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“The signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — But Some Don’t” by Nate Silver
The Washington Post: Nate Silver is best known as a statistician and election analyst (psephologist) who correctly predicted the winner in 49 of the 50 states during the 2008 presidential race and called all 50 states correctly this past week. He quietly persevered in his election analyses despite a torrent of criticism and invective from a variety of commentators who called the race a tossup or even insisted that Mitt Romney would win handily. Notwithstanding his track record, however, his book “The Signal and the Noise” is a much more general tome about predictions good, bad and ugly, whose basic outline is straightforward.
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Using Just 10% of Your Brain? Think Again
The Wall Street Journal: Pop quiz: Which of these statements is false? 1. We use only 10% of our brain. 2. Environments rich in stimuli improve the brains of preschool children. 3. Individuals learn better when they receive information in their preferred learning style, whether auditory, visual or kinesthetic. If you picked the first one, congratulations. The idea that we use only 10% of our brain is patently false. Yet it so permeates popular culture that, among psychologists and neuroscientists, it is known as the "10% myth." Contrary to popular belief, the entire brain is put to use—unused neurons die and unused circuits atrophy.
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Why War Helps, Rather than Harms, Some With PTSD
TIME: War is often the trigger for mental illness, but the latest research reveals some unexpected effects of combat on post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Feeling at home at war may seem like an oxymoron, but it has been reported for as long as wars have been. Now, research involving veterans of the war in Afghanistan suggests for the first time that some soldiers suffering from symptoms of PTSD before deployment improve during or after their combat duty. And another new study suggests that the size of a particular brain region— the amygdala— may predict which soldiers are at highest risk for the disorder.
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Avere la “testa fra le nuvole” stimola la creatività (Having the “head in the clouds” stimulates creativity)
La Stampa: Sognare a occhi aperti non è più da considerare un “male” ma, secondo un nuovo studio, è sintomo di creatività. Al contrario di quanto avviene in chi invece sta, per così dire, con i piedi per terra Sognare a occhi aperti, avere la testa fra le nuvole… tutti modi per definire una situazione che si è sempre considerata sbagliata e da evitare – specie tra i banchi di scuola. Da sempre infatti si è tenuto più in grande considerazione chi ha i cosiddetti piedi per terra – tanto per usare un altro modo di dire.
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Academic ‘Dream Team’ Helped Obama’s Effort
The New York Times: Late last year Matthew Barzun, an official with the Obama campaign, called Craig Fox, a psychologist in Los Angeles, and invited him to a political planning meeting in Chicago, according to two people who attended the session. “He said, ‘Bring the whole group; let’s hear what you have to say,’ ” recalled Dr. Fox, a behavioral economist at the University of California, Los Angeles. So began an effort by a team of social scientists to help their favored candidate in the 2012 presidential election. Some members of the team had consulted with the Obama campaign in the 2008 cycle, but the meeting in January signaled a different direction.
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Brainy Babies – Research Explores Infants’ Skills and Abilities
Infants seem to develop at an astoundingly rapid pace, learning new things and acquiring new skills every day. And research suggests that the abilities that infants demonstrate early on can shape the development of skills later in life, in childhood and beyond. Read about the latest research on infant development published in the November 2012 issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. How Do You Learn to Walk? Thousands of Steps and Dozens of Falls per Day Karen E. Adolph, Whitney G. Cole, Meghana Komati, Jessie S. Garciaguirre, Daryaneh Badaly, Jesse M. Lingeman, Gladys L. Y. Chan, and Rachel B. Sotsky How do babies learn to walk?
