaning may have evolved because it makes communication more efficient, with a single signal containing many elements for interpretation. Not a stretch for animals as social as human beings.

Thats not even the coolest bit. These pitch-tuned neurons are actually discerning intonation on the fly. Somehow, the cells establish a baseline pitch for the incoming speech and process the ups and downs from there. To musicians, this probably isnt surprising. Its sort of like shifting a melody up or down a keythe melody is still recognizable. Of course, human brains also have neurons trained for absolute pitch. This probably helps with things like identifying individual voices in a crowded, noisy space. I think people take for granted how good humans are at doing stuff like holding conversations in a busy bar where theres all these competing sounds, says Chang.

Next, Chang and his crew will be turning their investigation on its head. He wants to understand how the brain controls intonation. This means not just watching electrodes in the brain, but looking at the muscles that control the vocal folds and larynx. The one limitation is we cant easily see how things like the lips, jaw, and tongue move in coordination with the vocal folds and larynx to produce sound, says Chang. No matter how loud and clear the speech, it won't make any sense without brains.

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Scientists Found the Neurons That Respond to Uptalk - WIRED

Danielle Di-Masi is an innovative marketing strategist, specializing in digital communications. Standing at the crossroad of technology and human behavior, Danielle is a popular keynote speaker and media commentator, author and university lecturer.

Winning the 2016 Stevie Award for Most Innovative Communications Professional of the Year, Danielle is an expert in how both businesses and professionals perform at their best, creating consistent experiences on and offline.

Danielle spent over 10 years of her corporate career in Investment and Private Banking while studying her MBA. As the world became increasingly digital, Danielle identified a broadening communications gap and turned her focus to researching how we connect and conduct modern business to ensure the digital experience is aligned with an effective customer experience strategy.

Danielle is a regular blogger for the Huffington Post, and in the media her global commentary has appeared in Cosmopolitan, The Los Angeles Times, GQ, Australian Financial Review, ELLE, The Age, Womens Health, Smart Company and since 2011 Danielle has been the resident expert on tech, business and social behaviors for Network Ten.

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Your Digital Communication: Strategy or Spaghetti - Computerworld India

Scientists fromUniversity of Utah Healthsaythat removing the gene encoding Lef1 in mice and zebrafish disrupts the development of nerve cells in the hypothalamus that affect stress and anxiety, causing the animals to exhibit increased anxiety. Their study ("Lef1-Dependent Hypothalamic Neurogenesis Inhibits Anxiety"), which appears in PLOS Biology, suggeststhat Lef1 functions in the hypothalamus to mediate behavior. The team believes this knowledge could prove useful for diagnosing and treating human brain disorders.

"...we demonstrate that the Wnt/-catenin effector Lef1 is required for the differentiation of anxiolytic hypothalamic neurons in zebrafish and mice, although the identity of Lef1-dependent genes and neurons differ between these 2 species. We further show that zebrafish andDrosophilahave common Lef1-dependent gene expression in their respective neuroendocrine organs, consistent with a conserved pathway that has diverged in the mouse," write the investigators.

"Finally, orthologs of Lef1-dependent genes from both zebrafish and mouse show highly correlated hypothalamic expression in marmosets and humans, suggesting co-regulation of 2 parallel anxiolytic pathways in primates. These findings demonstrate that during evolution, a transcription factor can act through multiple mechanisms to generate a common behavioral output, and that Lef1 regulates circuit development that is fundamentally important for mediating anxiety in a wide variety of animal species."

"Anxiety is an essential behavior that is much more complex than we thought," says first author Yuanyuan Xie, Ph.D., who led the research in collaboration with senior authorRichard Dorsky, Ph.D., professor of neurobiology and anatomy at University of Urah Health. "This work is making us think about how brain structures control behavior in a different way."

Anxiety happens in humans, mice, fish, and flies. It's not always a bad thing. Anxiety in zebrafish causes them to stop moving so they can hide in plain sight from predators. But being anxious at inappropriate times is counterproductive and can be a sign of unnecessary stress, a characterization that holds true not only for fish but also for people, say the researchers.

