Fantástico!!

The benefits of a bilingual brain

It’s obvious that knowing more than one language can make certain things easier — like traveling or watching movies without subtitles. But there are other advantages to having a bilingual brain. While bilingualism won’t necessarily make you smarter, it does make your brain more healthy, complex and actively engaged. So even if you didn’t have the good fortune of learning a second language as a child, it’s never too late to make a linguistic leap! After all, a little brain exercise can go a long way.

What does it really mean to know a language? Language ability is typically measured in two active parts (speaking and writing), and two passive parts (listening and reading). While a balanced bilingual has near equal abilities across the board in two languages, most bilinguals around the world know and use their languages in varying proportions. And depending on their situation and how they acquired each language, they can be classified into three general types.

A compound bilingual develops two linguistic codes simultaneously, with a single set of concepts. If you learned two languages from the time you were very young, chances are you are a compound bilingual. A coordinate bilingual works with two sets of concepts, for example, someone who speaks one language at home and another in school or with friends. Finally, a subordinate bilingual is someone who learns a secondary language by filtering it through their primary language.

Did you know a multilingual brain actually has more grey matter than a monolingual brain?

Source: TED-ED

Educator: Mia Nacamulli                                                                                 Animator: Lisa LaBracio

酉だるま2017 By Rita Sakano

As imagens de Júpiter deixa-nos atordoado.

The cloudscape of Jupiter, observed by NASA’s Voyager 1 probe on February 3, 1979.

(Planetary Society)

Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎?, outubro ou novembro de 1760 – 18 de abril de 1849) foi um artista japonês, pintor de estilo ukiyo-e e gravurista do período Edo. Em sua época, era um dos principais especialistas em pintura chinesa do Japão.[1] Nascido em Edo (atual Tóquio), Hokusai é melhor conhecido como autor da série de xilogravuras Trinta e seis vistas do monte Fuji (富嶽三十六景, Fugaku Sanjūroku-kei?, c. 1831) que inclui sua pintura icônica e internacionalmente conhecida, A Grande Onda de Kanagawa, criada durante a década de 1820.

Katsushika Hokusai

Tōshi Yoshida 吉田 遠志 (1911 – 1995) Birds of the Seasons - Summer, circa 1982

Muitas vezes as imagens nos leva a mundos internos.

by  Hisanori Manabe

A modern pair of ornate hina dolls dressed in costumes made with silk from Gunma Prefecture. Gunma is known for silk production; the first mechanized silk mill in Japan was built in Tomioka, Gunma Prefecture during the early Meiji Period.

This image was taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and shows a starburst galaxy named MCG+07-33-027. This galaxy lies some 300 million light-years away from us, and is currently experiencing an extraordinarily high rate of star formation — a starburst. 

Normal galaxies produce only a couple of new stars per year, but starburst galaxies can produce a hundred times more than that. As MCG+07-33-027 is seen face-on, the galaxy’s spiral arms and the bright star-forming regions within them are clearly visible and easy for astronomers to study.

In order to form newborn stars, the parent galaxy has to hold a large reservoir of gas, which is slowly depleted to spawn stars over time. For galaxies in a state of starburst, this intense period of star formation has to be triggered somehow — often this happens due to a collision with another galaxy. MCG+07-33-027, however, is special; while many galaxies are located within a large cluster of galaxies, MCG+07-33-027 is a field galaxy, which means it is rather isolated. Thus, the triggering of the starburst was most likely not due to a collision with a neighboring or passing galaxy and astronomers are still speculating about the cause. The bright object to the right of the galaxy is a foreground star in our own galaxy.

Object Names: MCG+07-33-027

Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA and N. Grogin (STScI)

Text credit: European Space Agency

Time And Space