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POPSOld Blighty, the birthplace of English "Collins' editors know that old words die hard — and that some people will vilipend (regard with contempt) any execution without a fair trial. So they've offered the chance of a reprieve. They have made public 24 words that face deletion because editors could find no example of their use in their database of English-language books, newspapers, broadcasts and other media. If, by February 2009, a word reappears in that database with at least six "high quality" citations, it could be spared from the semantic dustbin. "We're looking to see if dropping a little stone in the pond of language actually does generate ripples," says Brookes."
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POPSHippocratic Oath for Scientists? "Scientific misconduct is very expensive, leading to years of wasted research dollars and effort in pursuit of a scientific mirage, and it damages the public's perception of the value of science to society. Not only that, but the personal and professional costs to those closest to it are tremendous; whistle-blowers often lose everything and, if their scientific career somehow survives, it will always bear the scars, as revealed by Allegra Goodman in her excellent book, Intuition. In response to what appears to be a growing problem, a group of people at the Institute of Medical Science at University of Toronto in Canada wrote a scientist's version of the Hippocratic oath. This oath (above) was recited by all graduate students in the biological sciences at the beginning of the 2007-2008 academic year."
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POPSThe evolution of morality "So to answer the question why we are moral, it is because our ancestors, who were apes and shared the common ape heritage of being social animals of a certain kind, were rule followers, and had to cooperate to survive and gain mating opportunities. And then we evolved language. "
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POPSThe Myth of Multitasking "In one recent study, Russell Poldrack, a psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that “multitasking adversely affects how you learn. Even if you learn while multitasking, that learning is less flexible and more specialized, so you cannot retrieve the information as easily.” The Kaiser report noted several factors that increase the likelihood of media multitasking, “In this media-heavy world, it is likely that brains that are more adept at media multitasking will be passed along and these changes will be naturally selected,” the report states. “After all, information is power, and if one can process more information all at once, perhaps one can be more powerful.”
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POPSThe web that time forgot "Today, Otlet and his work have been largely forgotten, even in his native Belgium. Although Otlet enjoyed considerable fame during his lifetime, his legacy fell victim to a series of historical misfortunes — not least of which involved the Nazis marching into Belgium and destroying much of his life's work. But in recent years, a small group of researchers has begun to resurrect Otlet's reputation, republishing some of his writing and raising money to establish the museum and archive in Mons."
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POPSChimps console each other to reduce stress after fights "When Fraser looked at who was consoling whom, he found that acts of consolation were more likely to happen between individuals with valuable relationships. Chimps tended to comfort peers who groomed them frequently, shared food with them or gave them a hand in their own conflicts. Other factors like how closely related they were had no such effects. "
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POPS How crises Point to a Better Future "Transitions announce themselves in the language of crisis. We are in a time of turbulence as old patterns give way and new ones form. The multiple crises today signal a system transformation operating at the scale of the planet. Transformation is distinct from adaptation, which is the normal process of incremental adjustment to new conditions. Transformations are rare moments in history when dominant societal structures cannot cope with emerging developments and change in fundamental ways. With the converging lines of crises we face today, we may be entering a perfect storm of destabilizing stress."
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POPSWeb facts erode research “The higher-quality materials are not available to them on or off line,” says Tara Brabazon, professor of media at the University of Brighton. She says that Google in itself is not the problem, but students' over-reliance “on any single platform or media ”. But US research suggests that academics may struggle to undo such behaviour. “It is too late to reverse-engineer deeply ingrained habits, notably an uncritical trust in branded search engines to deliver quick fixes.”
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POPSTechnothrillers vs. Science Fiction "I'm not sure this explains the sales figures-- after all, people don't generally know the details of the ending before they buy a book-- but I thought it was an interesting remark, and pretty accurate given my limited reading of thrillers."
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POPSJapanese robots enter daily life "People are still asking whether people really want robots running around their homes, and folding their clothes," said Damian Thong, senior technology analyst at Macquarie Bank in Tokyo. "But then again, Japan's the only country in the world where everyone has an electric toilet," he said. "We could be looking at a robotics revolution."
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POPSCan You Predict Happiness? "the moments when we are actually able to dedicate that level of comparison to an experience while we're having it are few and far between, Gilbert says. In the vast majority of scenarios, "the roads we don't take in life disappear a lot more quickly than we think they will."
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POPSThe Big Question: Is time travel possible ? "In any case, if the LHC became a time machine by accident, the device would exist only at the sub-atomic level so we are not talking about a machine like Dr Who's Tardis, which is able to carry people forwards and backwards from the future."
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POPSFigaro! Figaro! Training the Multitasking Brain The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging to map the brains of musical conductors and non-musicians who tried to distinguish musical tones while also being shown visual images. The scans showed that non-musicians had to turn off more of their visual sense than the conductors did in order to focus on the task. One of the researchers, Dr. Hodges, director of the Music Research Institute at UNC- Greensboro, says there are two possible interpretations of the results: One is that the brains of musicians are wired this way, and that’s why they became musicians. The other is that they train their brains for rewiring. Because conductors have to be able to hear a bad note, then identify who did it, perhaps they rewire their brains to combine their visual and auditory senses. An experienced conductor has trained day after day, year after year, to let their brains pick up various signals from their senses.
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