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Biochemistry

Family pay tribute to student who died in Derby Road crash – Nottingham Post

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The family of a 20-year-old student who died after he was hit by a car in Lenton have paid tribute to their 'fun-loving' son.

Andrew Robertson, of Berkshire, died at the scene of the crash on Derby Road at around 4.45pm last Thursday (March 30).

He was in his second year studying biochemistry at the University of Nottingham.

A statement from his family said: "He had a bright future ahead of him. He was a loving son, grandson, brother, nephew, cousin and boyfriend.

"He had many friends both at university and at home. Words cannot express how much he will be missed and we are extremely saddened by his death.

"Andrew was caring, fun-loving, sociable, supportive and very easy-going. He was a team player who always kept his word and looked out for others.

"We would appreciate privacy during this difficult time to allow us to grieve and come to terms with our loss."

Police are investigating and are appealing to anyone who might have seen anything in the area around the time of the collision, which happened between Clifton Boulevard and Priory Island.

Officers are particularly keen to speak to drivers with dashcam footage.

Hundreds of motorists were caught in gridlocked traffic after the incident occurred.

Retired Michael Fisher, who lives in Charles Avenue, said he was not surprised to hear that an incident had occurred on what he describes as a "dangerous road."

The 64-year-old told the Post: "That is sad to hear. It is a very busy road and I won't cross it without pressing the button.

"It does not surprise me at all but it is a shame."

A large section of the road was cordoned off for several hours while investigations were carried out at the scene.

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Family pay tribute to student who died in Derby Road crash - Nottingham Post

Anatomy

‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Star Kelly McCreary Discusses Filming Maggie’s … – BuddyTV (blog)

Ellen Pompeo may have made her directorial debut on Grey's Anatomy last week but it was Kelly McCreary's Maggie who took center stage in "Be Still, My Soul." The emotional hour focused on a desperate Maggie putting her mother Diane (LaTanya Richardson Jackson) on an aggressive experimental treatment in attempt to save her from inflammatory breast cancer and firing Meredith (Pompeo) as her mother's surgeon in the process. Unfortunately, Diane passed away after complications from the clinical trial. Grey's Anatomy Recap: Is Maggie Able to Save Her Mother?>>>

According to McCreary, who went through a range of emotions in the episode, she struggled with her character's tough situation. She also had to put herself in Maggie's shoes as she prepared for the inevitable tragedy.

"To prepare, I did a lot of reading about IBC and the treatments, just the way that Maggie goes through trying to find out about what other patients had experienced," she continued. "In other words, I did research in the same way that Maggie did as she was trying to figure out how to treat her mother."

Despite the devastating loss that will surely have an immense impact on Maggie's life moving forward, McCreary takes some comfort in knowing that Maggie was able to make peace with her mother before she died.

McCreary also believes that Maggie will stay true to her character even while suffering the loss of her mom. "That's who Maggie is at her core," McCreary says of Maggie's optimism. "I don't think that this is going to change that. But I do think she's going to take to heart all of that lovely advice that her mom gave her in her final moments, when she told Maggie to just live life more fully and give herself permission to be a little messy."

"Are we going to see Maggie go dark? I don't know what the future holds, but Maggie will grieve in the way that seems, from the outside, to be relatively healthy. The thing about grief is that we think of it in stages, or we've been told that it's stages, but those stages go in cycles. So when she gets to anger, or returns to anger or denial, maybe some dark stuff will come up then," she explained.

Obviously Maggie will have to lean on Meredith at this very difficult time and hopefully what they have or have gone through will be stronger than the outcome of the whole Nathan situation.

"Maggie's mom has died now. So, the question of whether Meredith should have told her becomes less about the fact that they are together and Maggie wants him. It's less about the fact that Meredith took something that Maggie wanted, and more about ... something else. ... It's not about Meredith taking the boy Maggie had a crush on. Maggie has experienced something that makes that sort of trivial at this point. I don't want to give too much away about that storyline, because it is one of the major questions left to be answered this season," she told TV Guide.

"I think that it will definitely bring her closer to Meredith -- and Amelia, too, with the loss of her father. Even though the circumstances are completely different, they share something that they didn't share before, and it'll bring a new level of understanding and closeness, I think, to those relationships," she added.

