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POPSThe Teen Brain Human and animal studies, Jensen and Urion note, have shown that the brain grows and changes continually in young people—and that it is only about 80 percent developed in adolescents. The largest part, the cortex, is divided into lobes that mature from back to front. The last section to connect is the frontal lobe, responsible for cognitive processes such as reasoning, planning, and judgment. Normally this mental merger is not completed until somewhere between ages 25 and 30—much later than these two neurologists were taught in medical school. There are also gender differences in brain development. As Urion and Jensen explain, the part of our brain that processes information expands during childhood and then begins to thin, peaking in girls at roughly 12 to 14 years old and in boys about two years later. This suggests that girls and boys may be ready to absorb challenging material at different stages, and that schools may be missing opportunities to reach them.
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POPSIrreligious The American Religious Identification Survey made headlines in 2001 when it reported that the number of people with no religious affiliation had increased sharply since 1990, from 8.2 to 14.1 percent. The latest report, released last month, put the number at 15 percent.
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POPSGeorgia Woman Faces Eviction Because of Decades-Old Sex Act Funny, isn’t it, how we can have an administration that destroys our economic infrastructure and violates the Constitution and escapes punishment and accountability; yet, a woman who had oral sex with her boyfriend stands to lose everything because of a few moments of mutually consensual pleasure.
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POPSPoverty and the Brain "The point is that poverty isn't just an idea, or a state of mind: it actually warps the mind. Some brains never even have a chance." deserves a second thought
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POPSBy imagining many possible worlds fiction can chang our Minds "For more than two thousand years people have insisted that reading fiction is good for bookyou. Aristotle claimed that poetry—he meant the epics of Homer and the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, which we would now call fiction—is a more serious business than history. History, he argued, tells us only what has happened, whereas fiction tells us what can happen, which can stretch our moral imaginations and give us insights into ourselves and other people. This is a strong argument for schools to continue to focus on the literary arts, not just history, science, and social studies. But is the idea of fiction being good for you merely wishful thinking?'
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POPSThe Singularity Frankenstein Singularity defender George Dvorsky is spot-on when he calls for the singularity-aware to “frame the issue as a scientific endeavor and pitch the various scenarios as hypotheses” and in that “we need to keep the language within the scientific vernacular”. And that’s exactly what’s NOT happening.
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POPSWhatever Happened to Online Etiquette? Maybe as the Internet becomes as predominant as air, somebody will realize that online behavior isn’t just an afterthought. Maybe, along with HTML and how to gauge a Web site’s credibility, schools and colleges will one day realize that there’s something else to teach about the Internet: Civility 101. Also see: Why are we so nasty (online)?
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POPS1 in 3 Female Recruits RAPED by fellow Soldiers in "this man's army"
There is a deeper problem of widespread abuse and a system that protects the criminals. Unfortunately, the abuse in the recruitment system is prescient of military service, where a third of women who serve will be raped by fellow soldiers. It's high time that girls courted by military recruiters are kept out of harm's way here at home. Compare this with highly publicized abuse cases involving Catholic priests. Recruiters given administrative punishment do not. Ironically, priests aren't fixtures in most public schools but military recruiters are. Recruiters have unprecedented access to girls thanks to the No Child Left Behind Act which demands that public schools turn over student contact data to military recruiters so they can "work their market." The majority of school districts in the country have relaxed rules that allow recruiters to come and go at will. So more young people have personal and sustained contact with recruiters. by Former Army Specialist Aimee Allison
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