“When creators ramp up the spectacle, can human gray matter keep up? That’s a question for a neuroscientist, preferably one who’s interested in performance,” So the WSJ found one and asked.
Category: ideas
Your Dreams Make You Who You Are
“Modern neuroscience has pushed Freud’s ideas to the sidelines and has taught us something far more profound about dreaming. We now know that this peculiar form of consciousness is crucial to making us who we are. Dreams help us to consolidate our memories, make sense of our myriad experiences and keep our emotions in check.”
The Difference Between Boastful Cities and Conceited Cities
“Boastful cities tend to be insecure, child-like, and chatty (even vociferous), unenigmatic and exhausting, impatient places eager for praise and in a hurry to captivate.” Conceited cities “are far surer of themselves, and therefore lazier. They are also more enigmatic, more reserved, and more elusive. True, they couldn’t live without praise, but they prefer envy.” (And which is the most conceited city?)
A New Kind of Freedom: What Station-Wagons Meant To 1950s America
The great “land barges” gave “individuals more options, more independence, more freedom to do as they pleased, setting up camp when the place they’d arrived at felt like the right place, driving on when it didn’t. In the wake of a car that could serve dinner and sleep four comfortably, who wanted to stay bound by the old rules and mores?”
The Delicate Matter of English Verb Tenses (and Aspects)
“‘I smoke,’ for example (simple present), has different implications from ‘I am smoking’ (progressive present) or ‘I do smoke’ (intensive present). All those are present tenses. And so is ‘I have smoked.’ … If you say ‘I have smoked,’ it refers to your present state – you are now in the state of having smoked.”
Academics Argue That Eurovision Song Contest Is Crucial Cultural Signpost
“Scholars increasingly see Waterloo as a pivotal event for Europe. The song, that is, not the battle. … Instead of focusing on musical merits, they examine issues like ‘the concept of European community’; victories for ‘culturally peripheral nations’; and a ‘pan-European identity’ fostered by the contest’s ban on voting for one’s own country.”
What Are Really the Differences Between Men’s and Women’s Brains?
“There is certainly enough science to address such contentious issues as whether women are innately bad at mathematics (they are not) and whether cultural indoctrination alone can explain why boys and girls tend to play with different toys (it cannot). Yet confused onlookers are often left with the impression that, when it comes to sex differences, everything is still up for grabs. So what’s the inside story?”
Porcine Therapy: Pigs Used to Treat Disturbed Patients
Physiotherapist Daan Vermeulen “practices an odd form of physical therapy – he lets senior citizens and children with emotional and behavioral problems feed, groom and dress up pigs as a way of making uninterested patients more receptive to therapy.”
Can We Build A Better Man/Woman?
“What if the biggest breakthroughs come in improving man himself? Some technology experts think mankind will transform itself into a fitter, smarter and better-looking species in coming decades–a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms.”
Study: Naps Boost Brain Power
The “Nap” group performed significantly better at learning tasks when tested later in the day in comparison to subjects who did not take a lengthy nap.