Category: ideas

“When we can’t fit everything in our own heads, we have to outsource information to others. But how do we keep track of who knows what? Commentator Tania Lombrozo shares some recent findings.”

Scientists who happen to be women didn’t take kindly to that statement … and started #girlswithtoys.

“The recipes run the gamut, from the totally sexist (‘Text my wife that I work very hard for us’) to the digitally endearing (‘Text girlfriend ‘I love you’ every day at midnight’) to the totally practical (‘Forward your kid’s school report card on to your husband!’).”

“We make assumptions about the world that guide the interpretation of sensory data, and these assumptions can be quite different for different individuals.”

“The Allen Cell Types Database, on its surface, doesn’t look like much. The first release includes information on just 240 neurons out of hundreds of thousands in the mouse visual cortex, with a focus on the electrophysiology of those individual cells: the electrical pulses that tell a neuron to fire, initiating a pattern of neural activation that results in perception and action. But understanding those single cells well enough to put them into larger categories will be crucial to understanding the brain as a whole—much like the periodic table was necessary to establish basic chemical principles.”

“Procrastination is, in essence, stealing from yourself. The reason goals are so hard to reach, many psychologists think, is because each person believes they are really two people: Present Me and Future Me. And to most people, Future Me is much less important than Present Me. Present Me is the CEO of Me Corp, while Future Me is a lowly clerk.”

“Despite a heady term that calls to mind algebraic equations requiring chalkboard walls that lift up to reveal entire second sets of chalkboard walls, game theory’s a relatively easy concept: It’s using math, rather than your intuition, to make decisions. It’s Moneyball, not just peering from a distance and saying, ‘Looks like an athlete to me.'”

“The clients were taught through examples of how to express their feelings and release their aggressive tendencies through drawings and paintings. ‘Get that negative energy out on the paper…. ‘It is safe here’ was the theme of one art therapy session.”

Way back in 1992, a writer for the Toronto Star described online trolls as people who “fish for flames” the way fishermen troll for fish. These days, Laura Miller observes, “‘troll’ is a word pinned on whoever happens to be upsetting us online.” Miller looks at the motivations of trolls and the rise of reverse trolling.