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Get flash to fully experience Pearltrees
In the forests of central Africa, there’s a plant that looks like it’s growing its own Christmas decorations. Shiny baubles sprout from between its leaves, shimmering in a vibrant metallic blue. Look closer, and other colours emerge – pinpricks of red, orange, green and violet. It looks as if Seurat, or some other pointillist painter, had turned their hand to sculpture. But these spheres, of course, are no man-made creations.
The world’s shiniest living thing is an African fruit that looks like a pointillist bauble | Not Exactly Rocket Science
The Neuroscience of Your Brain On Fiction
Brain scans are revealing what happens in our heads when we read a detailed description, an evocative metaphor or an emotional exchange between characters. Stories, this research is showing, stimulate the brain and even change how we act in life. Researchers have long known that the “classical” language regions, like Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, are involved in how the brain interprets written words.
The Forgetting Pill Erases Painful Memories Forever | Wired Magazine
<img alt="Photo: Dwight Eschliman" src="/magazine/wp-content/images/20-03/ff_forgettingpillb_f.jpg" title="Feature" width="660"/>The Star Wars Saga: Suggested Viewing Order » Absolutely No Machete Juggling
Brace yourselves, what follows is an amazingly long blog post about Star Wars.
This was written by linguist Stephen Krashen, professor emeritus at the University of Southern California, is an educational researcher and activist. He has written hundreds of articles and books in the fields of second language acquisition, bilingual education, and reading.
The wrong and right way to learn a foreign language - The Answer Sheet
Are E-Books Bad for Your Memory?
Schools and universities are using e-readers and tablets as valuable learning tools, but scientists are questioning their effect on memory. A small but growing number of researchers are uncovering evidence that readers are better able to remember what they read in printed books long-term when compared to materials read via an electronic screen.
The Neuroscience of Your Brain on Fiction
Brain scans are revealing what happens in our heads when we read a detailed description, an evocative metaphor or an emotional exchange between characters. Stories, this research is showing, stimulate the brain and even change how we act in life. Researchers have long known that the “classical” language regions, like Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, are involved in how the brain interprets written words.
<img src="http://www.wired.com/business/wp-content/gallery/20-05/ff_spotfuture_qas_f.jpg"/> Paul Saffo A longtime technology forecaster, Saffo is a managing director at the Silicon Valley investment research firm Discern.
8 Visionaries on How They Spot the Future | Epicenter
<img src="http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/xxxx200543010-002.jpg?w=480&h=320&crop=1" alt="learning to play the guitar" title="learning to play the guitar"/> How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
Annie Murphy Paul: The Myth of 'Practice Makes Perfect'
<img src="http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/150131759.jpg?w=480&h=320&crop=1" alt="dog" title="dog"/> Over the past half-century, the tools of neuroscience have revealed much about the workings of the human brain . Now researchers are pushing forward in a new frontier: exploring what goes on in the mind of man’s best friend. The study of canine cognition has taken off in recent years, energized by new findings about how dogs learn words, numbers and abstract concepts — and how they manage us, their ostensible masters. In a study published in the journal Animal Cognition , researchers used a procedure known as “preferential viewing” to show that dogs can understand simple calculations.
What Is Your Dog Thinking? A Lot
The Secrets Inside Your Dog's Mind
Brian Hare, assistant professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University, holds out a dog biscuit.The Science of Success - Magazine
Most of us have genes that make us as hardy as dandelions: able to take root and survive almost anywhere. A few of us, however, are more like the orchid: fragile and fickle, but capable of blooming spectacularly if given greenhouse care. So holds a provocative new theory of genetics, which asserts that the very genes that give us the most trouble as a species, causing behaviors that are self-destructive and antisocial, also underlie humankind’s phenomenal adaptability and evolutionary success. With a bad environment and poor parenting, orchid children can end up depressed, drug-addicted, or in jail—but with the right environment and good parenting, they can grow up to be society’s most creative, successful, and happy people. Vault49Annie Murphy Paul: Your Morning Routine Is Making You Dull
<img src="http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/a98162219.jpg?w=480&h=320&crop=1" alt="morning routine" title="morning routine"/>The human imagination is a bewildering process. How the brain comes up with great ideas is mysteriously complex. Jonah Lehrer 's ambitious new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works , takes a fascinating dive into the world of creativity and how it all works, not to mention devoting a chapter entirely to cities.