Computer Taught To Recognize Attractiveness In Women
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080404122139.htm
ScienceDaily (Apr. 5, 2008) -- "Beauty," goes the old saying, "is in
the eye of the beholder." But does the beholder have to be human?
Not necessarily, say scientists at Tel Aviv University. Amit Kagian,
an M.Sc. graduate from the TAU School of Computer Sciences, has
successfully "taught" a computer how to interpret attractiveness in
women. But there's a more serious dimension to this issue that
reaches beyond mere vanity. The discovery is a step towards
developing artificial intelligence in computers. Other applications
for the software could be in plastic and reconstructive surgery and
computer visualization programs such as face recognition
technologies.

Eight ways to get exactly what you want
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19826551.400&print=true
Lifting the lid on the science of persuasion
Cajole your boss into giving you a raise, win someone round to your
point of view, or persuade your partner it's their turn to put out
the trash - getting people to do what you want can be very handy.
Persuasion is a key element of all human interaction, from politics
to marketing to everyday dealings with friends, family and
colleagues. "Persuasion is a basic form of social interaction," says
Eric Knowles, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of
Arkansas in Fayetteville. "It is the way we build consensus and a
common purpose."

Galaxies Twice as Bright as They Seem, Study Finds
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/17/science/space/17univ.html



T.A. Frank: Confessions of a Sweatshop Inspector
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2008/0804.frank.html
Presidential candidates are calling for tougher labor
standards in trade agreements. But can such standards be enforced?
Here's what I learned from my old job.
I remember one particularly bad factory in China. It produced
outdoor tables, parasols, and gazebos, and the place was a mess.
Work floors were so crowded with production materials that I could
barely make my way from one end to the other. In one area, where
metals were being chemically treated, workers squatted at the edge
of steaming pools as if contemplating a sudden, final swim. The
dormitories were filthy: the hallways were strewn with
garbage--orange peels, tea leaves--and the only way for anyone to
bathe was to fill a bucket with cold water. In a country where
workers normally suppress their complaints for fear of getting
fired, employees at this factory couldn't resist telling us the
truth. "We work so hard for so little pay," said one middle-aged
woman with undisguised anger. We could only guess how hard--the
place kept no time cards. Painted in large characters on the factory
walls was a slogan: "If you don't work hard today, look hard for
work tomorrow." Inspirational, in a way.


Raina Kelley: Faulty Powers
http://www.newsweek.com/id/136061
The human brain is a less-than-perfect device. A new book explains
how our minds work ... and sometimes don't.


Charles Murray: The age of educational romanticism
http://www.newcriterion.com/articleprint.cfm/The-age-of-educational-romanticism-3835
On requiring every child to be above average.
This is the story of educational romanticism in elementary and
secondary schools --its rise, its etiology, and, we have reason to
hope, its approaching demise.
Educational romanticism consists of the belief that just about all
children who are not doing well in school have the potential to do
much better. Correlatively, educational romantics believe that the
academic achievement of children is determined mainly by the
opportunities they receive; that innate intellectual limits (if they
exist at all) play a minor role; and that the current K-12 schools
have huge room for improvement.
Educational romanticism characterizes reformers of both Left and
Right, though in different ways. Educational romantics of the Left
focus on race, class, and gender. It is children of color, children
of poor parents, and girls whose performance is artificially
depressed, and their academic achievement will blossom as soon as
they are liberated from the racism, classism, and sexism embedded in
American education. Those of the Right see public education as an
ineffectual monopoly, and think that educational achievement will
blossom when school choice liberates children from politically
correct curricula and obdurate teachers' unions.

How Brain Learns To Read Can Depend Upon The Language
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120965705088459637.html?mod=djemITP

Get Smarter: 12 Hacks That Will Amp Up Your Brainpower
http://www.wired.com/print/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/gs_intro

A Test the Education Department Doesn't Love
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/04/21/oecd
In many quarters within American higher education, Education
Secretary Margaret Spellings is viewed (unfairly, she and her
supporters would argue) as an almost single-minded advocate for
more, and more standardized, measurement of how well college
students are educated. The position of Spellings's Education
Department on testing has made her unpopular with many college
leaders and faculty members in the United States.

State High-School Exit Tests Do Not Improve Academic Achievement,
 Study Finds

For how was the New York State Regent's (?sp) Examination the only state-mandated exam in the country?

State High-School Exit Tests Do Not Improve Academic Achievement, Study Finds
The Chronicle of Higher Education http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/05/2820n.htm
A new study has found that state requirements that students pass exit tests to graduate from high school appear to do nothing to improve achievement on federal reading and mathematics tests.
Rsults of which have been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication in the journal Educational Policy, compared the reading and math scores of children in states with exit examinations to the scores of children elsewhere in the United States and concluded that there was no evidence that requiring passage of such tests improved academic achievement in those subject areas.

Even the most rigorous versions of the exit tests failed to produce significant improvements in the reading and math performance, according to the report on the study's findings written by Eric Grodsky, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of California at Davis, with Demetra Kalogrides, a graduate student in sociology at that campus, and John Robert Warren, an associate professor of sociology and a director of undergraduate studies at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.

The Bachelor's Degree Is Obsolete?
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/05/13/sloane
and
http://insidehighered.com/index.php/content/download/229351/2907983/version/1/file/CommonSense.pdf
Why don't we declare the bachelor's degree obsolete? No, not
education, not colleges and universities, not professors or
libraries or students, just the four-year bachelor's degree.
(You might turn on your iPod while you read. You'll see why.)
Western history traces this four-year package back to the
University of Bologna, before Gutenberg, when the pedagogical
constraint was the shortage of books. Students had to gather in
large rooms while the professor read from one of the scarce
books. Only Wikipedia, in my scrounging around, notes that the
University of Al-Karaouine in Morocco and Al-Azhar University in
Egypt preceded Bologna in their founding and in granting
multi-year degrees.

Bush Loyalist Fights Foes of `No Child' Law
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/12/washington/12spellings.html
NEWPORT, Ky. -- Margaret Spellings is not running for office -- at
least, not yet. But in the waning days of the Bush presidency, she
is running one last campaign.

Democrats Offer Plans to Revamp Schools Law
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/12/us/12education.html
Democrats are dividing into camps as they debate a new course for
education policy after President Bush leaves office.

Deep Down, We Can't Fool Even Ourselves
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/science/01tier.html
In voting against the Bush tax cut in 2001, Senator John McCain said
he "cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of
the benefits go to the most fortunate." Today he campaigns in favor
of extending that same tax cut beyond its expiration date.
Senator Barack Obama last year called himself a "longtime advocate"
of public financing of election campaigns. This month, he reiterated
his "support" for such financing while becoming the first major
party presidential nominee ever to reject it for his own campaign.
Do you think either of these men is a hypocrite?
If so, does this hypocrite really believe, in his heart, what he is
saying?
Fortunately, we don't need to get into the fine points of taxes or
campaign finances to take a stab at these questions. We can probably
get further by looking at some experiments in what psychologists
call moral hypocrisy