#E. T. Feigenbaum

[thosesadsuburbanghosts]

Blink Twice (2024)

[adamwatchesmovies]

Blink Twice (2024)

As a directorial debut, Blink Twice was a bold choice for Zoë Kravitz. The sense of unease you feel at the beginning doesn’t quite prepare you for how sinister the movie gets. While it doesn’t necessarily reveal anything new, it sears itself into your memory. The quality of the screenplay by Kravitz and E.T. Feigenbaum makes it clear the objective was to take real-life fears and repackage them in a “safe” box. At this, it certainly succeeds.

Cocktail waitress Frida (Naomi Ackie) and her best friend, Jess (Alia Shawkat), sneak into a party held by billionaire tech mogul Slater King (Channing Tatum). They catch King’s attention and are invited to his private island with other guests: photographer Vic (Christian Slater) and his date, Sarah (Adria Arjona), private chef Cody (Simon Rex), DJ Tom (Haley Joel Osment) and rising employee Lucas (Levon Hawke) along with Camilla (Liz Caribel), lawyer Heather (Trew Mullen) and King’s personal assistant, Stacy (Geena Davis). The days that follow are filled with sunshine, lavish accommodations, high-end meals, alcohol and hallucinogenic drugs. But how many days exactly? And why does Jess suddenly feel like there’s something very wrong about this paradise?

Blink Twice hints at something sinister on King’s island without much delay. All of the female guests are gifted these beautiful white dresses that feel a little cult-ish and a maid ominously calls Frida “Red Rabbit”. There’s a shed filled with identical gift bags that has to mean something – you have no idea what – and all of the staff are tasked with killing the island's snakes on sight – for the guests’s safety, maybe? As the days blend into each other, you start wondering if the vacationers are being fattened up for a pagan sacrifice. If they are, you’re not sure who's in on the conspiracy. King must know something – the movie starts off with him publicly admitting to some vague wrongdoings/bad behavior - but you have no firm ideas. All you have is an ominous feeling, which puts you on the same level as Frida and Jess. A part of you is desperate to know what the deal is – it’s the only way the heroines (and by association, you) will figure out who they can trust and how they can cobble together an escape.

The film works both before you find out what’s happening and after. It’s disturbing and intense, though there are a few elements that don’t quite add up or aren’t explained enough for you to fully understand. The island staff, for example. You’re not sure how to feel about them at the end of the day or where they fit within the big picture. There’s also a moment where we learn something about Slater King’s backstory and I’m not sure if we’re suddenly supposed to sympathize with him or not. It probably should’ve been omitted to keep things clear-cut. I hesitate to call Blink Twice a fantasy/an escape – it's much too horrific to be the kind of movie you’d just watch on a whim for fun – or a metaphor - it's more of an augmentation of real life - but it is, in a sense that the characters are put in this nightmarish situation that's related to, but also detached from reality and are allowed the opportunity to escape from it while you watch from a safe distance.

It turns out, Slater King and his buddies have lured these women to torment and rape them every night. It’s not that simple, however. The drugs the women consume erase all memories of the assaults so their captors can do whatever they want to them and get away with it. The next morning, the men pretend like they’re all best friends and the cycle repeats itself. We never find out how long everyone's been on the island. After some snake venom cures Frida from her amnesia, the movie turns into another kind of thriller. She has to feign ignorance to avoid arousing suspicion while her traumatic memories come flooding back. There’s something particularly unsettling about the brief flashbacks and the knowledge that this happens over and over.

At one point, Slater comments that Lucas must have a special place in Hell reserved for him for what he’s done. This, and the cross around his neck hint that he's Christian but he admits that he doesn't believe in forgiving, only in forgetting. That is ironic on several levels then, since one of the pillars of Christianity is forgiveness/absolution and the scene where we get the clearest look at the necklace is from Frida's memory of an assault. There’s something there to think about, particularly when we consider the ending and the reasoning for it.

I “enjoyed” Blink Twice because it succeeds at what it seeks to do and because of the skills on display. It’s nerve-wracking and contains the kind of images you wish you could shake away but just can’t. You’re intrigued by its mysteries and once its questions start getting answered, your attention doesn’t drop one bit. It’s not a fun movie and there are a few details that still have me scratching my head but as a directorial debut, it says a lot about Kravitz as a writer and filmmaker. I’m eager to see what she has in store for us next, whether it’s another horror story or some other genre. (March 21, 2025)

[treinacertoquedacerto]

Treinamento de hipertrofia

O problema com a maioria dos treinos se resume em treinar muito com pouca ou nenhuma qualidade. Para solucionar esse problema propomos preocupar-se mais com o “como” fazer, do que com o “quanto” fazer. Esta preocupação qualitativa acaba por reduzir a importância de alguns fatores que antes eram supervalorizados como a quantidade de horas que se passa na academia e a quantidade de peso que se levanta em um exercício. Também deve ser considerado um dos principais fatores que levam as pessoas à não praticar atividades físicas: a falta de tempo. Se levarmos em conta que treinos extensos são menos eficientes, parece contraditório que muitas pessoas insistam em treinos excessivamente longos, passando horas nas academias, tendo em vista que será mais difícil manter a assiduidade com um programa deste tipo e os resultados serão inferiores a programas melhores planejados.

