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The F-Word: Let’s Just Call It What It Is… [Bleep!]
TIME: There are real data now to help answer such a question. Relatively recent technologies — cable television, satellite radio, and social network media — provide us with a not-too-unrealistic picture of how often people swear in public and what they say when they do. Before these new forms of reporting, the media provided a fairly sanitized view of spoken English. Newspapers today still swerve to avoid swearing, opting for euphemisms like “_____,” “PG-rated expletive,” or “an eight-letter word for animal excrement,” instead of telling us what was really said. Fortunately, YouTube now offers people like me, who study language and profanity, a more accurate picture.
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The Trauma of Parenthood
The New York Times: Everyone knows that being the parent of an infant is hard. There’s the sleeplessness, the screaming fits to tend to, the loss of autonomy, the social isolation and the sheer monotony of it. Everyone also knows that there is only one socially acceptable response to this predicament: a dogged insistence that the adoration you feel for your child makes all the sacrifices worthwhile. It’s “the toughest job you’ll ever love.” The only valid excuse for feeling sad or despondent is a postpartum hormonal crash. What other justification could there be for greeting your bundle of joy with despair? Read the whole story: The New York Times
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Sleep May Help the Brain Integrate New Language Skills
Scientists have understood for decades that the brain is “plastic,” meaning that our neural connections change and adapt in response to new experiences. One factor that seems to play a particular role in language plasticity
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Bimbi con tempo meno strutturato più in grado di raggiungere obiettivi (Children with Less Time Structure are More Likely to Reach Goals)
La Stampa: I bambini che trascorrono il proprio tempo in maniera meno strutturata, dal giocare all’aria aperta da soli al leggere libri fino al visitare uno zoo, saranno più in grado di raggiungere i propri obiettivi, secondo un nuovo studio della University of Colorado pubblicato su Frontiers in Psychology. Al contrario, i bimbi coinvolti in attività più strutturate, come lezioni di piano, corsi di calcio e compiti scolastici svilupperanno una minore propensione a cavarsela da soli nelle funzioni esecutive, saranno in pratica meno indipendenti dagli adulti. Read the whole story: La Stampa
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Educational Technology Isn’t Leveling the Playing Field
Slate: The local name for the Philadelphia neighborhood of Kensington is “the Badlands,” and with good reason. Pockmarked with empty lots and burned-out row houses, the area has an unemployment rate of 29 percent and a poverty rate of 90 percent. Just a few miles to the northwest, the genteel neighborhood of Chestnut Hill seems to belong to a different universe. Here, educated professionals shop the boutiques along Germantown Avenue and return home to gracious stone and brick houses, the average price of which hovers above $400,000. Within these very different communities, however, are two places remarkably similar in the resources they provide: the local public libraries.
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Cool at 13, Adrift at 23
The New York Times: At 13, they were viewed by classmates with envy, admiration and not a little awe. The girls wore makeup, had boyfriends and went to parties held by older students. The boys boasted about sneaking beers on a Saturday night and swiping condoms from the local convenience store. They were cool. They were good-looking. They were so not you. Whatever happened to them? Read the whole story: The New York Times
