“Exactly where brainwaves are generated in the brain, and how they communicate information, is something of a mystery. As we begin to answer these questions, surprising functions of these ripples of neural activity are emerging. It turns out they underpin almost everything going on in our minds, including memory, attention and even our intelligence.”
Category: ideas
Study: Facts Is Facts (Except It Doesn’t Matter)
“Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite.”
Google Maps As Cultural Force
“Just five years since the release of Google Maps and Google Earth, the corporation may well be the world’s most important mapmaker. More than 600 million people around the world have downloaded Google Earth. As a testament to ambition, that number alone would be remarkable. But Google is also intent on upending our very notion of what a map is. Rather than produce one definitive map of the world, Google offers multiple interpretations of the earth’s geography.”
We Are All One Giant Wiki
Robert Wright, Author of The Evolution Of God: “[T]echnology is weaving humans into electronic webs that resemble big brains – corporations, online hobby groups, far-flung N.G.O.s. And I personally don’t think it’s outlandish to talk about us being, increasingly, neurons in a giant superorganism.”
Why ‘Real Men’ (Supposedly) Won’t Eat Quiche
It’s not because quiche doesn’t taste good. “Boys learn at an early age that certain foods (red meat, beer) are associated with masculinity, while others (fish, vegetables, yogurt) are considered feminine. Eating gender-appropriate grub becomes a way of affirming one’s manliness. As they grow into men, those choices gradually become habitual.”
The Style Of Elements: Blogging The Periodic Table
Sam Kean: “Mercury made me see how many different areas of life the periodic table intersects with, and … I realized that you can say the same about every single element on the table. There are hidden tales about familiar elements like gold, carbon, and lead and even obscure elements like tellurium and molybdenum have wonderful, often wild back stories.”
Are We Slaves To Our Unconscious Perceptions?
“Studies have found that upon entering an office, people behave more competitively when they see a sharp leather briefcase on the desk, they talk more softly when there is a picture of a library on the wall, and they keep their desk tidier when there is a vague scent of cleaning agent in the air. But none of them are consciously aware of the influence of their environment.”
Horses Can Understand Humans (To An Extent)
“Horses inherently understand people better than most other animals do, displaying tremendous sensitivity to even the most subtle eye and body movements, new research suggests.” While they’re not yet as good as dogs are at deciphering people’s communicative clues, the potential may be there.
Squirrels Are Just Like Us
“In the acuity of their visual system, the sensitivity and deftness with which they can manipulate objects, their sociability, chattiness and willingness to deceive, squirrels turn out to be surprisingly similar to primates.” They’ve even been observed watching humans for cues in deciding when it’s safe to cross a busy street.
Finland First To Make Access To Broadband A “Legal Right”
“From 1 July every Finn will have the right to access to a 1Mbps (megabit per second) broadband connection. Finland has vowed to connect everyone to a 100Mbps connection by 2015.”