Category: ideas

“A new analysis of the structure predicts where it is most under strain based solely on its shape – and the method may be able to help treat people’s physical problems as well as those of statues.”

“It may be simultaneously illuminating and terrifying to realize that an entire postdraft generation of young men has had its perception of war shaped in some measure by video games. Games are perhaps the final mass-entertainment medium that regularly includes portrayals of modern war; gamers may be the last audience ready to consume them.”

Two new MRI studies provide insights into how music is processed in the brain and clues to the underlying structure of the creative process.

“The millennials–the cohort born after 1982–might be caled the Look at Me Generation. Thanks to ‘The Real World,’ ‘Laguna Beach’ and the like, they’ve been documented like no group before them, most especially by themselves: on their blogs, their MySpace, Facebook and Flickr pages, and on YouTube. And now the artistes are taking their turn, with a new wave of reality series, films and books examining the documentation generation.”

“In a nation that boasts more educated people, college graduates, books sold and general literacy than ever before, intellectually oriented people patronize institutions that pay attention to sophisticated print culture – universities, colleges, Web sites, publications, radio shows – and dump those that aim at bottom-level taste.”

“The Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle is launching a four-year, $55-million effort to build a three-dimensional map documenting the levels of activity of some 20,000 different genes across the human brain.”

“Studies showed that children with odd names got worse grades and were less popular than other classmates in elementary school. In college they were more likely to flunk out or become “psychoneurotic.” Prospective bosses spurned their résumés. They were overrepresented among emotionally disturbed children and psychiatric patients.”

“What is it about zero cost that we find so irresistible? Why does free! make us so happy? After all, free! can lead us into trouble: things that we would never consider purchasing become incredibly appealing as soon as they are free!”

“An international struggle is being waged for the soul of humanity. If the Chinese triumph, then humanity can potentially achieve ‘the establishment of the kind of commonwealth of civilizations that Adam Smith envisaged and a socially more equitable and ecologically more sustainable development path than the one that has made the fortunes of the West.”

“Amateur circles of ordinary people are wresting power and creativity back from the oligarchs. Finally, we’re all benefiting from the mass production of intellectual property by nonprofessionals. Yay, us!”