É importante frisar que um dos maiores problemas na ciência do treinamento de força está em estabelecer a quantidade ideal de treino, sempre ouvimos perguntas como: “quantos exercícios devo fazer?” ou “quanto tempo devo passar na academia?”. Invariavelmente a resposta é: “depende”. Apesar de ser impossível estabelecer a série ideal para todas as pessoas em termos quantitativos e qualitativos pode-se ter certeza que o problema com o treino da maioria das pessoas é que elas simplesmente exageram na quantidade e pecam na qualidade. Atualmente os treinadores mais conscientes e estudiosos manipulam as varáveis de modo que em poucos minutos é fornecido um estímulo eficiente para que a adaptação desejada ocorra. Artigos publicados por Kraemer em 20021, Feigenbaum em 19992 e vários outros pesquisadores mostram que alunos iniciantes obtêm excelentes resultados com apenas uma série, direcionada para os principais grupamentos musculares, repetidas três vezes por semana.

A musculação possui inúmeros métodos e diversas formas de controlar as variáveis e um profissional qualificado saberá como e quando usar a estratégia correta para potencializar os resultados.

Não podemos esquecer de alertar sobre o mito de que a musculação causa lesões, diversos estudos comprovam que esta atividade é extremamente segura, para homens e mulheres de todas as idades, inclusive para pessoas idosas e frágeis (Fiatarone, 19943).

É muito comum a busca por informações em locais inadequados onde se encontra conteúdos cientificamente pobres, embasados em teorias medíocres ou mesmo no senso comum. Não será em algum website, revista ou livro de auto-ajuda que encontraremos a melhor informação, cada treino deve ser feito por um profissional especializado. Cada pessoa tem suas particularidades, que devem ser respeitadas para que haja eficiência no treinamento.

KRAEMER WJ, ADAMS K, CAFARELLI E, DUDLEY GA , DOOLY C, FEIGENBAUM MS, FLECK SJ, FRANKLIN B, FRY AC, HOFFMAN JR, NEWTON RU, POTTEIGER J, STONE MH, RATAMESS NA, TRIPLETT-McBRIDE T. American College of Sports Medicine position stand. Progression models in resistance training for healthy adults. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 41(3):678-708, 2009. ↩︎

FEIGENBAUM, MS, POLLOCK, ML. Prescription of resistance training for health and disease. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 31(1):38-45, 1999. ↩︎

FIATARONE MA, O'NEILL EF, RYAN ND, CLEMENTS KM, SOLARES GR, NELSON ME, ROBERTS SB, KEHAYIAS JJ, LIPSITZ LA, EVANS WJ. Exercise training and nutrition supplementation for physical frailty in very elderly people. N Engl J Med, 330(25):1769-1775, 1994. ↩︎

[healthcarebiz]

Identifying extreme impact in research, Clarivate Analytics uses citations to forecast Nobel Prize winners

Of 22 named researchers, first Russian Citation Laureates selected

PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 20, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Clarivate Analytics, the global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics to accelerate the pace of innovation, today announced its 2017 Citation Laureates.

Each year since 2002, analysts at Clarivate Analytics have mined millions of citations in the Web of Science to identify top-tier researchers in physiology or medicine, physics and chemistry -- fields recognized by the Nobel Prizes in science. It also names Citation Laureates in economics since the Swedish National Bank established an award in this domain, in memory of Alfred Nobel, in 1968.

Citation Laureates are scientists and economists whose publications have been cited so often by their colleagues -- and thus who have been so influential -- that they are forecast as potential recipients of the Nobel Prize in this year or in the future.

In 15 years, 43 Citation Laureates have gone on to receive Nobel honors.

A good bet for a Nobel Prize this year may be the award in Physics for the detection of gravitational waves resulting from the coalescence of black holes, something predicted by Einstein more than a century ago. The likely recipients would be Kip S. Thorne of Caltech and Rainer Weiss of MIT, who were named Clarivate Analytics Citation Laureates last year.

There are many noteworthy nominees. For the first time, Russian scientists have been named Citation Laureates. This year's cohort also includes researchers from Denmark, Germany, Greece, India, Japan, The Netherlands, South Korea and Taiwan, as well as from the UK and USA. They are listed below.

