Wednesday, November 28, 2007
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Sudden Understanding: Aha! Favors The Prepared Mind
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/04/060405234439.htm
ScienceDaily (Apr. 5, 2006) -- If you've experienced the highs and
lows of creative thinking, you know that sometimes the creative
well is dry, while at other times creativity is free flowing. It is
during the latter times that people often experience so-called
"Aha!" moments -- those moments of clarity when the solution to a
vexing problem falls into place with a sudden insight and you see
connections that previously eluded you.


Music: Mirror Of The Mind
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070614084241.htm
ScienceDaily (Jun. 15, 2007) -- The long supposed connection
between mind and music has been further demonstrated by an
international collaboration of physicists led by Simone Bianco and
Paolo Grigolini at the Center for Nonlinear Science at the
University of North Texas. A statistical analysis reveals a
remarkable similarity between the distributions produced by music
compositions and brain activity.



Brain Imaging Shows Similarities & Differences In Thoughts Of Chimps And Humans
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071014173548.htm
ScienceDaily (Oct. 16, 2007) -- In the first study of its kind,
researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory
University, used functional brain imaging to assess resting-state
brain activity in chimpanzees as a potential window into their
mental world and to compare chimpanzee brain activity to that of
humans.


Revealing Secret Intentions In The Brain
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070208131728.htm
ScienceDaily (Feb. 12, 2007) -- Every day we plan numerous actions,
such as to return a book to a friend or to make an appointment. How
and where the brain stores these intentions has been revealed by
John-Dylan Haynes from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive
and Brain Sciences, in cooperation with researchers from London and
Tokyo. For the first time they were able to "read" participants'
intentions out of their brain activity. This was made possible by a
new combination of functional magnetic resonance imaging and
sophisticated computer algorithms (Current Biology, 20th February
2007, online: 8th February).


Odd Behavior And Creativity May Go Hand-in-hand
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050907101907.htm
ScienceDaily (Sep. 7, 2005) -- Often viewed as a hindrance, having a quirky or socially awkward
approach to life may be the key to becoming a great artist, composer
or inventor.
New research on individuals with schizotypal personalities - people
characterized by odd behavior and language but who are not
psychotic or schizophrenic - offers the first neurological evidence
that they are more creative than either normal or fully
schizophrenic individuals, and rely more heavily on the right sides
of their brains than the general population to access their
creativity.

Highly Accomplished People More Prone To Failure Than Others When Under Stress
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070218130822.htm
ScienceDaily (Feb. 20, 2007) -- Talented people often choke under
pressure because the distraction caused by stress consumes their
working memory, a psychologist at the University of Chicago has
found.
Highly accomplished people tend to heavily rely on their abundant
supply of working memory and are therefore disadvantaged when
challenged to solve difficult problems, such as mathematical ones,
under pressure, according to research by Sian Beilock, Assistant
Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago. Her findings
were presented Saturday, Feb. 17 at the annual meeting of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science.


Two Heads Are Not Always Better Than One
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/02/010223081251.htm
ScienceDaily (Feb. 28, 2001) -- University Park, PA --- Learning to
solve a problem as part of a twosome and learning on your own
produce different benefits, a Penn State researcher has found and
he says these differences can be exploited to enhance cooperative
learning strategies, decision support systems for corporate
managers or on line courses.
Dr. Michael D. McNeese, associate professor of information sciences
and technology, says, "The way you acquire information affects how
you use it. We've shown that learning to solve a problem in a group
definitely has certain advantages. However, when you look in depth,
there are situations where the individual who worked alone on the
problem does better than people in groups. It depends on the
problem."


Brain Activity Differs For Creative And Noncreative Thinkers
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071027102409.htm
ScienceDaily (Oct. 29, 2007) -- Why do some people solve problems
more creatively than others? Are people who think creatively
different from those who tend to think in a more methodical
fashion?
These questions are part of a long-standing debate, with some
researchers arguing that what we call "creative thought" and
"noncreative thought" are not basically different. If this is the
case, then people who are thought of as creative do not really
think in a fundamentally different way from those who are thought
of as noncreative. On the other side of this debate, some
researchers have argued that creative thought is fundamentally
different from other forms of thought. If this is true, then those
who tend to think creatively really are somehow different.


Religion: For Dummies
Scientist Richard Dawkins on Darwin, the Sistine Chapel, and why the world would be better off without religion. Interview by Laura Sheahen
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/136/story_13688.html
In outspoken proponent of Darwinism and rationalism, Oxford professor Richard Dawkins is also a fierce critic of religion. In his articles and best-selling books, he has challenged attempts to ascribe design to the universe or purpose to life, calling those who don't believe in evolution "ignorant or brainwashed." He spoke with Beliefnet recently about his collection of essays, "A Devil's Chaplain." In the first essay of the collection, you say that as a scientist, you're a Darwinist, but as a human being, you feel it's important to recognize that natural selection is unpleasant and fight against it. Could you explain this in more detail?