(Image courtesy of ABC)

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'Grey's Anatomy' Star Kelly McCreary Discusses Filming Maggie's ... - BuddyTV (blog)

Anatomy

16 Reasons Why ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Needs a Romance Between Two Men – Wetpaint

Youd be hard-pressed to find a show more inclusive of Greys Anatomy did you see those docs wearing hijabs last week? but it still comes up short in one regard.

There are no major male characters who are into other men.

Its time that changed, and we have 16 reasons why.

Greys Anatomy Season 13 airs on Thursdays at 8 p.m ET on ABC.

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None of the shows 13 seasons so far has featured a major gay male character, so this inclusion seems long overdue.

Characters like Callie, Arizona, Eliza, Penny, Erica, and Sadie have paved the way and countless Calzona shippers prove how well these same-sex storylines can work.

Just this season, for example, two male fiancs arrived at the hospital after a turkey fryer accident. (Culinary foolishness knows no sexual orientation, apparently.)

As Marketplace reports, the show has cashed in on the Netflix effect. That is to say, young viewers who were too young to be aware of Greys when it premiered in 2005 have discovered the shows past seasons on Netflix and have caught up to its live airings.

When a fan asked the Greys Anatomy creator Why all the gay and lesbian storylines? in 2012, she wrote a lengthy response.

I believe everyone should get to see themselves reflected on TV, she said.

As long as someone feels like it is okay to ask the question Why all the gay people on your shows, then there is still a huge problem that needs to be solved.

Gay and bisexual men play prominently in Scandal, How to Get Away With Murder, and The Catch.

In her capstone project, American University student Annie Kanter quoted a 23-year-old Greys fan singing its praises:

With Greys Anatomy, when there were lesbians, it was always like, Oh my god, there are lesbians on this show! People were threatening to stop watching it.

Now it has totally passed that. Now it is more of This is the gay couple on the show and eventually it will hopefully move to This is just another couple.

Gay men have been conspicuous by their absence, at least among the doctors, wrote one viewer.

Oh sure, theyll often have a gay male patient, whose partner will be allowed to give him an affectionate peck now and again. But gay male doctors ripping their clothes off and jumping on each other in the medical supply room? Nary a sign.

Just look at the reaction from right-wing site Newsbusters to the lesbian teen romance in Greys Anatomys Season 12 premiere:

Apparently the episode was titled Sledgehammer to indicate that they are going to beat us over the head with the same liberal themes all season long, the site wrote.

In its most recent Network Responsibility Index, GLAAD gave ABC a good rating, especially because the network had the highest volume of LGBT-inclusive content that year. That said...

Former Greys star Sara Ramirez has called out two regressive moments on ABC this year a joke targeting bisexual individuals in The Real ONeals and the exclusion of overtly-bisexual figures in When We Rise.

Remember when Callies love interest Erica Hahn walked into the hospital parking lot in Season 5 and was never seen again? Thats because actress Brooke Smith had been fired amid reports ABC execs wanted to de-gay the show.

Speaking of Greys Anatomy scandals, Isaiah Washington lost his role as Preston Burke in 2007 after referring to co-star T.R. Knight as a ft, which in turn forced T.R. to publicly come out as gay.

Even a decade later, none of us have forgotten about that on-set homophobic slur, but a male-male romance would help make the painful chapter a distant memory.

According to GLAADs 2016 Where We Are on TV report, 4.8 percent of the series regular characters expected to appear on broadcast scripted primetime programming in the coming year were identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer.

However, that statistic is low when you consider that 7 percent of millennials identify as LGBT, according to a recent study.

Recurring guest star Moe Irvin, for example, has appeared in 29 episodes, more than some of the shows full-time cast members.

Why cant Nurse Tyler have a bigger role and a male beau? (After all, he is the one who came up with the nickname McSteamy even before Mark Sloan arrived.)

But for that matter...

Characters with fluid sexuality are all the rage on TV, so dont take a major characters romantic history as proof of their sexual orientation.

Any of the shows single male docs DeLuca, for example, or even Nathan could explore his placement on the Kinsey scale.

Youd be hard-pressed to find a show more inclusive of Greys Anatomy did you see those docs wearing hijabs last week? but it still comes up short in one regard.

There are no major male characters who are into other men.

Its time that changed, and we have 16 reasons why.

Greys Anatomy Season 13 airs on Thursdays at 8 p.m ET on ABC.

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16 Reasons Why 'Grey's Anatomy' Needs a Romance Between Two Men - Wetpaint

Anatomy

The anatomy of a Street Fighter Eurogamer.net – Eurogamer.net

Capcom reveals the 20-year-old guide it still uses today.

