Category: ideas

“Though the idea of teaching from a graphic novel may have its skeptics, the response to Jeremy Short’s books has been overwhelmingly positive.”

“A new book claims the amount of time we spend on the internet is changing the very structure of our brains – damaging our ability to think and to learn.”

“Scandal has crucial functions to perform: If communities are enclaves of shared norms, then scandals are what consolidate a community. … We all have crucial roles to play. Scandal requires an audience: Not just any audience, but one that gets a little jolt from scenes of transgression and punishment.”

“Everyone looks better after you’ve tipped back a pint or two, and now we may know why. It turns out that alcohol dulls our ability to recognize cockeyed, asymmetrical faces, according to researchers.”

“Engineers at the University of Washington have developed a system that helps deaf and hearing-challenged users communicate using video chat efficiently and at low cost over 3G networks. With video chat, they can use American Sign Language, just as they do in face-to-face conversations.”

“Remember when Dr. Jack Kevorkian, Dan Quayle or Rodney King was in the news? This generation doesn’t.” There are 75 items on the 2010 Beloit College Mindset List (www.benoit.edu/mindset/). The compilation, released yesterday, is assembled each year by the private school of about 1,400 students in Beloit, Wis.

“A new device that restores a form of sight to the blind is turning our understanding of the senses upside down.”

“Why did humans evolve the capacity to imagine alternatives to reality? Was story-telling in prehistoric times like the peacock’s tail, of no direct practical use but a good way of attracting a mate? It kept Scheherazade alive through those one thousand and one nights – in the story. On further reflection, imagining turns out to be much more reality-directed than the stereotype implies … [and a] reality-directed faculty of imagination has clear survival value.”

“Psychologists refer to this as the paradox of power. The very traits that helped leaders accumulate control in the first place all but disappear once they rise to power. Instead of being polite, honest and outgoing, they become impulsive, reckless and rude.” One expert compares the effect to a certain type of brain damage.

“What if our moral judgments are driven instead by more visceral human considerations? And what if one of those is not divine commandment or inductive reasoning, but simply whether a situation, in some small way, makes us feel like throwing up?”