Teaching Intelligent Design vs Evolution in the classroom. Is intelligent design religion or science?



IQs rise, but are children really smarter?
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-iq27oct27,1,2544793,print.story?ctrack=2&cset=true
An expert says scores are higher because more people view the world through scientific spectacles. By Denise Gellene Los Angeles Times Staff Writer James R. Flynn, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of Otaga in New Zealand, discovered two decades ago that IQ test scores were steadily rising in the developed world despite failing schools and stagnant standardized test scores -- a phenomenon called the "Flynn effect." During a recent visit to UCLA, Flynn talked about the conundrum, which is the subject of his new book, "What Is Intelligence?" Are children today smarter than their parents?
I don't think they are smarter if by that you mean they have better brains. They think better on their feet; they can solve problems on the spot without being told what to do; they are better at working with shapes, thanks in part to the Internet and the computer. But they have no larger vocabularies and are no better at arithmetic.

Excerpt:
Q. So why are their IQs higher than those of their parents and grandparents?
A. The people who invented IQ tests saw the world through scientific spectacles. They were interested in logical reasoning. But generations ago people were very utilitarian. If you asked a person in 1900 what a dog and rabbit had in common, they would say you could use a dog to hunt rabbits. Today you would say they both are mammals. That is shorthand for a lot of insight. That may seem trivial, but classifying the world is prerequisite to understanding it scientifically.

Q. You are referring to the portion of the IQ test that measures the ability to determine similarities?
A. Yes. And if you say "Mammals," you get two points, and if you say "Dogs hunt rabbits," you get none. The score on this portion of the test has gone up 24 points in America since 1947.

Q.Do you think there is something wrong with the way IQ is assessed?
A. The people who designed the test thought they were measuring intelligence, but they were actually measuring a mix of intelligence and a way of looking at the world. They looked at the world through scientific spectacles, and it took a long time for the average person to slowly take on that perspective.

Q. What caused scientific thinking to go mainstream?




Source of human empathy found in brain
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19626294.600&print=true
They have been implicated in empathy, language acquisition and even consciousness itself. Now individual mirror neurons have been directly observed in people for the first time. Mirror neurons are brain cells that are activated both when a person performs an intentional action and when he or she sees someone else performing that same action. First discovered in macaque monkeys 11 years ago, this new class of cells generated a booming field of research. Yet until now, evidence for human mirror neurons could only be inferred from functional MRI studies, which measure general patterns of brain activity, and presumed similarities between humans and other primates.



Watchful eye keeps quantum computing on the boil
http://technology.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19626295.000&print=true
THEY say a watched pot never boils. Thanks to a quirk of quantum mechanics, a similar thing can be said of atoms, which refuse to decay while you peek at them. A new plan to exploit this effect may overcome one of the biggest obstacles to building a quantum computer.



Anti-social Samson
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn421&print=true
Samson, the celebrated Biblical strongman, suffered from the earliest recorded case of antisocial personality disorder. Eric Altschuler from the University of California at San Diego and his colleagues say that Samson showed signs of no fewer than six of the seven behaviours associated with the disorder. Samson routinely got into fights, and once killed 1000 Philistines single-handedly and then gloated over it, showing no remorse. He also showed a reckless disregard for his own safety when he told Delilah, a woman who'd tried to kill him three times before, the secret of his strength.
People with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) exhibit at least three of seven specific behaviours, such as being impulsive, reckless and habitually getting into fights, according to a standard manual called DSM-IV which doctors use to diagnose all recognised mental illnesses.
"It's almost as if the writer of the story has the DSM criteria tacked to the wall, and he is writing a sketch," says Altschuler. "But this was 3000 years before the DSM."
Big bully
The researchers note that Samson also burned Philistine fields, which showed both his impulsivity and his inability to conform to social norms. He was deceitful, not telling his parents, for instance, that he got honey from the carcass of a lion. And like many people with ASPD, Samson behaved badly as a child: setting
things on fire, torturing animals, stealing, and bullying other children.
Altschuler says the diagnosis may even make other parts of the story, found in chapters 13 to 16 of Judges, more understandable.
For instance, a whole chapter is devoted to Samson's mother being warned by angels not to drink while she's pregnant, suggesting that recklessness and a disregard for others may have run in the family, says Altschuler. More at: Archives of General Psychiatry (vol 58, p 202)

How to handle Cyber Bullyies, School Bullyies and Have Safe Schools



Wednesday, November 28, 2007 9:10:39 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  |  Related posts:
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