Remoras or suckerfish are elongated brown fish that grow to 1–3 feet long. Their distinctive first dorsal fin takes the form of a modified oval sucker-like organ that creates suction and takes a firm hold against the skin of larger marine animals. Remoras sometimes attach to small boats. They swim well on their own, with a sinuous motion.

Some remoras associate primarily with specific host species. Remoras are commonly found attached to sharks, manta rays, whales and turtles. Smaller remoras also fasten onto fish like tuna and swordfish, and some small remoras travel in the mouths or gills of large manta rays, ocean sunfish, swordfish, and sailfish.

The relationship between remoras and their hosts is most often taken to be one of commensalism. The host they attach to for transport gains nothing from the relationship, but also loses little. The remora benefits by using the host as transport and protection and also feeds on materials dropped by the host. For some remora and host pairings the relationship is closer to mutualism, with the remora cleaning bacteria and other parasites from the host.

Some cultures use remoras to catch turtles. A cord or rope is fastened to the remora’s tail, and when a turtle is sighted the fish is released from the boat. It usually heads directly for the turtle and fastens itself to the turtle’s shell, and then both remora and turtle are hauled in. Smaller turtles can be pulled completely into the boat by this method, while larger ones are hauled within harpooning range.

Because of the shape of the jaws, appearance of the sucker, and coloration of the remora, it sometimes appears to be swimming upside down. This probably led to the older common name “reversus”, although this might also derive from the fact that the remora frequently attaches itself to the tops of manta rays or other fish, so that the remora is upside down while attached.

Idioglossia refers to an idiosyncratic language, one invented and spoken by only one or a very few people. Most often, idioglossia refers to the “private languages” of young children, especially twins. It is also known as cryptophasia, and commonly referred to as twin talk or twin speech. Children who are exposed to multiple languages from birth are inclined to create idioglossias, but these languages usually disappear at a relatively early age.

Poto and Cabengo are a pair of identical twin girls (real names Grace and Virginia Kennedy, respectively), who used a secret language up to the age of about 8. Poto and Cabengo is also the name of a documentary film about the girls made by Jean-Pierre Gorin and released in 1979.

They were apparently of normal intelligence and developed their own communication because they had little exposure to spoken language in their early years. They were left in the care of a grandmother, who met their physical needs but did not play or interact with them. The grandmother spoke only German, while the parents spoke English. They had no contact with other children, seldom played outdoors, and were not sent to school.

Their father later stated in interviews that he realized the girls had invented a language of their own, but since their use of English remained extremely rudimentary, he had decided that they were in fact retarded and that it would do no good to send them to school. When he lost his job, he told a caseworker at the unemployment office about his family, and the caseworker advised him to put the girls in speech therapy. At Children’s Hospital of San Diego, speech therapist Alexa Kratze quickly discovered that Virginia and Grace, far from being retarded, had at least normal intelligence, and had invented a complex idioglossia.

Their language was spoken extremely quickly and had a staccato rhythm. These characteristics transferred themselves to the girls’ English, which they began to speak following speech therapy. Linguistic analysis of their language revealed that it was a mixture of English and German with some neologisms and several idiosyncratic grammatical features.

Many speech and hearing experts, as well as psychiatrists, offered speculation as to why the girls had not picked up English, as most idioglossic twins do as they go along whether or not they retain their personal language. Kratze pointed out that the girls had had very little contact with anyone outside their family, and that contact within the family had been minimal at best. These factors contributed to the girls’ developmental disability, even if they had been born with normal intelligence.

Once it was established that the girls could be educated, their father apparently forbade them to speak their personal language. He was quoted in Time magazine as saying “They don’t want to be associated as dummies. You live in a society, you got to speak the language.” Asked if they remembered their language, the girls confirmed that they did, but their father quickly stepped in to chide them for “lying”. They were mainstreamed and placed in separate classes in elementary school. However, they were still affected by their family’s emotional neglect.

Behavior refers to the actions and reactions of an object or organism, usually in relation to the environment. Behavior can be conscious or unconscious, and voluntary or involuntary. The complexity of the behavior of an organism is related to the complexity of its nervous system. Generally, organisms with complex nervous systems have a greater capacity to learn new responses and thus adjust their behavior. Behaviors can be either innate or learned.

Human behavior can be common, unusual, acceptable, or unacceptable. Humans evaluate the acceptability of behavior using social norms and regulate behavior by means of social control. In sociology, behavior is considered as having no meaning, being not directed at other people, and thus is the most basic human action. Animal behavior is studied in comparative psychology, ethology, behavioral ecology and sociobiology.

Behavior became an important construct in early 20th century psychology with the advent of the paradigm known subsequently as behaviorism. Behaviorism was a reaction against so-called faculty psychology which purported to see into or understand the mind without the benefit of scientific testing. Behaviorism insisted on working only with what can be seen or manipulated.

Behavior as used in computer science is an anthropomorphic construct that assigns life to the activities carried out by a computer in response to stimuli, such as user input. Also, a behavior is a reusable block of computer code or script that, when applied to an object, especially a graphical one, causes it to respond to user input in meaningful patterns or to operate independently.

