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Schouders uit de kom
De Standaard: Het spant erom bij de regeringsonderhandelingen. Maar de uitkomst van zo'n nachtje - waarom beginnen die onderhandelingen eigenlijk altijd 's avonds? - kan wel een hele generatie in de puree helpen. In essentie draait het om hoeveel we besparen door de overheid efficiënter te organiseren, en hoeveel we extra uit de broekzakken van onze burgers halen door extra belastingen. Als ik lees dat ze in de Wetstraat van plan zijn het immense gat in onze begroting dicht te rijden met 70 procent nieuwe belastingen en 30 procent besparingen, draait mijn maag om. De sterkste schouders moeten de zwaarste lasten dragen, hoor je dan.
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Sorry, I Left My Memory in the Other Room
ABC News: Ever forget the reason why you walked into a room seconds after you enter, even though you know you are there for a reason? You stand in the doorway wondering, “I know I came in here for something!” If you answered yes, you may go as far as to rationalize that this is why it happens: ‘Well, our lives are so overburdened, and that’s why so many of us buzz around like caffeinated cheetahs crossing things our mental checklists.
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Blogs – a means to finding people to do rhythmic things with?
Scientific American: I wrote this post a long time ago – in December 24, 2008. At the time, Twitter was new, FriendFeed was small, Facebook did not yet have functionalities it has today, and Google Plus did not exist. So the main platform for finding an online community were blogs. I found this (the link is now broken, but the site still exists, and I could not find the post – perhaps got lost to the vagaries of time, or a re-design of the site, or blogger’s whim) quite intriguing: Those thinking that online social networking is a substitute for face-to-face interactions might want to think again.
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Why you forgot what you were just doing
msnbc: Have you ever walked into a room and realized you don’t remember what you’re doing there? Yeah, us too. Well thankfully science finally explains why: It’s the doorway’s fault, a new study finds. “When you go from room to room, your brain identifies each room as a new event and sets a new memory trace to capture the new event,” says study author Gabriel Radvansky, Ph.D., a psychology professor at the University of Notre Dame. Like a chapter marker, doorways end old episodes and begin new ones, as far as your brain is concerned. This makes it difficult to retrieve older memories because they’ve already been filed away, Radvansky says. Read the full story: msnbc
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Sex on the Brain
Slate: Are male brains different from female brains? If so, how? And does it matter? This week, five researchers debated these questions at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. Their panel session, “The Promise and Peril of Research on Sex Differences,” didn’t settle the controversy, because it isn’t binary, and evidence is complex. But the exchange did clarify common mistakes to watch out for. Here’s a guide. Read the whole story: Slate
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Right-handed people don’t care for reggae
msnbc: The hand you use to write, brush your teeth, and throw a ball may also tip people off to your taste in music, a new study reveals. An Ohio researcher has found that people with a strong preference for using their right hand for most everything they do, seem to like popular types of music and tend to shy away from less familiar genres, especially bluegrass and reggae. Strong righties, the study suggests, may be less open to new musical experiences and tend to gravitate toward styles they're more familiar with. Read the whole story: msnbc
