How Humans and Machines follow Negida Law II - Issue #4

From the Neurosurgical Operation Room

In the past few weeks, I was very happy because every Sunday and Tuesday when I join neurosurgical operations with my supervisor (Prof. Ahmed A. Hegazy, from Kasr Alainy, Cairo University) and his team, I was aware of the tumors, neurosurgical approaches, and the anatomy that we are confronting. I enjoyed Neurosurgery so much and I find it very interesting and exciting specialty for me.

However, yesterday (Tuesday 2/3) was not a good day for me. The team operated a case of large cavernous sinus meningioma. The tumor originated from inside to outside and messed up the brain microanatomy. For the first time in weeks, I felt disappointed in myself and I realized I need to study hard for the microanatomy part and also I need to join many operations as much as I can. Neurosurgery is like many other surgical areas in medicine where the learning curve is very steep in the beginning.

New things that I found on the internet

Mashable is a global, multi-platform media and entertainment company.

Interesting Article I read this week

I came across an interesting article discussing where and how empathy lives in our brains. They discuss the findings of a study that showed that we, humans, have neurons in our heads that encode for someone else’s idea of reality, rather than what’s actually true or real. This holds rather unnerving implications, in that the neurons solely reflect someone else’s specific perspective—your perspective, or the truth, doesn’t come into play.

For the first time, the scientists identified a special group of cells that lets us acknowledge and predict someone else’s hidden beliefs.

COVID-19

A few months ago, I wrote on my Facebook profile that the J&J vaccine will be a better choice for us despite being relatively late in the clinical trials process compared to Pfizer's, Moderna's, and Astrazenca's vaccines.

A recent analysis of the J&J vaccine showed it is a safe and efficacious vaccine even when given as a single shot which makes it the vaccine of choice for many countries around the world. These are the current headlines in media - I predicted the same thing 4 months ago.

F.D.A. studies show the shot strongly protects against severe illness and may reduce spread of the virus. But the drugmaker has fallen short of initial production goals.

What I'm reading read this week

I'm still listening to "How to Be a Productivity Ninja: Worry Less, Achieve More and Love What You Do", I still did not finish it yet. But I also started a top recommended book on audible called "Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones".

Best YouTube video I watched this week

Notion lacks the bidirectional links among inputs but this week I found an excellent tutorial video by Thomas Frank where he explains how to make linked databases. I started to use the same template database as Thomas Frank. You can download it from the links in his video description and on his website.

In this in-depth guide, you'll learn how to create a full-featured task and project manager inside of Notion that features a project area, recurring tasks, s...

The course I'm taking this week (week #10 in 2021)

As a professor of neuroscience and psychology and the director of the Center for Human Sleep at UC Berkeley, Matthew Walker is an expert on sleep. In this cl...

The Course I'm teaching this weekend - none

2021 winter season of my courses have ended. The next live season is scheduled for July 2021. However, all courses are now available for enrolment as recorded videos (+150 hours of training). Anyone can register and take the courses through my website here: http://academy.negida.com/

[END] ... Thank you very much!