Category: ideas

The term, which means “hidden memory,” describes the cause of what’s often described as “unconscious plagiarism” – and it’s a phenomenon that can be replicated in the lab.

“Drugs, drinking, dancing and dating helped me shed decades, after acting middle-aged for so long. In addition to losing years off my life, I no longer had the need for a large studio space. I felt lucky, portable and adaptable.”

“Paleontologists named a 900-pound ancient crocodile Anthracosuchus balrogus, after the Balrog, a giant whip-wielding fire monster from The Lord of the Rings. There is also a dinosaur named after Sauron, which seems kinda harsh.”

And what about things like plays streamed from the National Theatre? Hmmm. “When the starting bell rung at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, multiple live stream feeds of the action appeared on Meerkat and Periscope from people at home who had paid the $89 or $100 for the fight on their TV.”

“Analysts at Instagram are trying to quantify this effect, by writing algorithms that predict the context around a given emoji and making a guess at the symbol’s meaning. Running these algorithms through massive batches of Instagram text, they’re identifying groups of semantically similar words and internet slang that map onto a single emoji.”

“he Anthropocene is a neologism that attempts to pin down a lot of free-floating anxiety about climate change and the myriad ways that Homo sapiens are making over the planet in our own image. It styles humans as a geological force, as powerful as any ‘natural’ one.”

“There’s a form of enchantment that results when a diverse community, materializing from nothing, gets behind an act of creation that no other institution would support. But in ZPM’s case, the enchantment was long ago irretrievably dispelled.”

“[A team of researchers] found that wearing clothing that’s more formal than usual makes people think more broadly and holistically, rather than narrowly and about fine-grained details. In psychological parlance, wearing a suit encourages people to use abstract processing more readily than concrete processing.”

“Children may soon be taught “happiness” in schools. Being miserable is no longer socially acceptable. There are now computer programmes designed to influence the way we feel. Face-reading software will soon be able to identify moods. Global firms have “chief happiness” officers.”