Times Online.UK:
“The case against Mr X must be dismissed. He cannot be held responsible for smashing Mr Y’s face into a pulp. He is not guilty, it was his brain that did it. Blame not Mr X, but his overactive amygdala.”
Times Online.UK:
“Researchers from Aberdeen, Bristol, Edinburgh and Glasgow universities discovered that high-IQ women saw marriage prospects fall dramatically, but men with high IQs had little trouble finding a mate. They found that for each 16-point rise in a woman’s IQ, her marriage prospects declined by 40%, but the man’s chances of marriage increased by 35% with each rise.” Male egos tend to collapse when confronted by female intellectual strength. Their loss. I’d love to find out how James Carville and Mary Matalin manage to thrive in a house both divided and united in strength. Once upon a time, argument could be an intellectual pursuit, rather than a means to hurt. I figure they’re smart enough to know that.
Washington Post:
New Cameras Blur Reality. It is often surprising, in doing portraits, observing how people perceive themselves.
NY Times Opinion:
Judith Warner, The Rabbit-Eared Life.
The Atlantic:
The Autumn of the Multitaskers. What a great sentence: “The overdoses, freak-outs, and collapses that converged in the late ’60s to wipe out the gains of the wide-eyed optimists who set out to ‘Be Here Now’ but ended up making posters that read ‘Speed Kills’ are finally coming for the wired utopians who strove to ‘Be Everywhere at Once’ but lost a measure of innocence, or should have, when their manic credo convinced us we could fight two wars at the same time.”
Philadelphia Inquirer:
This may explain bizarre product names.
NY Times TV:
New Series: Women Test Mettle, and Metal. We’ve complained about negative male stereotypes on television, it seems time for the women now.
BBC:
“Deep within this 5,000-year-old culture is the thought that high ideals, nobility and high caste are associated with fair skin. ... [snip] ... Dark skin is regarded as low status and low caste.”
CNN Health:
Acupuncture—real or sham—helps back pain.
The New Atlantis:
Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism. Much of this applies to weblogs, also. Hundreds of entries in one’s blogroll doesn’t say anything if you don’t actually use them. Going to seminars and listening to web-luminaries, do you judge their worth by perceived popularity, or by their performance for their clients or employers? They are two separate gauges.
Boston Globe:
“From the Internet to the iPod, technology is bringing rapid advances in memory. What society needs now are new ways to forget.” The time factor seems to be handling ‘forgetting’ in today’s world. Who recalls the Republican past desire to kill the filibuster? A few of us; the remainder of America remains oblivious. Only the latest opinion is retained. Better to have accurate records - the human element will always be forgetful.
Reuters:
Americans giving up friends, sex for Web life. Give me a choice between an ‘unwired’ walking trip through Europe or another month weblogging ... t’ain’t no contest. You could even take my camera away, as long as you leave me my Moleskine. I’d be happy as a clam at high tide ...
NY Times:
25th Anniversary Mark Elusive for Many Couples. “One statistical constant has been the so-called seven-year itch, as popularized in the 1950s play and film about errant husbands. Couples who separate do so, on average, after seven years and divorce after eight.”
Reuters:
Love at first sight, or in half a second. Yes, but was that half-second mutual?
NY Times:
Is selfishness an evolutionary dead-end?
NY Times:
Living Your Dreams, in a Manner of Speaking. On lucid dreaming.
lifehack:
13 tricks to motivate yourself. Some days, a regular routine is great ... other days, it grates like fingers down a chalkboard. A day of unscheduled interruptions can be terribly frustrating, or immensely liberating. You never know. These tips may help make productivity more consistent and enjoyable.
Washington Post, Science & Medicine Desk:
“People are more likely to get sick and die young if they’re lonely, and researchers said yesterday that they may have found out why—their immune systems are haywire.”
BookForum:
After The Last Intellectual. “Knowledge might be a valuable commodity, but criticism and radical skepticism, as such, were not. ‘The institutional world needs intellectuals because they are intellectuals,’ wrote Howe, ‘but it does not want them as intellectuals.’”
LA Times:
Use time wisely—by slacking off. “We are a nation of doers, hard workers, yet we are also a nation of ideas, big ideas. These two aspects of the American personality constantly rub against each other; great ideas require idleness, but idleness makes us uncomfortable.”
Reuters:
Most women own 19 pairs of shoes—some secretly. Hearts full of sole ...
npr:
Reuters:
“Watching television more than two hours a day early in life can lead to attention problems later in adolescence, according to a study released on Tuesday. The roughly 40 percent increase in attention problems among heavy TV viewers was observed in both boys and girls, and was independent of whether a diagnosis of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder was made prior to adolescence.”
Washington Post:
Persistence of Myths Could Alter Public Policy Approach. Sounds like a mere footnote to Goebbels. Note that changing the subject, rather than silence and denials, is what consistently works. How familiar is that tactic.
NY Times Science:
Through Analysis, Gut Reaction Gains Credibility.
