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Scientists prove you really can tell what your dog is feeling by looking at its face
The Telegraph: A study has shown that people are able to precisely identify a range of emotions in dogs from changes in their facial expressions. The research showed that volunteers could correctly spot when a dog was happy, sad, angry, surprised or scared, when shown only a picture of the animal’s face, suggesting that humans are naturally attuned to detecting how animals are feeling. ...
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Decorating a Barren Memory Palace
The Huffington Post: In my mind's eye, I now have an image of overweight nudists on bicycles. It's not an image I want in my head, but it's vivid and -- my guess is -- enduring. I have science journalist Joshua Foer to thank for this. I have just watched his charming and hugely popular TEDTalk on memory, and he uses this image to illustrate an ancient mnemonic device called the "memory palace" -- a technique he has actually used to memorize the TEDTalk itself. ... And that's exactly what they found.
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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.