When Drs. Xie and Dorsky began their investigation, nothing was known about a role for Lef1 in anxiety. Brains of fish missing the gene were relatively normal except there were cells missing from the hypothalamus. "Before we did the experiments we had no idea that the neurons impacted by Lef1 would preferentially impact one type of behavior," says Dr. Dorsky.

Studying the genes that were most perturbed by loss of Lef1 in this brain region revealed that over 20 were involved in mood disorders like depression and anxiety. The scientists then noticed that the fish had telltale signs consistent with these disorders. The animals were reluctant to explore their environment when placed into a new tank, preferred to remain immobile at the bottom. And they grew slowly, another condition often related to elevated stress.

Lef1 appears to mediate anxiety across species, although it uses diverse mechanisms to do so.Mice in which Lef1 had been removed from the hypothalamus showed signs of anxiety, including being smaller and a reluctance to explore. They also had fewer brain cells in the region where Lef1 is normally present. However, the missing cells make pro-melanin-concentrating hormone (Pmch), a brain signal that was not perturbed in zebrafish. By contrast, zebrafish and Drosophila fruit flies lacking their versions of Lef1 are missing cells that make corticotropin-releasing hormone binding protein (Crhbp), and these cells were unaffected in mice.

These results suggested that Lef1 could regulate anxiety through two different nerve cell signals. Support for this scenario was unexpectedly found in humans, where expression of Crhbp and Pmch are extremely closely linked in the hypothalamus, indicating they may actually be present in the same cells and together act downstream of Lef1 to regulate behavior.

"When you think about genes with a conserved function you think everything that gene does must be the same in all animals. But our study shows that that isn't necessarily true," says Dr. Dorsky, who adds that the team's workcould explain how a gene that specifies a particular behavior can adapt to accommodate changes in brain circuitry that happen over evolutionary time. "Our results suggest that during evolution, the brain can innovate different ways to get to the same outcome."

The study reveals information about specific sets of genes and the brain cells they affect as being involved in regulating anxiety. Future work will focus on determining whether these pathways may define a subset of human behavioral and mood disorders.

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Eliminating Single Gene from Brain Appears to Increase Anxiety Across Species - Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

In a forthcoming research paper from Nature Human Behavior, a group of scientists including University Psychology Prof. Brian Nosek propose to change the p-value threshold for statistical significance from 0.05 to 0.005 in order to enhance the reproducibility of data.

According to an article written by UCLA Biostatistics Prof. Frederick Dorey and published in the journal Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research, a p-value is a calculated probability that tests a null hypothesis, a statement that expresses the opposite of the hypothesis being investigated in a scientific experiment.

This value is often required to be calculated in publishable research papers that compare quantitative data between two or more experimental groups, Chemistry Asst. Prof. Rebecca Pompano said.

A p-value allows scientists to determine statistical significance the notion that an experimental result is likely attributable to a specific cause rather than mere chance of their results. Smaller p-values suggesting strong evidence against the null hypothesis likely correlate with more precise data, indicating potential reproducibility and thereby credibility of a scientific experiment.

Presently, the accepted p-value for statistical significance rests at 0.05. As such, a p-values less than 0.05 represents statistical significance. This cutoff was arbitrarily determined by British statistician and geneticist Sir Ronald Fisher in the early 1900s.

Sir Ronald Fisher proposed it in one of his articles or books, Statistics Prof. and Chair of Statistics Karen Kafadar said in an email to The Cavalier Daily. As I recall, he tossed it off as If the probability of observing our data under our hypothesis is less than 0.05, we might consider that to be statistically significant. And that 0.05 seems to have stayed with us ever since.

A recent paper by a group of researchers from numerous academic institutions including the University of Southern California, Duke University, University of Amsterdam, University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, Stanford University and the University of Virginia however, challenges the longstanding p-value of 0.05.

