Forever Curious
Updated 17 Jan 2017
Do you want to stay forever mentally young?
Fun fact: Dolphins have connectomes similar to homosapien female brains and much more neuroplasticity=networking connections than humans. It’s why the dolphin is swimming at the top of white Shiva’s circle, as a guardian angel of love. 😍
Our goal
Empower Earthlings to become smarter and more productive members of society. A smarter and brain engaged society is great for our 3rd Rock from the Sun! 🌍
Stay forever curious while exploring BigTows' super learning linx guide!
Science provides numerous examples of senior citizens delaying neurodegenerative diseases by keeping their brain mentally fit with daily brain challenges. For example, old porch ladies routinely gossip about the local community, so their brains stay active by constantly engaging with new information.
The NY Times reported on nuns with Alzheimer’s disease genes. The scientists observed the nuns didn’t display the classic mental disorder’s neurological degeneration because they continuously kept their minds active in theology training and community involvement.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/07/us/nuns-offer-clues-to-alzheimer-s-and-aging.html
Our brains love challenges, engaging in constant constructive simulations, arguing about current events, social gatherings, and other communal activities. From a psychological perspective, brains hate work but love games.
A simple brain hack is using gaming words like challenge, game on, tease, etc instead of project, dilemma, problem, inter alia. When we change our words to positive brain gaming prose then our brains stay forever curious! 🏄
To increase neuroplasticity, use your non-dominant hand for brushing teeth and other routine activities. Keeping a journal, creating applications and websites, practicing maths, public speaking, thinking, exercising, and learning new concepts will constantly bombard the brain with stimulating activities and help delay neurological degeneration.
In the quest to keep our brains forever young, challenged and exercised, I’ve compiled a list of my favorite brain exercise challenge sites; our brains will thank us by staying healthier longer! 😁
An aside: Any app and/or website that advertises itself as 'free' means we are the products and our browsing habits are collected by Big Data miners then sold to marketers for targeted advertising.
Disclaimer: I am not paid for any of the linx below (🙌).
-Creating/Doing (Divergent Thinking apps)
Social publishing platform
https://medium.com
77 web/app design/creation tools
https://medium.com/life-learning/77-tools-to-build-a-website-or-app-without-code-cc716b9b507a
Language apps
Duolingo, Memrise, Pimsleur’s, Busuu, and FSI’s language learning programs are the most effective. Pimsleur’s language learning method spins people up the fastest, but they’re boring and expensive. I’ve used Pimsleur for Spanish, Russian, and Arabic.
FSI’s language learning software is US State Department language training material from the 1970s, free. I’ve used the FSI software for Mandarin and Spanish.
Memrise, Duolingo, and Busuu are flashcard esque crowdsourcing games. I’m learning 10 languages on Duolingo and 2 Memrise languages, Mandarin and Khmai, and Busuu Japanesa. 🏄
When my brain is hungry, it needs multiple levels of stimulation. Hungarian and Italiano are the most entertaining to sound out while Hebrew and Türkçe pronunciations are the most challenging because we, Westerners, don’t have similar sounds in the Oxford English vocabulary.
https://www.lingualift.com/blog/best-language-learning-apps/
US State Department’s Foreign Language Institute
https://www.livelingua.com/fsi-language-courses.php
Maths
Maths learning and practice challenges
ThatQuiz has multiple language options for maths practice as well as geography, language learning and sciences. One of my nerdy buddies designed the database. Check it out!
http://www.thatquiz.org/
Khan Academy, great tutorials for maths and loads of brain games!
https://www.khanacademy.org/
Crossword puzzles, sudoku, memory games, and keeping a weekly journal are also good mental exercises to keep our brains fit. If you are good at crosswords then do something else that challenges your brain.
The keys are curiosity, stimulating fun activities, and out of our comfort zone challenges.
Creating and doing are active learning activities and engage our brains most.