The 2017 Clarivate Analytics Citation Laureates:

PHYSIOLOGY or MEDICINE

Lewis C. Cantley

Meyer Director and Professor of Cancer Biology, Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA

For discovering the signaling pathway phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) and elucidation of its role in tumor growth

Karl J. Friston

Professor of Imaging Neuroscience and Wellcome Principal Research Fellow, Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, London, UK

For fundamental contributions to the analysis of brain imaging data, specifically through statistical parametric mapping and voxel-based morphometry

Yuan Chang

American Cancer Society Research Professor, Distinguished Professor of Pathology, and UPMC Endowed Chair in Cancer Virology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

-and-

Patrick S. Moore

Director of the Cancer Virology Program, University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society Research Professor, Distinguished Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics and the Pittsburgh Foundation Chair in Innovative Cancer Research, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

For their discovery of the Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpes virus, or human herpesvirus 8 (KSHV/HHV8)

PHYSICS

Phaedon Avouris

IBM Fellow and Group Leader for Nanometer Scale Science and Technology, Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA 

-and-

Cornelis (Cees) Dekker

Distinguished University Professor and Director of the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands, Delft, The Netherlands

-and-

Paul McEuen

John A. Newman Professor of Physical Science, Department of Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

For seminal contributions to carbon-based electronics

Mitchell J. Feigenbaum

Toyota Professor, Laboratory of Mathematical Physics, Rockefeller University, New York, NY USA 

For pioneering discoveries in nonlinear and chaotic physical systems and for identification of the Feigenbaum Constant

Rashid A. Sunyaev

Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany (since 1995), Head of the High-Energy Astrophysics Department of the Institute for Space Research, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow (in 1982 - 2002; Chief Scientist since 1992); Visiting Professor of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (since 2010), Moscow, Russia

For his profound contributions to our understanding of the universe, including its origins, galactic formation processes, disk accretion of black holes, and many other cosmological phenomena

CHEMISTRY

John E. Bercaw

Centennial Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus, Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA

-and-

Robert G. Bergman

Gerald E.K. Branch Distinguished Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA USA

-and-

Georgiy B. Shul'pin

Senior Scientific Researcher, N. N. Semenov Institute of Chemical Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

For critical contributions to C-H functionalization

Jens Norskov

Leland T. Edwards Professor in the School of Engineering and Professor of Photon Science and Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy, Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

For fundamental advances, theoretical and practical, in heterogeneous catalysis on solid surfaces

Tsutomu Miyasaka

Professor of Photoelectrochemistry and Energy Science, Faculty of Biomedical Engineering and Graduate School of Engineering, Toin University of Yokohama; group leader of national research projects funded by Japan Science Technology Agency (JST) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Yokohama, Japan 

-and-

Nam-Gyu Park

Professor, School of Chemical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, South Korea

-and-

Henry J. Snaith

Professor in Physics, Clarendon Laboratory, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

For their discovery and application of perovskite materials to achieve efficient energy conversion

ECONOMICS

Colin F. Camerer

Robert Kirby Professor of Behavioral Finance and Economics, Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, and Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience Leadership Chair, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA

-and-

George F. Loewenstein

Herbert A. Simon University Professor of Economics and Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

For pioneering research in behavioral economics and in neuroeconomics

Robert E. Hall

Robert and Carole McNeil Joint Hoover Senior Fellow and Professor of Economics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

For his analysis of worker productivity and studies of recessions and unemployment

Michael C. Jensen

Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus, Business School, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

-and-

Stewart C. Myers

Robert C. Merton (1970) Professor of Financial Economics, Emeritus, Sloan School of Management, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA

-and-

Raghuram G. Rajan

Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

For their contributions illuminating the dimensions of decisions in corporate finance

"Analysis that begins with and mainly depends on highly-cited papers, allows Clarivate Analytics to objectively identify excellence in research," said Jessica Turner, global head of the Scientific and Academic Research business at Clarivate Analytics. "It is our honor to recognize trailblazing researchers and we hope this designation is an honor for them. Our analysis faithfully reflects what their colleagues' citations have already indicated about the influence and importance of the Citation Laureates' research contributions. However, our analysis only reflects what their colleagues have already indicated about the influence and importance of the Citation Laureates' research contributions.

"This is what we do," she added, "we comprehensively record and carefully analyze scientific and academic research to provide a clear and accurate window on the world of research."

For detailed information on the methodology of this study, the Citation Laureates and their fields of research and institutional affiliations visit: http://ift.tt/2fAwgIR

Follow @Clarivate, @WebofScience and #CitationLaureate on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news on the predictions and deeper insight into their fields of research.