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 04/04/2017

Capcom has published scans of a 20-year-old guide it still uses today when creating Street Fighter characters.

That's Demitri Maximoff from Darkstalkers on the cover.

At GDC last month, Capcom's Toshiyuki Kamei delivered a talk on the art direction of Street Fighter 5. As part of it, he discussed Anatomy: A Strange Guide for Artists, a document created 20 years ago around the time Darkstalkers was being made.

This document was edited by legendary Capcom artist Akira "Akiman" Yasuda, who intended for it to help teach the company's artists the rules of exaggerated anatomical features to be followed when making cool-looking pixel art.

Now, Capcom has published scans of the guide on its website, and while the accompanying text is in Japanese, we still get a decent idea of what Anatomy: A Strange Guide for Artists is all about.

The cover shows Demitri from the Darkstalkers series, and inside we see figure drawings similar to the style of Andrew Loomis, the American illustrator, alongside notes.

"It explains shortcuts and rules about how we take musculature and a character's frame and make a sprite out of it," Kamei explained during his GDC talk.

"If you exaggerate this part of the musculature it looks cool, or if you make this part slimmer it can be more efficient in the visual language. There are a lot of different rules.

"Even though this is over 20 years old, having this information about what's important and not important is still used today."

Kamei revealed an example of how this guide was used in the creation of Street Fighter 5 characters.

"When you're looking at an arm from the front, the rule is the upper arm should be thinner than the lower arm," he explained. "But when looking at it from the side, that same arm should look narrow in the forearm and wider for the upper arm.

"By following this one rule you can convey a lot of information about how this character is extending their arm, whether they're doing a straight punch or an uppercut in a really short amount of time."

Capcom created a Street Fighter 5 prototype that used photo-realistic visuals and realistic proportions, but found it made the game harder to play, so it stuck with a more exaggerated style for the game.

It's really cool to see scans of Anatomy: A Strange Guide for Artists, and get a peek behind the curtain of how Capcom's fighting games are made. Credit to Akiman, then, for his early days work on establishing the rules that would help in the creation of fighting games for the next 20 years.

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The anatomy of a Street Fighter Eurogamer.net - Eurogamer.net

Neuroscience

Opinion: Neuroscience is the key to unlocking high performance – CIPD (blog)

Clive Hyland explains how understanding the workings of the triune brain will help HR develop more effective performance strategies

We spend a great deal of time and energy analysing performance, and searching for it via a vast array of claims and theories. Within this complexity, we are in danger of missing the point: there are certain fundamental principles we should keep sight of to re-establish some much-needed simplicity in this debate. A great starting point is to understand the triune brain.

The triune brain

This model represents the important distinctions between the three evolutionary stages of human brain development. These layers are the basal region (the reptilian brain) sitting at the base, just above the brainstem; the limbic system (the mammalian brain) located in the middle; and the cortex, which comprises the outer layer at the top and sides of the brain. All three regions play an important role in establishing our behavioural responses and performance, but treating them as broadly the same thing misses a huge opportunity to unlock our potential.

The contribution of each layer is significantly different. The basal region is the realm of our instincts, where we respond instantaneously to external stimuli without analysis and reflection. In instinctive mode, we react quickly and decisively.

The limbic region is all about emotional and energetic connection. Our limbic systems were our main machinery for interpersonal connection and communication long before we had language and sophisticated thinking ability. This capacity to connect energetically remains with us today and is the key to sensations such as fear or trust, anger or peace, anxiety or gravitas.

And then, in evolutionary terms, came the cortex, the thinking region, where we learned to become rational, reflect, plan and imagine competencies that set us apart from other species.

A performance strategy

The point here is that any human performance strategy whether individual, team or organisational needs to draw the best from each of these brain regions if it is to unlock our true potential. In practical terms, this means:

Having the right machinery in place

Ensuring appropriate relationships are sustained, and

Most crucially, working to establish a believable vision

The machinery

Machinery here means things such as plans, analysis, tactics, operating structures, roles and responsibilities. The goal of the cortex is to seek out clarity, and it will set down in the neural pathways of our brains precise rules of engagement. But, as we sometimes learn to our cost, being clear about what to do is not always the same as doing it. As we enter the arena of public performance we face emotional demands that are more than capable of swamping our rational thoughts.

