Category: Uncategorized
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World Challenge ’08
Heads up: the finalists for World Challenge ’08 have been announced. Now in its fourth year, World Challenge 08 is a global competition aimed at finding projects or small businesses from around the world that have shown enterprise and innovation at a grass roots level. [The Challenge] is about championing and rewarding projects and business…
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Why Most Published Research Findings Are False
Last week in Lab Notes we were told that we shouldn’t believe what we read in scientific journals and to take headline-grabbing articles with a grain of salt. Not because they’re intrinsically false, but because if they aren’t, it’s only a matter of time before they’re replicated and corroborated. Lesson: if a finding is important,…
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Britain, LSD and Stephen Fry
Following Nature‘s review of Albion Dreamingâa book on the history of LSD in BritainâMind Hacks provides us with a wealth of interesting resources on the history of LSD in the UK, including this great quote from Stephen Fry: I don’t know if you have ever taken LSD, but when you do so the doors of…
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Cartoon Off: Randall Munroe (xkcd) vs Farley Katz (The New Yorker)
Farley Katz challenges Randall Munroe to a cartoon off: as expected, hilarity ensues. The Rulesâeach contender is to draw: The Internet, as envisioned by the elderly. String Theory. 1999. Your favorite animal eating your favorite food. In the obligatory post-contest interview: Cartoon Lounge: Tell us a little bit about yourself and xkcd. Randall Munroe: Well,…
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Biodiversity, Extinction, and the End of Evolution
Three excellent articles from Seed Magazine: How We Evolve takes on the myth of human evolution being at an end. Natural selection derives its power to transform from the survival of some and the demise of others, and from differential reproductive success. But we nurse our sick back to health, and mating is no longer…
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Are All Children Capable of Academic Success?
Charles Murray, author of the controversial book The Bell Curve, tackles the question of whether all children are capable of academic success. Murray argues that IQ is the strongest influence on academic success and that some children simply aren’t equipped to excel at the highest levels, no matter how excellent the schooling they receive. The…
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On Child Prodigies and Late Bloomers
David Galenson is famous for his theory of artistic creativity: classing artists as either Conceptualists or Experimentalists depending on whether or not their greatest achievements come at a young or old age. Malcolm Gladwell’s upcoming book, Outliers, is on the topic of high-achievement and in a recent New Yorker article discusses Galenson’s work on the…
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Words for Reviewing Books
Think you’ve read that book review before? It’s probably a bad case of reviewers lexicon. In Seven Deadly Words of Book Reviewing, Bob Harris adds ‘poignant’, ‘compelling’, ‘intriguing’, ‘eschew’, ‘craft’, ‘muse’ and ‘lyrical’ to the ageingâbut still achingly poignantâlist of words that reviewers and publishers love too much (where ‘achingly beautiful’, ‘darkly comic’, ‘deceptively simple’,…
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Deep Brain Stimulation
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a procedure in which a ‘brain pacemaker’ is implanted into a patient’s brain. This ‘pacemaker’ then sends electrical impulses to specific areas of the brain in order to alleviate the symptoms of typically treatment-resistant conditions. Mind Hacks has made a list of the conditions treated using DBS: Obesity Writer’s cramp…
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The Intersection of Work and Life: Shrink Talk Interviews PhilaLawyer
Dr. Rob of Shrink Talk talks with the PhilaLawyer on the intersection of work and life. The topic for this part of the discussion is boredom and job satisfaction. Here are a few choice cuts: PL: I don’t think anyone is wired to sit in front of a computer in the same office, every day,…