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Dancing Without Feet
The New Yorker: At the age of fourteen, Sidiki Conde collapsed on his way to school, in Guinea. For several months, he was in a coma. The lack of adequate medical knowledge muddies the source of his illness; it may have been polio. When he finally returned to consciousness, he was paralyzed from the neck down. He became deeply depressed; suicide crossed his mind. One night in a dream, a voice asked him, “Why you are so sad? You are still here. You have something to offer.” Inspired, Sidiki finally asked to be released from the hospital, and in the next few years gradually regained the function of his arms.
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Multibillion-dollar map of human brain might not be worth it
Los Angeles Times: The Obama administration is reportedly considering funding a multibillion-dollar effort to map the human brain. This so-called Brain Activity Map project is inspired by the success of the Human Genome Project in mapping the genetic code. The proposal was outlined in the journal Neuron last summer by a group of leading researchers, among them geneticist George Church of Harvard Medical School, one of the originators of the genome project. This is an endeavor with exciting potential, but we should think about the pros and the cons before proceeding.
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Is Giving the Secret to Getting Ahead?
The New York Times: Just after noon on a Wednesday in November, Adam Grant wrapped up a lecture at the Wharton School and headed toward his office, a six-minute speed walk away. Several students trailed him, as often happens; at conferences, Grant attracts something more like a swarm. Grant chatted calmly with them but kept up the pace. He knew there would be more students waiting outside his office, and he said, more than once, “I really don’t like to keep students waiting.” Grant, 31, is the youngest-tenured and highest-rated professor at Wharton. He is also one of the most prolific academics in his field, organizational psychology, the study of workplace dynamics.
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Forecasting Fox
The New York Times: In 2006, Philip E. Tetlock published a landmark book called “Expert Political Judgment.” While his findings obviously don’t apply to me, Tetlock demonstrated that pundits and experts are terrible at making predictions. But Tetlock is also interested in how people can get better at making forecasts. His subsequent work helped prompt people at one of the government’s most creative agencies, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency, to hold a forecasting tournament to see if competition could spur better predictions. ... Five teams entered the tournament, from places like M.I.T., Michigan and Maryland.
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Seeing Happiness in Ambiguous Facial Expressions Reduces Aggressive Behavior
Encouraging young people at high-risk of delinquency to see happiness rather than anger in facial expressions appears to dampen their levels of anger and aggression
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Living With Less. A Lot Less.
The New York Times: I LIVE in a 420-square-foot studio. I sleep in a bed that folds down from the wall. I have six dress shirts. I have 10 shallow bowls that I use for salads and main dishes. When people come over for dinner, I pull out my extendable dining room table. I don’t have a single CD or DVD and I have 10 percent of the books I once did. ... Does all this endless consumption result in measurably increased happiness? In a recent study, the Northwestern University psychologist Galen V. Bodenhausen linked consumption with aberrant, antisocial behavior.