Relationships

A performance strategy therefore needs to build and sustain relationships based on trust, where we feel able to perform with the support of our colleagues. In a place of trust our limbic system will trigger hormonal responses that are vital to effective motivation, concentration and team engagement. Perceived threat will cause our bodies and minds to close down and focus only on personal survival, where we remain tuned in to fear and blocked to free-flowing performance.

A believable vision

Having created clarity and trust, the crucial third step is establishing a vision that depicts an environment where we feel we belong. If we perceive an environment (whether an external one, or an internally imagined one) where our instincts tell us we can thrive, we will be focused and confident.

The essence here is belief. Belief sits at a deep place within us an inner state known as physiological entrainment where our brain, heart and gut energetically synchronise to become one united force. When we have belief, our energy is calm and our attention targeted; we can visualise success, there is no fuss and no distraction just a job we know we are equipped to perform.

Collective organisational confidence is a hugely significant goal. By understanding the inner dynamics of the different brain regions, we are making a significant step in transforming the elusive into the understandable and the actionable.

Clive Hyland is a people adviser at The Happiness Index and author of The Neuro Edge, which will be published in April

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Opinion: Neuroscience is the key to unlocking high performance - CIPD (blog)

Embryology

Unclear whether acupuncture helps fertility | IOL – Independent Online

There is insufficient evidence to say whether acupuncture helps women conceive when undergoing fertility treatments, British researchers told a conference.

A review of 13 studies showed there was not enough evidence to say acupuncture boosts pregnancy rates during in vitro fertilisation treatments, said Sesh Sunkara, a researcher at Guy's Hospital in London.

"The current available evidence is not conclusive," she told reporters at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology meeting.

Her analysis included nearly 2 500 women who received acupuncture in hopes of boosting their chance of pregnancy after in vitro fertilisation - the procedure known as test-tube baby treatment.

Sunkara said several studies suggested that women who used acupuncture were less tired and needed fewer painkillers after in vitro fertilisation but her review focused only on pregnancy rates.

Acupuncture is based on Chinese theories of energy flow through the body, or qi, and has been scientifically shown to work to help patients with nausea caused by anaesthetics during surgery or caused by chemotherapy or to relieve dental pain.

It involves inserting thin needles into specific body points.

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Unclear whether acupuncture helps fertility | IOL - Independent Online

Embryology

Bureau County Ag Fair marks 23 years – Agri News

PRINCETON, Ill. If it aint broke, dont fix it, the old saying goes.

Some might argue that change is good, but organizers of the Bureau County Ag Fair, now in its 23rd year, have stuck with what works to educate county fourth-grade students on farming and agriculture.

What were doing is a lot of demonstrations and hands-on stuff, and it seems like fourth-grade students are really into that, they are really interested, said Chuck Read, a Bureau County farmer who was volunteering at the station on corn.

Read has been volunteering at the fair for as long as the event, organized by the Bureau County Farm Bureau Womens Committee, has been presented.

It seems like its a wonderful age to teach them about agriculture, which is getting lost in our culture because there are fewer and fewer of us, he said.

375 Visitors

This year, 375 students from 20 fourth-grade classrooms across the county participated in the Ag Fair.

The presenters at the corn station took turns talking about different types of corn and their uses. They held up bags of corn chips, crayons, corn starch and other products made from corn byproducts.

Corn can be broken down into a lot of products in a couple different ways, the starch, the oil and the syrup. Corn syrup is used in a lot of products, the starches are used to thicken products and weve got corn oil, which is used as a cooking oil, Read said.

Its a combination of hands-on activities and connecting students to agricultural products they use and see every day that has stood the test of time.

There are a couple that play games, theres one station where they watch a video of pigs, theyre making butter at one station and they get their hand milked at the dairy station to see how that feels. They get to hold a chick, they get to pet a horse and a cow and a baby goat and a lamb. Theres always something we try to do thats interactive, said Jill Frueh, the Bureau County Farm Bureau manager.

The format features 13 stations, each on a different farm-related topic, from ag technology to embryology, to ag equipment and live animals and crop production. Presenters have seven minutes to talk to students, and then students have a minute to switch to the next station.

The fair is an effort of 75 volunteers long with agribusinesses and groups throughout the county.

Frueh said the length of the sessions holds students attention.

We thought about changing it and making the sessions longer because people say thats not very long, but the good thing is you have their attention. For seven minutes, you have their attention, Frueh said.

Ags Story

For Rob Sharkey, who farms near Bradford, talking to students about the crops they see, but may not know about, is important.

