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The Truth About Free Will: New Answers to Humanity’s Biggest Riddle
Salon: Philosophers have debated for years whether we deliberately make each of the many decisions we make every day, or if our brain does it for us, on autopilot. Neuroscientists have shown, for example, that neurons in the brain initiate our response to various stimuli milliseconds before we’re even aware that we’re taking such an action. This heady debate has hit a very practical road in the past decade: whether individuals who commit crimes are actually responsible for them. Lawyers have argued in court that if the brain determines the mind, then defendants may not be responsible for their transgressions. Read the whole story: Salon
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Preschoolers Outsmart College Students In Figuring Out Gadget
NPR: Ever wonder why children can so easily figure out how to work the TV remote? Or why they "totally get" apps on your smartphone faster than you? It turns out that young children may be more open-minded than adults when it comes to solving problems. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have found that 4- and 5-year-olds are smarter than college students when it comes to figuring out how toys and gadgets work. Read the whole story: NPR
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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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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.