Clarivate Analytics Clarivate™ Analytics is the global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics to accelerate the pace of innovation. Building on a heritage going back more than a century and a half, we have built some of the most trusted brands across the innovation lifecycle, including the Web of Science™, Cortellis™, Derwent™, CompuMark™, MarkMonitor® and Techstreet™. Today, Clarivate Analytics is a new and independent company on a bold entrepreneurial mission, to help our clients radically reduce the time from new ideas to life-changing innovations. For more information, please visit clarivate.com.

Read this news on PR Newswire Asia website: Identifying extreme impact in research, Clarivate Analytics uses citations to forecast Nobel Prize winners

[treinacertoquedacerto]

Entendendo a tão famosa hipertrofia muscular

Os princípios que envolvem a hipertrofia estão em diversos elementos e poderiam ser facilmente descritos por intermédio de frases como “aquilo que não me mata me faz mais forte” do filósofo alemão Nietsche, ou os ditos populares “o que não mata, engorda” e, até mesmo, “o trabalho dignifica o homem”. Na verdade, o que todas estas frases significam é que os sistemas podem se adaptar às adversidades tornando-se mais capazes de suportar estresses similares no futuro.

Segundo o Pequeno Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, de Aurélio Buarque de Hollanda, hipertrofia é o “aumento volumétrico de um órgão ou parte do organismo, devido ao aumento volumétrico de seus componentes constitutivos”. Aplicando à nossa realidade, podemos afirmar que a hipertrofia muscular é o crescimento do músculo por intermédio do aumento do tamanho de suas fibras.

O músculo é composto basicamente de água (75%) e o principal componente orgânico é a proteína (20%). Sabendo da fundamental importância das proteínas, sua formação e manutenção adquirem um papel primordial no ganho de massa muscular. Em nosso corpo há dois processos constantes, um de construção e outro de degradação dos tecidos, chamados anabolismo e catabolismo respectivamente, e é justamente o resultado do saldo desses processos que determinará a estrutura muscular em um determinado momento. Quando há mais degradação do que construção tecidual, ocorre perda de massa muscular; quando o anabolismo supera o catabolismo, há um aumento do volume dos músculos. Este processo contínuo de construção e degradação é chamado remodelagem e ocorre de forma relativamente rápida. Alguns estudos sugerem que as proteínas contráteis dos pequenos grupamentos musculares podem ser totalmente substituídas no prazo de até duas semanas. Entretanto, para que o anabolismo supere o catabolismo, os músculos devem receber constantemente estímulos que favoreçam o aumento da massa muscular. Neste sentido, os exercícios com sobrecarga e uma dieta que forneça os nutrientes necessários devem ser realizados continuamente.

Da mesma forma que o treinamento de força pode causar hipertrofia, a falta dele leva a perda de massa muscular. O nosso organismo sempre fará o possível para gastar menos energia, então se o corpo detectar que não precisa de um músculo mais desenvolvido, que consequentemente gasta mais energia, ocorrerá a perda de massa muscular até o ponto em que manteremos apenas a quantidade de músculo necessária para as atividades que realizamos. Tendo em vista que as atividades modernas têm uma reduzida exigência neuromuscular, é praticamente inevitável que isso ocorra.

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FAIGENBAUM AD, KRAEMER WJ, BLIMKIE CJ, JEFFREYS I, MICHELI LJ, NITKA M, ROWLAND TW. Youth resistance training: position statement paper and literature review. J Strength Cond Res. 23(5 Suppl)S60-79, 2009.

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FRONTERA WR, MEREDITH CN, O’REILLY KP, KNUTTGEN HG, EVANS WJ. Strength conditioning in older men: skeletal muscle hypertrophy and improved function. J Appl Physiol. 64(3):1038-1044, 1988.

GENTIL P. Bases científicas do treinamento de hipertrofia. Rio de Janeiro: Sprint, 2005.

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KRAEMER WJ, ADAMS K, CAFARELLI E, DUDLEY GA , DOOLY C, FEIGENBAUM MS, FLECK SJ, FRANKLIN B, FRY AC, HOFFMAN JR, NEWTON RU, POTTEIGER J, STONE MH, RATAMESS NA, TRIPLETT-McBRIDE T. American College of Sports Medicine position stand. Progression models in resistance training for healthy adults. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 41(3):678-708, 2009.

KRAEMER WJ, HAKKINEN K, NEWTON RU, NINDL BC , VOLEK JS, McCORMICK M, GOTSHALK LA, GORDON SE, FLECK SJ, CAMPBELL WW, PUTUKIAN M, EVANS WJ. Effects of heavy-resistance training on hormonal response patterns in younger vs. older men. J Appl Physiol. 87(3):982-992, 1999.

MORITANI T, DEVRIES HA. Potential for gross muscle hypertrophy in older men. J Gerontol. 35(5):672-682, 1980.

WILMORE, JH. Alterations in strength, body composition and anthropometric measurements consequent to a 10-week weight training program. Med Sci Sports. 6(2):133-138, 1974.

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