Im really glad they have a station on corn and one on soybeans because those are probably the most interaction a lot of these kids will have with agriculture in this area. They need to know what that is. They need to know what a GMO is, he said.

The event has become a generational event for both the students attending and the presenters.

Sharkey started presenting on embryology, using live baby chicks to talk about eggs and egg products, when William Sharkey was doing an embryology project for 4-H.

William, now a senior, will graduate in May and attend Northern Ohio University. His younger sister, Anita, and younger brother, Eian, are on deck to take over the presentation.

I havent done much here. I did the first one, and the kids said weve got it from here, Rob Sharkey said.

Fruehs husband, Jared, and daughter, Payton, also volunteer. Payton, 8, was a volunteer presenter with her moms horse, Lilly, at the equine station, and Jared is a volunteer presenter at the pork station. Son Parker wasnt at the fair, but Frueh said he likely will be in a few years.

For Frueh, seeing students who went through the program as fourth-graders return as presenters is satisfying.

The last couple of years, weve incorporated 4-H and FFA members to come and teach because kids learn better from other kids, I think. Weve done that for so long now that students who went through the Ag Fair as fourth-graders are able to volunteer and teach the kids who are coming through now, she said.

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Bureau County Ag Fair marks 23 years - Agri News

Anatomy

Hijabis finally appeared in Grey’s Anatomy … and the internet loved it – StepFeed

Everybody is talking about the latest episode of Grey's Anatomy ... and for the first time it's not because of the emotional drama.

In episode 18 (season 13) - not one, but two hijabis made an appearance on the show, playing the roles of doctors and nurses.

The episode "Be Still, My Soul"was directed by the show's very own Ellen Pompeo (Meredith). She revealed on Twitter that it was very intentionalon her part to have hijabi representation on screen.

As if we needed another reason to love the show.

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Hijabis finally appeared in Grey's Anatomy ... and the internet loved it - StepFeed

Anatomy

Anatomy of an upset – CT Post

Photo: Ron Jenkins / Getty Images

Mississippi States Teaira McCowan, right, blocks UConns Gabby Williams during the second half of the national semifinals in Dallas Friday.

Mississippi States Teaira McCowan, right, blocks UConns Gabby Williams during the second half of the national semifinals in Dallas Friday.

Mississippi States Morgan William (2) shoots her game-winning shot at the buzzer over UConns Gabby Williams (15) on Friday night in Dallas. Mississippi State upset No. 1 UConn 66-64 in overtime.

Mississippi States Morgan William (2) shoots her game-winning shot at the buzzer over UConns Gabby Williams (15) on Friday night in Dallas. Mississippi State upset No. 1 UConn 66-64 in overtime.

DALLAS UConns stay at the top is over.

For the first time since 2012, there will a new champion in womens college basketball. Mississippi State made that clear after shocking the sport with a 66-64 takedown of the Huskies in overtime on Friday at the Final Four.

We had to redeem ourselves from last year, of course, said Bulldogs guard Morgan William, whose buzzer-beating jump shot erased the sting of a 60-point loss to the Huskies in last years Sweet 16. I mean, just watching film, our coaches just preparing us, tell us what we can do. We believed them. We just went out there and fought.

Theres still plenty to digest after UConns record 111-game winning streak came to a close. Here are five factors that enabled the Bulldogs to pull off a win that almost nobody thought was possible.

THE MAGIC LIVES ON: What were the odds of William topping her magical 41-point performance in Mississippi States Elite Eight upset of Baylor? Slim to none, it seemed.

Nevertheless, William topped one of the best individual performances in tournament history by making possibly the biggest shot in tournament history. All UConn coach Geno Auriemma could do was smile.

Things happen for a reason, Auriemma said. I just kind of shook my head. This kids had an incredible run.

When it went in, it was almost like, Of course. Of course its going to go in. Shes had an amazing run so far.

POOR CLOCK MANAGEMENT: UConn conceivably couldve held the ball for the last shot of overtime after Katie Lou Samuelson knocked down two free throws to tie it 64-64 with 26.6 seconds left. But rather than bleed down the 25-second shot clock, Saniya Chong drove into the lane and put up an off-balance shot with 14.2 seconds left that missed the rim entirely and sailed out of bounds.

The worst-case scenario for the Huskies shouldve been double overtime.

Saniya just tried to make a great play. God bless her, Auriemma said. There was a collision and nothing happened. Shes pretty good at drawing fouls. (She was) just impatient a little bit, thats all.

