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Expressions of fear and disgust aided human survival, study says
Los Angeles Times: Why do our eyes open wide when we feel fear or narrow to slits when we express disgust? According to new research, it has to do with survival. In a paper published Thursday in the journal Psychological Science, researchers concluded that expressions of fear and disgust altered the way human eyes gather and focus light. They argued that these changes were the result of evolutionary development and were intended to help humans survive, or at least detect, very different threats. To test their hypothesis, study authors examined two dozen volunteer undergraduate students with standard eye-exam equipment, and asked them to mimic expressions of fear and revulsion.
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To Keep Teenagers Alert, Schools Let Them Sleep In
The New York Times: Jilly Dos Santos really did try to get to school on time. She set three successive alarms on her phone. Skipped breakfast. Hastily applied makeup while her fuming father drove. But last year she rarely made it into the frantic scrum at the doors of Rock Bridge High School here by the first bell, at 7:50 a.m. Then she heard that the school board was about to make the day start even earlier, at 7:20 a.m. “I thought, if that happens, I will die,” recalled Jilly, 17. “I will drop out of school!” That was when the sleep-deprived teenager turned into a sleep activist.
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Read This Blog Post In Less Than A Minute!
I am a slow reader, and I would love to read faster. Not poetry or novels obviously—those we should savor. But lots of non-fiction, and certainly the news. There’s simply too much to read in our busy world, and too little time. That’s why I decided recently—like many others apparently—to try an on-line demo of Spritz. Spritz is a soon-to-be-released app for reading text on small screens—and reading it much more rapidly than we’re accustomed to. Spritz makes use of a technology first developed in 1970, called Rapid Serial Visual Presentation, or RSVP, in which each word is presented briefly in the center of the screen in sequence.
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Smartphone App Calms the Nerves
Science Magazine: Cellphones and other mobile devices have gotten a lot of bad press recently for keeping people tethered to stressful workplaces. But a new study suggests that mobile technology might also help tense people chill out. Playing a smartphone gaming app for 45 minutes can reduce anxiety levels in tense individuals, researchers reported online this month in Clinical Psychological Science. Read the whole story: Science Magazine
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The Future of Brain Implants
The Wall Street Journal: What would you give for a retinal chip that let you see in the dark or for a next-generation cochlear implant that let you hear any conversation in a noisy restaurant, no matter how loud? Or for a memory chip, wired directly into your brain's hippocampus, that gave you perfect recall of everything you read? Or for an implanted interface with the Internet that automatically translated a clearly articulated silent thought ("the French sun king") into an online search that digested the relevant Wikipedia page and projected a summary directly into your brain? Science fiction? Perhaps not for very much longer.
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A Study Seeks to Determine What Makes Prekindergarten Successful
The New York Times: The teacher held up a card with a number on it, then looked at the 4-year-olds waving their hands eagerly in front of her. “Anderson,” she said, calling on a small boy in a blue button-up shirt and a sweater vest. “Five,” Anderson said, correctly. “Good boy, Anderson,” the teacher said. Then she turned to the rest of the class. “Are you ready?” she said, and then, “Go!” At that, the children jumped up and down five times as they counted: “One! Two! Three! Four! Five!” This exercise, which held a prekindergarten class in Brooklyn riveted one morning last week, was not an effort to introduce high-impact aerobics into preschool.