The lack of reproducibility of scientific studies has caused growing concern over the credibility of claims of new discoveries based on statistically significant findings, the paper, released as a preprint article on PsyArXiv last month, said. For fields where the threshold for defining significance for new discoveries is P < 0.05, we propose a change to P < 0.005. This simple step would immediately improve the reproducibility of scientific research in many fields.

This proposal seeks to encourage strength of evidence by calling probability values less than 0.005 significant and those between 0.05 and 0.005 suggestive, Nosek said in an email to The Cavalier Daily.

Current scientific literature varies in reliability between fields and research journals the primary sources of study publications. Commonly, lower-quality journals publish untrustworthy papers, as do some high-end elite journals, in which data presented may be cherry-picked by the investigator to present a case as more scientifically elegant than reality. These circumstances may be caused by a scientists lack of knowledge and proficiency in their field, or driven by an individuals desire for vocational success and economic incentive often furthered by larger numbers of publications, Biology Prof. Paul Adler said.

According to Pompano, the benefits of a stricter significance cutoff could include less false data in scientific literature. A lowered threshold could also reduce p-hacking, Asst. Biology Prof. Alan Bergland said.

In p-hacking, people can use websites or programs to find correlations between variables in their experiments, and this allows them to contort their results to fit their desired narrative, Bergland said. You can plot different variables against each other and come across correlations that are completely nonsense, but related. P-hacking would still be possible even if the threshold was lowered to 0.005, but certainly harder.

While the change in p-value may, by some extent, increase the reproducibility of data, researchers worry it could also inhibit scientific progress. A p-value of 0.005 is difficult to obtain when working with smaller sample sizes, which is often the case in pilot studies, human clinical trials and for ethical reasons when experimenting with live mammalian specimen, Pompano said. Ultimately, according to Adler, lowering the p-value would increase expenses, time needed to conduct experiments and false negatives results that incorrectly demonstrate absence of a particular condition within data.

Additionally, although a p-value can determine statistical significance, it is unable to predict the applicability of experimental data to human life.

It cannot tell you if the model for your data is right, or if your sample is representative of the population, or the probability that your hypothesis is true, Kafadar said. It can only tell you how consistent are your data with your hypothesis, assuming both that the sample is representative of the population and the model you are using is correct. If neither of those assumptions is true, the p-value may be misleading.

Due to such limits of the p-value, Adler and Pompano believe errors in experimental design the setup of a procedure undertaken to test a hypothesis are a more immediate source of defects in scientific validity. Both professors said a p-value change is unnecessary.

Essentially, you cant just look at a p-value and decide if the results are reproducible. You have to look at the question being asked and if the experimental design that was being performed actually allows you to answer that question at all, Pompano said. And then, does the data support the answer that the author has concluded? I think the p-value alone is one small piece of assessing the conclusion of the experiment.

In other fields examining non-binary hypotheses, such as experimental physics, a p-value is rarely utilized and therefore unrelated to reproducibility errors. Rather, systematic uncertainties like varying machinery usage and ill-defined experimental design play larger roles in empirical blunders.

According to Physics Prof. Blaine Norum, reproducibility errors often encountered in physics are due to differing equipment types and apparatus setup from lab to lab.

The question is not a statistical question, but a question of systematic uncertainties that is, machinery or experimental design which are not addressed by a p-value, Norum said. How equipment is set up, how one configures it to get measurements varies between people, leading to reproducibility errors from lab to lab. A p-value is a statistically derived quantity, and it doesnt address those issues.

Researchers have expressed that inconsistencies within published scientific data stem from flaws within the career structures of science, more specifically defined as an unstable job market and the immensely difficult nature of discovery, rather than statistical analyses.

In the structure of science, at least American science, a lot of the research is done by graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, so the only way for a faculty member to be successful and keep getting papers and grants is to have lots of people working for them theres a selective advantage to that, Adler said. But that only fuels the oversupply of scientists, meaning you have too many people chasing too few grant awards and people publishing less reliable data just for the sake of publishing a paper. And these problems are much more serious than the p-value.