EDGE ON THE BOARDS: By taking advantage of UConns undersized frontcourt, the Bulldogs exploited one of their opponents few weaknesses. The Bulldogs finished with a 37-31 edge on the boards and 28-20 advantage on points in the paint.

Teaira McCowan, a 6-foot-7 sophomore, was quietly effective, notching 10 points and eight rebounds despite playing just 25 minutes because of foul trouble.

I guess with us, we kind of knew going in we had to impose our will, as coach said, said 6-1 forward Breanna Richardson, whose team also out-scored UConn 18-4 on second-chance points. He said even if we get a couple early fouls, make them count.

RIDING THE WAVES: While plenty was made of the 14-0 Mississippi State run that put the tournaments No. 1 overall seed down 16 points midway into the second quarter, the Bulldogs response to the 9-0 UConn spurt that followed was just as important.

Refusing to be bullied by the Huskies, the Bulldogs pushed their lead back to eight points at halftime. The Huskies hadnt trailed by more than four points at halftime at any point during their incredible win streak.

We knew they were going to make a run, Mississippi State coach Vic Schaefer said. So what you got to do is try to minimize that run. You go in at half up eight. Im sure everybody across the country went, Thats nice, the little team played really good. Second half, theyll come out and kick their (butt).

HEART OF A CHAMPION: How many times have teams had that deer-in-the-headlights look against big, bad UConn? How many times have we seen upset-minded opponents melt down under pressure?

The Bulldogs werent intimidated by UConn, and it showed.

In that moment, they were ready for that moment, Schaefer said.

dbonjour@ctpost.com; @DougBonjour

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Anatomy of an upset - CT Post

Neuroscience

Neuroscience: This Is How Meditation Changes Your Brain for the Better – Inc.com

Unless you've been living in a cave the last few years, someone has no doubt recommended meditation to you. With top entrepreneurs swearing by the practice and a parade of articles suggesting mindfulness for everything from stress reduction to better concentration, meditation is undeniably hot.

Is it also science-backed? With its religious origins, spiritual cast, and mysterious mechanisms, to the skeptically minded meditation can appear like just another dubious self-help craze.

But if you're not the type to spend time aligning your chakras or harmonizing your aura, be aware that meditation doesn't need spirituality to sell itself (though, of course, that's a fine reason to start a practice if you're so inclined). A huge body of research has found that meditation has very real effects on your brain.

The many benefits of meditation, in other words, are thoroughly backed by science and can be seen plain as day on a brain scan, a fact Buffer writer Belle Beth Cooper delved into in depth on the startup's blog. Her complete post is well worth checking out if you want a deep dive into how meditation physically alters your brain, but here are a few highlights.

Meditation has been shown to measurably reduce anxiety. How does it accomplish that? Cooper explains:

There's a section of our brains that's sometimes called the Me Center (it's technically the medial prefrontal cortex). This is the part that processes information relating to ourselves and our experiences. Normally the neural pathways from the bodily sensation and fear centers of the brain to the Me Center are really strong. When you experience a scary or upsetting sensation, it triggers a strong reaction in your Me Center, making you feel scared and under attack.

When we meditate, we weaken this neural connection. This means that we don't react as strongly to sensations that might have once lit up our Me Centers. As we weaken this connection, we simultaneously strengthen the connection between what's known as our Assessment Center (the part of our brains known for reasoning) and our bodily sensation and fear centers. So when we experience scary or upsetting sensations, we can more easily look at them rationally.

Another benefit of meditation is improved memory recall. It turns out this might be a side effect of another positive effect of mindfulness--better concentration and focus.

Researcher Catherine Kerr "found that people who practiced mindful meditation were able to adjust the brain wave that screens out distractions and increase their productivity more quickly that those who did not meditate. She said that this ability to ignore distractions could explain 'their superior ability to rapidly remember and incorporate new facts,'" writes Cooper.

These changes are only the tip of the iceberg, however. Specific types of mediation have been shown to increase creativity, for instance, while a mindfulness practice can also help turn back on the clock on aging brains. Get all the details in Cooper's post.

If all this has convinced you that meditation is less self-help fad and more ultimate life hack, how do you get started? It's less difficult than you probably imagine. As Cooper points out, there are tons of apps like Headspace to help, and you only need a few minutes of meditation every day to reap rewards.

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Neuroscience: This Is How Meditation Changes Your Brain for the Better - Inc.com