Sensory nerves have specialized endings in the tissues that pick up a particular sensation. If, for example, you step on a sharp object such as a pin, nerve endings in the skin will transmit the pain sensation up your leg, up and along the spinal cord to the brain. While the pain itself is unpleasant, it is in fact acting as a protective mechanism for the foot. Within the brain, nerves will connect to the area that controls speech, so that you may well shout ‘ouch' or something rather less polite. They will also connect to motor nerves that travel back down the spinal cord, and to the muscles in your leg that now contract quickly to lift your foot away from the painful object. Sensory and motor nerves control almost all functions in the body — from the beating of the heart to the movement of the gut, sweating and just about everything else.

Whose story it is affects what the story is. Change the main character, and the focus of the story must also change. If we look at the events through another character's eyes, we will interpret them differently. We'll place our sympathies with someone new. When the conflict arises that is the heart of the story, we will be praying for a different outcome. Consider, for example, how the tale of Cinderella would shift if told from the viewpoint of an evil stepsister. Gone with the Wind is Scarlett O'Hara's story, but what if we were shown the same events from the viewpoint of Rhett Butler or Melanie Wilkes?

Developing a personal engagement with poetry brings a number of benefits to you as an individual, in both a personal and a professional capacity. Writing poetry has been shown to have physical and mental benefits, with expressive writing found to improve immune system and lung function, diminish psychological distress, and enhance relationships. Poetry has long been used to aid different mental health needs, develop empathy, and reconsider our relationship with both natural and built environments. Poetry is also an incredibly effective way of actively targeting the cognitive development period, improving your productivity and scientific creativity in the process. In short, poetry has a lot to offer, if you give it the opportunity to do so.

The fast-paced evolution of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has radically transformed the dynamics and business models of the tourism and hospitality industry. This leads to new levels-forms of competitiveness among service providers and transforms the customer experience through new services. Creating unique experiences and providing convenient services to customers leads to satisfaction and, eventually, customer loyalty to the service provider or brand (i.e., hotels). In particular, the most recent technological boost received by the tourism sector is represented by mobile applications. Indeed, empowering tourists with mobile access to services such as hotel reservations, airline ticketing, and recommendations for local attractions generates strong interest and considerable profits.

According to Marguerite La Caze, fashion contributes to our lives and provides a medium for us to develop and exhibit important social virtues. Fashion may be beautiful, innovative, and useful; we can display creativity and good taste in our fashion choices. And in dressing with taste and care, we represent both self-respect and a concern for the pleasure of others. There is no doubt that fashion can be a source of interest and pleasure which links us to each other. That is, fashion provides a sociable aspect along with opportunities to imagine oneself differently ― to try on different identities.

Who hasn't used a cup of coffee to help themselves stay awake while studying? Mild stimulants commonly found in tea, coffee, or sodas possibly make you more attentive and, thus, better able to remember. However, you should know that stimulants are as likely to have negative effects on memory as they are to be beneficial. Even if they could improve performance at some level, the ideal doses are currently unknown. If you are wide awake and well-rested, mild stimulation from caffeine can do little to further improve your memory performance. Indeed, if you have too much of a stimulant, you will become nervous, find it difficult to sleep, and your memory performance will suffer.

Internet activist Eli Pariser noticed how online search algorithms encourage our human tendency to grab hold of everything that confirms the beliefs we already hold, while quietly ignoring information that doesn't match those beliefs. We set up a so-called "filter-bubble" around ourselves, where we are constantly exposed only to that material that we agree with. We are never challenged, never giving ourselves the opportunity to acknowledge the existence of diversity and difference. In the best case, we become naive and sheltered, and in the worst, we become radicalized with extreme views, unable to imagine life outside our particular bubble. The results are disastrous: intellectual isolation and the real distortion that comes with believing that the little world we create for ourselves is the world.

The Zeigarnik effect is commonly referred to as the tendency of the subconscious mind to remind you of a task that is incomplete until that task is complete. Bluma Zeigarnik was a Lithuanian psychologist who wrote in the 1920s about the effects of leaving tasks incomplete. She noticed the effect while watching waiters serve in a restaurant. The waiters would remember an order, however complicated, until the order was complete, but they would later find it difficult to remember the order. Zeigarnik did further studies giving both adults and children puzzles to complete then interrupting them during some of the tasks. The results showed that both adults and children remembered the tasks that hadn't been completed because of the interruptions better than the ones that had been completed.

Health and the spread of disease are very closely linked to how we live and how our cities operate. The good news is that cities are incredibly resilient. Many cities have experienced epidemics in the past and have not only survived, but advanced. The nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries saw destructive outbreaks of cholera, typhoid, and influenza in European cities. Doctors such as Jon Snow, from England, and Rudolf Virchow, of Germany, saw the connection between poor living conditions, overcrowding, sanitation, and disease. A recognition of this connection led to the replanning and rebuilding of cities to stop the spread of epidemics. In the mid-nineteenth century, London's pioneering sewer system, which still serves it today, was built as a result of understanding the importance of clean water in stopping the spread of cholera.

Today's music business has allowed musicians to take matters into their own hands. Gone are the days of musicians waiting for a gatekeeper (someone who holds power and prevents you from being let in) at a label or TV show to say they are worthy of the spotlight. In today's music business, you don't need to ask for permission to build a fanbase and you no longer need to pay thousands of dollars to a company to do it. Every day, musicians are getting their music out to thousands of listeners without any outside help. They simply deliver it to the fans directly, without asking for permission or outside help to receive exposure or connect with thousands of listeners.

The Barnum Effect is the phenomenon where someone reads or hears something very general but believes that it applies to them. These statements appear to be very personal on the surface but in fact, they are true for many. Human psychology allows us to want to believe things that we can identify with on a personal level and even seek information where it doesn't necessarily exist, filling in the blanks with our imagination for the rest. This is the principle that horoscopes rely on, offering data that appears to be personal but probably makes sense to countless people. Since the people reading them want to believe the information so badly, they will search for meaning in their lives that make it true.

In a single week, the sun delivers more energy to our planet than humanity has used through the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas through all of human history. And the sun will keep shining on our planet for billions of years. Our challenge isn't that we're running out of energy. It's that we have been focused on the wrong source ― the small, finite one that we're using up. Indeed, all the coal, natural gas, and oil we use today is just solar energy from millions of years ago, a very tiny part of which was preserved deep underground. Our challenge, and our opportunity, is to learn to efficiently and cheaply use the much more abundant source that is the new energy striking our planet each day from the sun.