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Researchers propose p-value change from 0.05 to 0.005 - University of Virginia The Cavalier Daily

If it seemed like coastal flooding associated with king tides has been getting particularly worse in recent years, that is because it has, according to a new study by University of Florida scientists.

Essentially, a combination of weather factors and shifting atmospheric pressure pushed water up along the Atlantic coast south of Cape Hatteras, N.C., in what the authors call a sea-level rise hot spot.

King tides already cause regular incursions of seawater into many coastal communities, where continued (sea-level rise) is increasing the frequency of this so-called nuisance flooding, which may be further amplified by short-lived (sea-level rise) hot spots, the authors conclude in journal Geophysical Research Letters. We have demonstrated that (sea-level rise) hot spot anomalies are a recurring feature along the U.S. eastern seaboard related to the combined cumulative effects of (El Nio-Southern Oscillation) and (North Atlantic Oscillation) forcing.

The authors revealed they believe the cause of this sort of sea-level rise was similarly responsible for accelerated sea-level rise detected along the coast running from Massachusetts to North Carolina, something previously attributed to a slowing of a major Atlantic Ocean current.

This distinction is critical to the projection of (sea-level rise) along this heavily populated coastline and defines a new benchmark for ocean dynamic models to capture such a pattern of regional (sea-level rise) variability, the authors noted.

Meanwhile, a major federal climate change report receiving greater attention in recent weeks illustrates more clearly what researchers believe to be the factors driving long-term sea-level rise, along with other results from the effects of human behavior on the planet.

The last few years have also seen record-breaking, climate-related weather extremes, the three warmest years on record for the globe and continued decline in arctic sea ice, according to the Climate Science Special Report, a collaboration of 53 people across 13 agencies. These trends are expected to continue in the future over climate (multidecadal) timescales. Significant advances have also been made in our understanding of extreme weather events and how they relate to increasing global temperatures and associated climate changes.

Since 1980, the cost of extreme events for the United States has exceeded $1.1 trillion, therefore better understanding of the frequency and severity of these events in the context of a changing climate is warranted.

The report is part of the National Climate Assessment, something meant to take place every four years, but the NCA has only published three times in the 27 years since Congress passed the law creating it. And instructions on how to interpret the data into policy implementation will be a little more difficult, as Sunday the Trump administration disbanded the advisory committee tasked with that job.

Further, last week President Donald Trump signed an executive order reversing an Obama administration requirement that construction projects in coastal floodplains that receive federal dollars have to take into account sea-level rise and resulting flooding projections.

As predictions both get clearer and more dire from climate scientists, work is beginning to go into what might happen by the centurys end. Using a sea-level rise estimate of nearly six feet, Mathew Hauer leader of the University of Georgia Institute of Governments Applied Demography Program published a piece in the journal Nature Climate Change in April in which he estimates 13.1 million people in the United States could have to permanently move further inland.

Relationships between environmental stressors and migration are highly complex as press and pulse events trigger migration responses that range from short-distance temporary migration to permanent long-distance migration; some will move and others will not, Hauer wrote. (Sea-level rise) is unique among environmental stressors as the conversion of habitable land to uninhabitable water is expected to lead to widespread human migration without the deployment of costly protective infrastructure.

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New light cast on sea level, climate threats - Brunswick News

Care Bears.

(Image: ABC)

In this time of increased hate and intolerance, many parents are no doubt eager to teach their children to become generous, caring human beings. So they share with them stories about altruistic behavior, usually featuring talking animals or other fantastic creatures.

Newly published research reports such tales, however adorable, are surprisingly ineffective.

"Contrary to the common belief, realistic stories, not anthropomorphic ones, are better for promoting young children's pro-social behavior," reports a research team led by Patricia Ganea of the University of Toronto.

She notes that, in this first-of-its-kind study, four to six-year-olds "were more likely to act on the moral of a story when it featured human behavior."

