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Spooky Judgments: How Agents Think About Danger
We are watching Big Brother watching us. Whatever one thinks of Edward Snowden, hero or traitor or something in between, his revelations about sweeping NSA surveillance have gotten America’s attention. His whistle blowing has raised important questions about the balance of liberty and safety, and will heighten suspicions and scrutiny of the nation’s intelligence agencies for some time to come. We hire and train intelligence agents to weigh risks and make judgments, and most of us want to believe that these assessments are sound. But how rational are the individual men and women who are making the life-and-death decisions that influence national security?
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Blood vessels behind eyes are secret to the age of the human brain
Times of India: The secret behind the actual age of your brain is inside your eyes. Scientists have found that the width of blood vessels in the retina, located at the back of the eye, may indicate brain health years before the onset of dementia. Retinal blood vessels share similar size, structure, and function with blood vessels in the brain and can provide a way of examining brain health in living humans. Individuals who had wider retinal venules showed evidence of general cognitive deficits, with lower scores on numerous measures of neuropsychological functioning, including verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory and executive function.
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Would You Accept DNA From A Murderer?
NPR: Modern medicine and technology can change the way we define our physical and psychological selves. Is a prosthetic arm "your own arm" in the same sense that its biological predecessor seemed to be? Might taking antipsychotic medication fundamentally change your personality? Could an organ transplant from a pig, or from a violent murderer, somehow change who you are? Understanding how people think about significant medical interventions not only has practical implications, it can also shed light on how people conceptualize themselves and their bodies.
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Where We Are Shapes Who We Are
The New York Times: IN the early 1970s, a team of researchers dropped hundreds of stamped, addressed letters near college dorms along the East Coast and recorded how many lost letters found their way to a mailbox. The researchers counted each posted letter as a small act of charity and discovered that students in some of the dorms were more generous than others. Nearly all of the letters dropped near uncrowded dorms — residences where comparatively few students lived on each floor — reached their intended recipients. In contrast, only about 6 in 10 of the letters dropped near crowded dorms completed the journey.
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The Bad Habits of Good Negotiators
LinkedIn: For a good part of the past decade, I’ve taught negotiation skills to diverse audiences—Fortune 500 executives, generals in the U.S. Army and Air Force, and professional athletes in the NFL and NHL. They tend to excel at preparing, analyzing options, and establishing a strong position. Yet some of their communication choices fly in the face of the best data on what actually works at the bargaining table. Negotiations start with the exchange of information. Many people view this process like playing a poker game. Why should I tip my hand before I’ve seen yours?
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Why There’s a Sassy Wombat on Your Phone
The Wall Street Journal: Text messages just don't convey thoughts and emotions well enough for 2013. When Tanya Sichynsky wants to tell friends she's tired, the 19-year-old University of Georgia student doesn't text anymore. She sends an image from her smartphone of a sleepy cartoon bunny holding a coffee mug with a smiley face. When Kylin Brown messes up dinner, the 23-year-old Indianapolis work-at-home mother uses her smartphone to send her mother a fingernail-size cartoon of a girl running away from an oven in flames. "We barely use words anymore, except when we talk on the phone," says Ms. Brown. ...
