NEWS: Poverty's Role in Intellectual Development

Photo via CityLab.

"Whether intelligence is more the product of nature or nurture has long fascinated American social scientists and the general public alike. Typically the result is explained as some balance of genetics and environment, but since the early 1970s, researchers have noticed that this scale tends to shift dramatically across social classes. It’s as if nature and nurture play by different rules for rich and poor." Read full article in CityLab. E.T.P. 

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY: The Strange Science of Floating

Image via TIME.

"While floating has always had fans in the wellness world, it’s undeniably grown in popularity. In 2011, there were 85 float centers in the United States, according to Aaron Thompson, who runs an online directory of flotation centers, and now there are more than 250. Floating has also attracted the interest of a small group of scientists who are trying to figure out if it has a place as a kind of therapy for some kinds of distress, including PTSD. Any proof that this helps people with stress disorders is anecdotal at this point, but something special appears to happen in brain while the body floats. Now, some scientists, like the neuropsychologist Justin Feinstein, are trying to find out what.

Feinstein believes so deeply in the therapeutic potential of floating that he built his whole career, and laboratory, around trying to prove it. This year he opened the only float lab in the country: the Float Clinic and Research Center at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Inside, you won’t find the claustrophobic coffin-like pods that make up most of the float tank market. His custom-made float pool has no enclosure, ensuring that people with anxiety disorders won’t be afraid to get in."

Read full article in TIME. E.T.P. 9'

SCIENCE: Relaxing Makes You More Creative

Image via INC

You've probably heard the saying "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." I suspect that most people interpret this as a comment on Jack's personality: He's "dull" because all he can think or talk about is work.
But that's not what the saying actually means. According to the latest neuroscience, overwork makes your brain "dull" in the sense of being the opposite of "sharp." Overwork, in other words, kills your creativity.
Scientists studying brain scans recently discovered that moments of creativity take place when the mind is at rest rather than working on something. And since creative approaches are so crucial to success, workaholics are working themselves out a job." That's why you should relax when you procrastinate, you'll probably end up doing a more creative job anyway! Read full article by Geoffrey James in INC. E.T.P. 5'

SCIENCE: Your brain actually doesn't suck at passwords

Illustration via Motherboard.

"Last year, two researchers asked a group of volunteers to log into a website 90 times over the span of ten days, using whatever password the volunteers chose.
After entering their password, the website showed the volunteers a short security code, made of either four random letters or two random words, and asked them to type it. Throughout the ten-day experiment, the site added more letters and words to the code—up to 12 random letters or six random words—and the security code would take just a little longer to be displayed, prompting the participants to remember it themselves before it appeared.
At the end of the experiment, and three days after the last login, a whopping 94 percent of the test subjects were able to remember from memory their random code word or phrase, which were seemingly nonsensical strings of characters like “zljndjjgjana” or meaningless phrases like “gaze sloth laugh grace relic born.” Without the volunteers knowing, the researchers had tricked their minds." Read full article by Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai in Motherboard. E.T.P. 3'

CULTURE & ENTERTAINMENT: The Science Behind Pixar's Inside Out

Movie still via Vulture.

"Ever since Pixar began showing previews of Inside Out, critics have been raving about its stunning animation, beautiful soundtrack, and creative portrayal of protagonist Riley's inner world. Daphna Shohamy, a researcher at Columbia University’s Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, appreciates Pixar’s latest movie for a different reason: She believes it has potential as an educational tool.
“I’m excited that people will learn from this movie about how malleable memories are,” she said. Shohamy was part of a group of scientists the filmmakers consulted during the making of the movie, and she explained a few things Inside Out can teach us about memory and the brain." Read full article in Vulture. E.T.P. 4'

SCIENCE

Image via The Guardian.

Why it's time for brain science to ditch the 'Venus and Mars' cliché. "As hardy perennials go, there is little to beat that science hacks' favourite: the hard-wiring of male and female brains. For more than 30 years, I have seen a stream of tales about gender differences in brain structure under headlines that assure me that from birth men are innately more rational and better at map-reading than women, who are emotional, empathetic multi-taskers, useless at telling jokes. I am from Mars, apparently, while the ladies in my life are from Venus." Read full article in The Guardian. E.T.P. 7'

Photo via Gizmodo.

Genetically modified bees can make concrete instead of honey? Apparently so. "Spiders, silkworms, and honeybees are already 3D printers—and bioengineering is rapidly making that more than just a poetic metaphor. These creatures are organic examples of depositional manufacturing, and they have been domesticated and used throughout human history for specific creative ends". Read full article in Gizmodo. E.T.P. 15'