Science, government and private enterprise are asking if they can predict future events by creatively crunching massive amounts of data made available by you, the individual.
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
The ethical eater. The best way to save animals and protect the environment is to not eat meat, right? Wrong... more
Men & Women Are Different Species, Psychologically Speaking via Big Think by Big Think Editors
Men and women have fundamentally different personalities, says new research from the University of Manchester, in the UK. Based on a personality test of 10,000 Americans aged 15 to 92, the lead researcher Paul Irwing said: “Psychologically, men and women are almost a different species.”
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The world, as mapped by frequency of cholera cases via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker
This really fascinating image comes from a Scientific American guest blog post about the appendix. What does the appendix have to do with cholera? Turns out, the more we study the appendix, the more it appears that this organ – once thought to be useless – is actually a storage system that allows your gut to repopulate itself with beneficial bacteria following a bout with a dramatic, gut-wrenching such as cholera.
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
If you want to know something, Google it. Knowledge and ideas have become too easy to come by, says Mark Pagel. Why innovate when it's easier to copy?... more
Deep-Brain Stimulation Found to Fix Depression Long-Term via 3quarksdaily by Azra Raza
From Scientific American:
Deep depression that fails to respond to any other form of therapy can be moderated or reversed by stimulation of areas deep inside the brain. Now the first placebo-controlled study of this procedure shows that these responses can be maintained in the long term. Neurologist Helen Mayberg at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, followed ten patients with major depressive disorder and seven with bipolar disorder, or manic depression, after an electrode device was implanted in the subcallosal cingulate white matter of their brains and the area continuously stimulated. All but one of twelve patients who reached the two-year point in the study had completely shed their epression or had only mild symptoms. For psychiatrists accustomed to seeing severely depressed patients fail to respond – or fail to maintain a response – to antidepressant or cognitive therapy, these results seem near miraculous.
More here.
Words Not as Helpful to Children in Categorizing the World via Big Think by Big Think Editors
Children rely on language less than adults do when it comes to ordering the world, says new psychological research. In an experiment, two dolls with different physical features were given different labels, “flurp” and “jalet”. After some of the physical characteristics were changed to confuse participants as to which doll was which, researchers asked that the dolls be placed in either the “flurp' or jalet” category. Adults relied more on the label already given to the dolls while children categorised them more according to physical characteristics.
Conventional wisdom says that children use language just like adults in categorising objects but scientists must now reconsider at what stage language becomes a dominant organizational tool. “It is only over the course of development that children begin to understand that words can reliably be used to label items,” said Vladimir Sloutsky, co-author of the new study. Sloutsky believes the new research may eventually aid parents in communicating more effectively with their children and developing new teaching methods.
Full story at Science Daily
Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
“If a mad scientist were to design a machine that would make white liberals uncomfortable, that machine would be Thomas Sowell”... more
Pet dog from 30,000 years ago via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz
This is the skull of someone’s pet dog from more than 30,000 years ago. It was buried with a mastodon bone clenched in its chompers. Found in Czech Republic by archaeologist Mietje Germonpré of Belgium’s Museum of Natural History and colleagues, it’s one of three canid crania they discovered from the era. The skulls support other recent research suggesting that dogs were domesticated 15,000 years earlier than previously thought. This news is one of Archaeology magazine’s “Top 10 Discoveries of 2011”.
Letter from Mick Jagger to Andy Warhol, 1969 via Retronaut by Chris
Thank you to Letters of Note
This capsule was curated by Cody Pope
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