The brain is not yet fully understood, and this is one of the reasons why there’s almost always something to say about it. There are times when it seems like neuroscience offers up a new breakthrough every day. By the same token, it’s important to realize that some of the stories we hear about the brain and human behavior are still in [...]
For the uninitiated, math is the boring exercise of manipulating numbers, a practice that most people would consider outdated ever since the invention of the calculator. To Alex Bellos, author of Here’s Looking at Euclid, math is a fascinating subject that can be used to evaluate almost any problem that can be solved using a series of [...]
The universe is infinite, but the human brain is not. We have no choice but to weed out irrelevant information. There’s no way this can be done without skewing reality. Our impressions of the universe around us form the world we live in, but they aren’t reality. How do we form our impressions? Not by adding up all the information [...]
Smarter isn’t always better. Thomas Hills This, at least, was the conclusion of Thomas Hills and Ralph Hertwig in a new meta-analysis. They pointed to studies of drug research and enhanced mental traits. In cases where drugs were used to boost brain performance, inverted u-shaped performance curves were the norm. In other words, past [...]
Recently, an “icicle of death” was caught on film by the BBC for the first time. Brine from the sea ice flowed down to the sea floor, freezing everything in its path. The salt saturation kept the brine from freezing outside the ocean, but the cold caused the seawater to turn to ice once the brine came through. Take water, saturate it [...]
Change is in the air, and most people can tell. The economy has undergone some serious disruptions. Marketers are starting to say that companies need to start speaking with, and actually listening to, their customers in order to survive. Protest movements, from Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street, are popping up without central leadership. [...]
I’m routinely surprised by how little interest most people seem to have in the fundamental forces of the universe. Perhaps it’s because textbooks suck all the life out of the subject matter, or because of a fundamental flaw in the educational system. To me, few things are more interesting. Dr. Clifford Pickover shares this enthusiasm [...]
The self-help industry churns out Cracker Jack box advice at a startling pace, rarely with little more than anecdotal evidence to back up its claims. While some of these books offer useful advice, their lack of reference to research makes some of them counterproductive, and possibly even dangerous. This is why I was so happy to get the [...]
Across the political spectrum, almost everybody agrees that the school system is broken. Unfortunately, most of the blame gets passed onto the people who have the least ability to fix the problem: teachers. There may be a few bad apples, but by and large teachers are very bright individuals who are extremely knowledgeable about the [...]
Something’s been bothering me, and only a rant from the soapbox will scratch the itch. “News” programs, no longer interested in paying for a fact-checking department, now prefer to pit pundits against one another as a form of entertainment. One of their favorite tactics is to pit an educated “expert” against an opinionated “ [...]