In environmental modeling and especially in hydrology, a behavioral model means a model that is acceptably consistent with observed natural processes. It is a key concept of the so-called Generalized Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation (GLUE) methodology to quantify how uncertain environmental predictions are.

Kets are a Siberian people who speak the Ket language. They are thought to be the only survivors of an ancient nomadic people believed to have originally lived throughout central southern Siberia. Today’s Kets are the descendants of the tribes of fishermen and hunters who have adopted some of the cultural ways of those original Ket-speaking tribes of South Siberia. The earlier tribes engaged in hunting, fishing, and reindeer breeding in the northern areas.

Shamanism was a living practice among the Kets into the 1930s, but by the 1960s almost no authentic shamans could be found. It shared characteristics with those of Turkic and Mongolic peoples. Additionally, there were several types of Ket shamans differing in function, power and associated animals. Also, there are examples of the use of skeleton symbolics. These have been interpreted as a symbol of rebirth, although they may symbolize the bones of the loon, the helper animal of the shaman, joining air and underwater world, just like the shaman who travelled both to the sky and the underworld. The skeleton-like overlay also represented shamanic rebirth among some other Siberian cultures.

The mythology of Kets has been compared with that of Uralic peoples, assuming that they are modelling semiotic systems in the compared mythologies. Among other comparisons, the mythologies of Ob-Ugric peoples and Samoyedic peoples are mentioned. Other authors have discussed analogies between similar folklore motifs, purely typological considerations, and certain binary pairs in symbolics. These may be related to a dualistic organization of society as some dualistic features can be found in comparisons with these peoples.

However, for Kets, neither dualistic organization of society nor cosmological dualism has been researched thoroughly. If such features existed at all, they have either weakened or remained largely undiscovered. There are some reports on a division into two exogamous patrilinear moieties, folklore on conflicts of mythological figures, and also on cooperation of two beings in the creation of the land, the motif of earth-diver. This motif is present in several cultures in different variants. In one example, the creator of the world is helped by a water fowl as the bird dives under the water and fetches earth so that the creator can make land out of it. In some cultures, the creator and the earth-fetching being, sometimes named as devil, or taking shape of a loon, compete with one another.

Affluenza, a portmanteau of affluence and influenza, is a term used by critics of consumerism. Sources define this term as a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more. It is also defined as the bloated, sluggish and unfulfilled feeling that results from efforts to “keep up with the Joneses”. It is an epidemic of stress, overwork, waste and indebtedness caused by the pursuit of the American Dream, or an unsustainable addiction to economic growth.

Proponents of the term consider the costs of prizing material wealth vastly outweigh the benefits. They claim those who become wealthy will find the economic success leaving them unfulfilled and hungry for more wealth. The condition is considered particularly acute amongst those with inherited wealth, who are often said to experience guilt, lack of purpose and dissolute behavior, as well as obsession with holding on to the wealth.

British psychologist Oliver James asserts that there is a correlation between the increasing nature of affluenza and the resulting increase in material inequality. The more unequal a society, the greater the unhappiness of its citizens. Referring to the manipulative methods used by the advertising industry, James relates the stimulation of artificial needs to the rise in affluenza.

James also believes that higher rates of mental disorders are the consequence of excessive wealth-seeking in consumerist nations. He cites World Health Organization data that English-speaking nations have twice as much mental illness as mainland Europe. James defines affluenza as placing a high value on money, possessions, appearances and fame, and this becomes the rationale behind the increasing mental illness. He explains the greater incidence of affluenza as the result of ‘Selfish Capitalism,’ the Market Liberal political governance found in English-speaking nations as compared to the less selfish capitalism pursued in mainland Europe. James asserts that societies can remove the negative consumerist effects by pursuing real needs over perceived wants, and by defining themselves as having value independent of their material possessions.

Affluenza is considered to be most present in the United States, where the culture encourages its citizens to measure their worth by financial success and material possessions. Mainstream media outlets, such as television broadcasts, tend to demonstrate how pervasive the idea has become, and by the same token the same media outlets reinforce the values to the viewers.

The term affluenza was popularized in the United States by the 1997 documentary of the same name from KCTS and Seattle and Oregon Public Broadcasting. John de Graaf, producer of the documentary, also co-authored a book with the same title.

A pouf is a style of hair which came about in 18th Century France. First used by Marie Antoinette, it became popular among the wealthy women of France. 

Developed in conjunction with hairdresser Monsieur Leonard, the pouf consisted of a scaffolding made from wire, cloth, gauze, horsehair and fake hair, with the wearer’s own hair teased high off the forehead. On top of this huge confection of hair was a display of feathers, flowers, vegetables or other objects designed to express a topical message. For example, Marie-Antoinette commissioned a huge pouf showcasing an intricate hairdo displaying a French frigate that won a key victory against the British in June 1778.

The pouf was adapted by woman of class based on current events. For example, during the American Revolution poufs included model ships to show support for the Americans and their war against the British. During the French Revolution women took the pouf hairstyle and turned it to their favours to support the revolution. The pouf became popular among many women across Europe and the United Kingdom.