-Reading/Listening
Why Nikola Tesla was the greatest geek to ever live
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla
TED talks, explore your curiosity
http://www.ted.com/talks
Genetic engineering and biotechnology news
http://www.genengnews.com/gen-news-highlights
12 dozen places to educate ourselves online
http://themindunleashed.org/2014/07/12-dozen-places-educate-online-free.html
Virology=Offense
Immunology=Defense
Here’s the course I took in 2014 to learn everything about virology. Note the pre-reqs, same as getting into med school. ☺
http://biology.columbia.edu/courses/virology-2
I did the free youtube course. According to our professor, a student completing the course will know 99% more than the world in virology. ☺
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGhmZX2NKiNlKLVfVwFz8UhS720xIe6v5
I also did the graduate level immunology course from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 2011.
Immunology is Earth’s defense from RATs=Remote Access Trojans and other nefarious elements.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jshw2sHrk8Y
Basic virology for n00bes. After completing this course then you’ll know more than 99% of Earthlings about virology, fun challenge!
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF7485CA782DD71FB
Both immunology and virology, think defense vs offense, are advanced biological topics. I’d recommend a pitstop at the Khan Academy’s pre-medical school studies MCAT modules for students without experience in biochemistry, genetics, and molecular biophysics. ☺
Top university research Science news
http://www.futurity.org
http://www.mpg.de/research-news
Superhero science, physics based explanations
'If superpowers were real'
http://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJicmE8fK0EjcBM04Tz0UvUTJ3utyYD1G
Changing education paradigms
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U
Acting Man blog
Reading and watching are passive learning activities. Discuss the readings and videos with another curious party to make them active learning activities.
Everything that produces complexity starts with a KISS, a Keep It Simple Strategy. God designed the basic building blocks of life, DNA, in 4 chemicals, GC & AT couples. Cementing our knowledge like DNA’s grand design employs a KISS:
Show, Do, Teach!!!
Showing our students a puzzle allows them to retain about 10% of the information taught. Having our students Do the exercises increases learning retention to 50-70%. Then having the grasshopper become the Sensi by teaching the newly learned skill in rapid succession enables our students to keep around 95% of new skills. Then rinse and repeat and we have another smart human. 😁
For example, I Showed my buddy how to use the voice search app on her smartphone. Next, I made her Do the voice search as many times with help as needed until she could find and use the voice search command on her own. Finally, I observed her Teaching one of our other buddies how to do the same. It’s called Paying Our Experience Forward; practice Show, Do, Teach, always!
BigTows Memory Palace-ing adventures
The majority of my education I learned for "free" with an internet connection.
Formal attended Universities with certifications and/or diplomas included Daytona State College, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, Community College of the Air Force, GBSS, CCND, CompTIA’s Sec+, and my double bachelors degree from UMUC.
I was accepted into a Masters of Engineering program, Masters in Bioinformatics, and a Masters of Cybersecurity program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Maine, and UMUC respectively. I declined all 3 offers because I can learn everything for free online, and I don’t need the titles to feel self-worth. ☺
I’ve completed university level biology thru molecular biology, anatomy and physiology thru human medical physiology, 1st Aid, chemistry thru biochemistry, classical and quantum physics, maths thru Calc2, astronomy, geology, meteorology, pottery, music theory, art history, American civics, finance and capital markets, flipping the classroom, information theory, intro to cryptography, MCAT modules FC6-10, and world history via the Khan Academy. ☺
I have also done the following MOOCs:
Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Immunology
Colombia University, Virology
UCLA and Stanford University, Bioinformatics
Oxford University, Yale, and Saylor University, 8 Philosophy courses
MIT, molecular biology
NCBI’s 2014 Current Topics Genomics
I have an honorary PhD from the school of hard knocks in observation and curiosity. ☺
Got into my first bar fight as a 42 yr old, haha, and definitely got a concussion, so I am testing my memory skills. It appears my brain is still right as rain. 😍🏄
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