Turns out those tykes are more literal than we realized.

The study, published in the journal Developmental Science, featured 96 children, who began by "choosing 10 stickers to take home for agreeing to participate." They were also told that another child of their own gender was not chosen and thus would not get any stickers. If they wished, they could share some of theirs by placing them in an envelope.

They were then randomly assigned to read one of three books. One-third read Little Raccoon Learns to Share by Mary Packard, which uses anthropomorphic animals to express the idea that "sharing makes you feel good." Another third read an identical story, except the illustrations of the animal characters were replaced with images of humans. The final third read a book about seeds that did not address the concept of sharing.

After answering questions about their view of the characters, they chose another 10 stickers as a thank-you gift, and were again given the opportunity to donate one or more to another child.

"After hearing the story containing real human characters, young children became more generous," the researchers report. "In contrast, after hearing the same story but with anthropomorphized animals, children became more selfish."

The researchersNicole Larsen, Kang Lee, and Ganeaare quick to note that generosity also declined in the group that read about seeds. In both cases, this seems to reflect a reluctance to give a second time. The animal-centric story didn't induce selfishness, but it didn't block it either.

Further analysis revealed that "children who could relate these characters to humans and human behaviors were able to act according to the moral of the story." But perhaps surprisingly, "children overall attributed animal characteristics to anthropomorphized characters far more often than they attributed human characteristics to the same characters."

So the fanciful creatures caught their attention, but they didn't truly relate to them, and thus didn't emulate their behavior. That may change if parents who read the story to or with the child point out the parallels; future research will explore that possibility.

For now, however, these results have a clear moral: "For children at a very young age, fantastical stories may not be as effective for teaching real-world knowledge, or real-life social behaviors, as realistic ones."

They're cute and all, but it's unlikely the Care Bearscreate much caring.

More:
Anthropomorphized Animals Fail to Teach Altruism - Pacific Standard

Over the past several months, psychologist and Australian media personality Toby Green has been preparing to launch her new website, blog and podcasts. Toby Green The 60SecondShrink is providing her signature brand of Karate Chop Therapy to the Internet.

When I came home from Australia, I decided to be semi-retired. I still have the occasional client, but I really wanted to do something that reached a larger audience. Ms. Green said in our recent conversation, I decided to use my 40 years of experience regarding relationships in Australia and translate these experiences to an American audience. Who knows? Maybe Ill even get another book out of it.

Toby is the author of several books written for the Australian market, and is working with her agent, Linda Langton, of Langtons International Agency to develop another book geared towards American relationship needs. Meanwhile, she has been recording a series of weekly podcasts that will appear on her YOUTube , Facebook and Vimeo Channels, as well as her own website.

I want to reach a large audience. People today need answers, but they arent always able to get to a full time therapist. With my blogs, and podcasts, I can answer some questions and steer them in the right direction. Its by no means a comprehensive answer, but it opens the door for dialog.

Why Call it Karate Chop therapy?

Because its quick, in-and-out, direct and to the point. Ms. Green explained. Sometimes you need fast guidance to issues and Karate Chop Therapy provides that!

What types of topics do you cover?

Human behavior, Im on it. It has always been my greatest area of interest

Who is your target audience?

Anyone asking why or how I can make my interactions better, - husband ,wife, boyfriends, girlfriends, bosses employees, in-laws, parents and even neighbors.

Will you answer questions on your site and in the podcasts?

Yes, I hope readers and listeners will submit their questions through subscribing to YouTube and leaving a comment, or via the contact form on my website, http://60secondshrink.com/ . I may not be able to answer each question individually, however, they may form the basis of a new podcast or blog entry. Ms. Green replied, I supplement each podcast topic with a more extensive blog entry.

You have a FB presence as well, Are you going to be open to questions there, and how can people reach you with their queries?

Private message me on the page. I may not be able to get back to you personally, but check the podcasts and blogs for answers.