It was not an easy hairstyle to adopt. The underlying contraption was heavy and difficult to sleep in. Marie Antoinette would have had to wrap her head in a huge bandage-like wrap and sleep semi-upright. And since grease was used to glue the hair in place, the pouf was impossible to wash and fostered breeding grounds for vermin. But this did not stop other women from emulating the French Queen of Fashion. One lady of the court declared “I shall never again wear anything but vegetables! It looks so simple, and is so much more natural than flowers!”

Unfortunately, the pouf also corresponded to a time of bad harvests and harsh winters in France. Appearing at the opera, theatre and parties in her wedding cake-like coiffure, Marie Antoinette flouted her lifestyle in the face of a starving nation. It was particularly horrifying to hungry peasants that the whiteness of the pouf coiffure came from flour. Popular opinion turned from admiration to distaste and Marie Antoinette’s willingness to consider more serious matters was questioned.

Ronald David Laing was a Scottish psychiatrist who wrote extensively on mental illness, in particular, the experience of psychosis. Laing’s views on the causes and treatment of serious mental dysfunction, greatly influenced by existential philosophy, ran counter to the psychiatric orthodoxy of the day by taking the expressed feelings of the individual patient or client as valid descriptions of lived experience rather than simply as symptoms of some separate or underlying disorder. Often associated with the anti-psychiatry movement, he himself rejected the label as such, as did certain others critical of conventional psychiatry at the time. He wanted to challenge the core values of a psychiatry which considers mental illness as primarily a biological phenomenon of no social, intellectual or political significance.

Laing was a critic of psychiatric diagnosis, arguing that diagnosis of a mental disorder contradicted accepted medical procedure. Diagnosis was made on the basis of behavior or conduct, and examination and ancillary tests that traditionally precede diagnosis of viable pathologies like broken bones or pneumonia occurred after the diagnosis of mental disorder. Hence, according to Laing, psychiatry was founded on a false epistemology of illness diagnosed by conduct but treated biologically.

The fact that medical doctors had annexed mental disorders did not mean they were practicing medicine. Hence, the popular term “medical model of mental illness” is oxymoronic, since, according to Laing, diagnosis of mental illness did not follow the traditional medical model. The notion that biological psychiatry is a real science or a genuine branch of medicine has been challenged by other critics as well.

He never denied the existence of mental illness, but viewed it in a radically different light from his contemporaries. For Laing, mental illness could be a transformative episode whereby the process of undergoing mental distress was compared to a shamanic journey. The traveler could return from the journey with important insights, and may have become a wiser and more grounded person as a result. This was consistent with the critique of the alleged dubious validity of “value judgements” prevalent in Western society, which was common among academics in the 1960s and 1970s.

Laing argued that the strange behavior and seemingly confused speech of people undergoing a psychotic episode were ultimately understandable as an attempt to communicate worries and concerns, often in situations where this was not possible or not permitted. Laing stressed the role of society, and particularly the family, in the development of madness. He argued that individuals can often be put in impossible situations where they are unable to conform to the conflicting expectations of their peers, leading to a “lose-lose situation” and immense mental distress for the individuals concerned. The perceived symptoms of schizophrenia were therefore an expression of this distress, and should be valued as a cathartic and transformative experience.

The phrase plastic shaman is a pejorative colloquialism used for individuals who try to pass themselves off as shamans, or other traditional spiritual leaders, but who actually have no genuine connection to the traditions they claim to represent. Rather, plastic shamans use the mystique of these cultural traditions, and the legitimate curiosity of sincere seekers, for personal gain. This exploitation of students and traditional culture can involve the selling of fake spiritual ceremonies, fake artifacts, fictional accounts in books, illegitimate tours of sacred sites, and often the chance to buy spiritual titles.

Though the term plastic shaman originated among Native American and First Nations activists, and is most often applied to people posing as Native American medicine men and women, the term has also been applied to those posing as other types of traditional and alternative healers. People who have been referred to as plastic shamans include fraudulent spiritual advisors, seers, psychics, or other practitioners of non-traditional modalities of spirituality and healing who are operating on a fraudulent basis.

Critics of those who have been called plastic shamans believe one danger is that students who come to learn from plastic shamans may be exposing themselves to physical, as well as psychological and emotional risk. This is because the methods used by a fraudulent teacher may have been invented, adapted or stolen from other cultures and taught without reference to a real tradition, or to the precautions such a tradition would normally have in place in regard to sacred ceremonies and guidelines for ethical behavior.

Those using the term plastic shaman to describe these sorts of fraudulent teachers and exploiters of traditional cultures believe plastic shamans are also dangerous because they harm the reputations of the cultures and communities they claim to represent. There is evidence that fraudulent and sometimes criminal acts have been committed by a number of these imposters. They commit financial fraud and thus victomize participants. It is also claimed by traditional peoples that in some cases these plastic shamans may be using corrupt, negative and sometimes harmful aspects of authentic practices.