This really hits home. Recommended viewing for artists and creators.

“Eat, Pray, Love” Author Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses — and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person “being” a genius, all of us “have” a genius. It’s a funny, personal and surprisingly moving talk.

**Update 092909 – I have gone back to incorporating the concept of a Daemon in my creative process and have found it to be incredibly productive.**

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, and “Lost” producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts.

Although humans and chimpanzees genetically vary by just 1.2 percent, that small percentage makes a world of difference in the mental and linguistic capabilities between the two species. A study shows that a certain form of neuropsin, a protein that plays a role in learning and memory, is expressed only in the central nervous systems of humans. The scientists conclude that this critical difference originated less than 5 million years ago.

Dr. Bing Su of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Kunming, China, and other researchers analyzed the DNA of humans and several species of apes and monkeys. Previously they had found that type II neuropsin, a longer form of the protein, is not expressed in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) of lesser apes and Old World monkeys. In the new study, they tested the expression of type II in the PFC of two great ape species, chimpanzees and orangutans, and found that it was not present in these closely related species either. Since these two species diverged most recently from human ancestors (about 5 and 14 million years ago respectively), this finding demonstrates that type II is a human-specific mutation and originated relatively recently.

The researchers note that more studies should look further into the biological function of type II neuropsin in humans, in order to understand the genetic basis that underlies the traits that set humans apart from nonhuman primates.

*The study was published online in Human Mutation, the official journal of the Human Genome Variation Society.

Posted by Rebecca Sato