Category: ideas

“Should life surrender to its sad, entropic fate, or should we (for ‘we’ are the only entities we know of who might be able to make a difference) at least begin to think about postponing – perhaps indefinitely – the death of the only home we have?”

The actor playing Mary Magdalene in A.D.: “I think Jesus was really advanced in his views on women… he chose to present himself to a woman and I think that was an acknowledgement that women can be and are as fully human as men; as fully and spiritually capable. It’s a huge honour to play that.”

“Details of how the bridge will operate indicate limits on group sizes, suggesting a ticketing system may be required. The bridge will also be closed once a month for corporate events, and between midnight and 6am. Plans no longer includes provision for cyclists.”

“As propaganda, the video seems more like a condemnation of consumption than a celebration of it. All that stuff, the same stuff, used and discarded day after day. It’s the kind of montage that a movie director would use to show just how sad and soulless a character’s life was.”

“A number of studies suggest that it may improve learning, vigilance, intelligence, and working memory, as well as relieve chronic pain and the symptoms of depression, fibromyalgia, Parkinson’s, and schizophrenia. However, the studies have been so small and heterogeneous that meta-analyses have failed to prove any conclusive effects.” Elif Batuman investigates – and tries on the electrodes.

“In a series of studies, a Yale University research team led by psychologist Matthew Fisher shows that people who search for information on the Web emerge from the process with an inflated sense of how much they know—even regarding topics that are unrelated to the ones they Googled.”

“It used to be that an April Fool’s joke was, very obviously, an April Fool’s joke. … [But] the World Wide Web is an epistemological free-for-all.”

What we need for April Fool’s Day: “Here’s a brief wander through some of the most interesting findings Science of Us could dig up on trust, skepticism, and gullibility, specifically as they apply to our relationships with each other.

“We increasingly live in a world in which our own personal data subsidizes our purchases and the services we use. Programs like Facebook’s now-defunct Beacon, which monitored users’ browsing activities all over the Web, have increasingly become the norm, with shadowy companies like Acxiom amassing profiles on hundreds of millions of consumers.”

“People want to know if humans are getting taller, smarter, better looking or more athletic. My answer is truthful but disappointing: We’re almost certainly evolving, but we don’t know in what direction or how fast.”