What types of psychology theories do you espouse the most? Who are your influences?

ACT or Accountability and Commitment Therapy. This therapy is little known in the US but quite popular in Australia. I feel that its a good fit for Americans too. I am studying Mindfulness and will use it as well in the podcasts and blogs. ACT and Mindfulness together can help you maintain contact in the present moment rather than drifting off.

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) helps individuals live and behave in ways consistent with personal values while developing psychological flexibility. ACT works to address the tendency of some to view individuals who seek therapy as damaged or flawed and aims to help people realize the fullness and vitality of life. This fullness includes a wide spectrum of human experience, including the pain inevitably accompanying some situations. Mindfulness can be described as maintaining contact with the present moment rather than drifting off into automatic pilot. Mindfulness allows an individual to connect with the observing self, the part that is aware of but separate from the thinking self. Mindfulness techniques often help people increase awareness of each of the five senses as well as of their thoughts and emotions. ACT does not attempt to directly change or stop unwanted thoughts or feelings but instead encourages people to develop a new and compassionate relationship with those experiences.

Why did you decide on doing podcasts in addition to writing blog entries and answering questions?

Ms. Green smiled, In order to reach anyone and everyone. To counter crappy psychobabble. Bad therapy isnt neutral, its bad. Its my cause to get good therapy out there and to negate the bad.

Toby Green is the 60SecondShrink. Come and see her podcasts on YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook and read her insights at http://60secondshrink.com. Youll be thrilled you did.

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Don't Let An Eclipse Sabotage Your Relationships! Ask Toby Green, The 60SecondShrink for Answers. - HuffPost

Centuries ago, celestial events such as eclipses evoked deep superstition.

And they still do for some people,as a Christian radio host claimed that Mondays total eclipse of the sun may be a message from God.

Bryan Fischer, host of a Christian radio show called Focal Point, posted on Facebook that the Bible states the sun and moon serve as signs.

Then, he attempted to interpret those signs like a fortune teller.

This is a metaphor, or a sign, of the work of the Prince of Darkness in obscuring the light of Gods truth, he wrote, adding, Satan, and those who unwittingly serve as his accomplices by resisting the public acknowledgement of God and seeking to repress the expression of Christian faith in our land, are bringing on us a dark night of the national soul.

Fischer,whose radio show claims to bethe home of muscular Christianity, called on his followers to fight the darkness that we may return this nation to an unapologetic acknowledgement and embrace of the God of the Founders and his transcendent standard for human behavior as enshrined in the Ten Commandments.

He included a disclaimer that he did not, in fact, receive a revelation from God related to the eclipse but his post was instead an effort to ponder this sign in the heavens and speculate as to its possible spiritual implications.

Fischers attempt to paint a normal celestial event as some kind of message from God drew laughs from critics online, including the Church of Satan:

However, Fischer is not the only evangelical to interpret the eclipse as a possible warning from a deity.

Earlier this month, Anne Graham Lotz leader of AnGeL Ministries in North Carolina and daughter of famed evangelist Billy Graham also warned the eclipse could be a signal of darker things.

The celebratory nature regarding the eclipse brings to my mind the Babylonian King Belshazzar who threw a drunken feast the night the Medes and Persians crept under the city gate. While Belshazzar and his friends partied, they were oblivious to the impending danger. Belshazzar wound up dead the next day, and the Babylonian empire was destroyed.

Lotz said she doesnt view the eclipse as celebratory as a result.

While no one can know for sure if judgment is coming on America, it does seem that God is signaling us about something, she wrote.Time will tell what that something is.

Christian Post columnist Rev. Mark H. Creech wrote that he was inclined to agree with Lotz.

Is it a sign from the heavens calling upon our nation to turn from its sins and to Christ or suffer the consequences? I dont really know, he wrote.What I do know, however, is that we would be wise to treat it as though this very well may be the case.

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Christian Radio Host Bryan Fischer: Eclipse Is A Sign Of The Work Of Satan - HuffPost