A Special Place for Blog Lovers with a Touch of Science!

From 24-26 of May, Art Meets Science at Centro Congressi Auditorium al Duomo- Firenze. The synergy of Arts and Humanities, presented in one unique event - Extended Scientific Sessions "The Magic of the Renaissance", part of the SWS International Scientific Conferences on Arts and Humanities. The sessions are organized by the SWS International Society of Social Sciences, Humanities, and Art, with the kind support of many Universities and Academies of Sciences.

2Credit: Lauren JN Brent; A grooming chain of adult female rhesus macaques on an island off the coast of Puerto Rico

What's the link between social life and brain structure? A team of researchers is one step closer to understanding that connection for rhesus macaques.

In work published in Science Advances, the scientists found that for these nonhuman primates, the number of social connections predicted the size of key groups of neurons and other tissue in parts of the brain responsible for empathy and social decision making.

The researchers determined that in macaques with more grooming partners, the mid-superior temporal sulcus and ventral-dysgranular insula were larger. They found no such link between brain structure and other variables like social status. The research was supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

Credit: French Philosopher Roland Barthes, Paris, 9th June 1978; Gettyimages

"Am I in love? --yes, since I am waiting. The other one never waits. Sometimes I want to play the part of the one who doesn't wait; I try to busy myself elsewhere, to arrive late; but I always lose at this game. Whatever I do, I find myself there, with nothing to do, punctual, even ahead of time. The lover's fatal identity is precisely this: I am the one who waits."

Credit: Gettyimages

Western Culture holds a particular proneness to metaphysical killings. First, it was God, then the Meaning, the Self, later on, the Author, and now we are aiming at Art. However, each time a new God, Meaning, or Self has been summoned up from the old ones. It appears that such dynamics are part of our tradition and are symbolically represented by the archetype of the Phoenix, forever resurrecting, back from its ashes. If we search for the sources of these revolutionary movements in history, we could trace them back to ancient Greece's shift from mythological thinking to Philosophy, or even before that in Mesopotamian and Egyptian periodical movements from one Supreme God to another.

Credit: Gettyimages

Even with brilliant, original ideas, social innovators are often limited by funding and skills shortages when it comes to scaling up. A new Horizon Europe call is opening on May 12 2022 to set up a European Social Innovation Catalyst Fund that will help social innovators grow their ideas.

Social innovators find new ways to look at long-standing social problems.

As an example, most approaches to homelessness focus on issues like emergency accommodation, drug addiction or mental health services. It's only when a homeless person has passed through systems like these that permanent housing might be considered.