Navy: Grow Sailors’ Brains With iPhone App | Danger Room It’s not that the Navy is calling you stupid. The seafaring service just wants to actually see your brain grow. High on the Navy’s just-released wish list for designs from small businesses is a “brain-fitness training program” that sailors can use to sharpen their cognitive skills. It’s got to work on an “ultramobile platform” like an iPhone or a netbook. According to a solicitation released yesterday, the Navy wants it to produce measurable improvements in “working memory, attention, language processing and decision making,” not just in “new recruits” but aging captains, admirals and senior enlisteds. Think of it like a souped-up adult education app. Any business that wants the Navy’s cash must demonstrate that its learning program will actually change sailors’ brains. What “growth” in this context actually means is a faster brain, where synapses fire electrical impulses more rapidly in response to stimuli. But it’s far from clear how it would work. Image: Wikimedia See Also:
Daily dose of beet juice promotes brain health in older adults Researchers for the first time have shown that drinking beet juice can increase blood flow to the brain in older adults -- a finding that could hold great potential for combating the progression of dementia. The research findings are available online in Nitric Oxide: Biology and Chemistry, the peer-reviewed journal of the Nitric Oxide Society and will be available in print soon. "There have been several very high-profile studies showing that drinking beet juice can lower blood pressure, but we wanted to show that drinking beet juice also increases perfusion, or blood flow, to the brain," said Daniel Kim-Shapiro, director of Wake Forest University's Translational Science Center; Fostering Independence in Aging. "There are areas in the brain that become poorly perfused as you age, and that's believed to be associated with dementia and poor cognition." The next day, following another 10-hour fast, the subjects returned to the lab, where they ate their assigned breakfasts.
Granny army helps India's school children via the cloud 30 April 2012 Last updated at 04:33 By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter Jackie Barrow explains how she teaches children thousands of miles away No-one does love and encouragement better than a granny. Now that love is being spread across continents, as UK-based grandmothers extend their embrace to school children thousands of miles away in India. Jackie Barrow isn't a granny yet but as a retired teacher she felt she might qualify for an advert in The Guardian newspaper calling for volunteers to help teach children in India. She did and today, three years on, she is reading "Not Now Bernard" via Skype to a small group of children in the Indian city of Pune. They love it and are engaged in the experience as she holds up an Easter egg to show them how children in the UK celebrated the recent holiday. Advice and praise The Granny Cloud project is the brainchild of Prof Sugata Mitra, best-known for his hole-in-the-wall computer scheme which put basic PCs into some of the poorest parts of India.
Your personal homepage The test assessed a person's reaction time while also looking for erratic answering patterns, and it raised a red flag for those who an MRI scan later found to have dementia-related brain lesions. Scientists at the Australian National University (ANU) have been able to use a computer-based test to gauge a person’s brain health, according to a new study. "Although we cannot be certain that these middle-aged people will go on to get dementia, the results are important for several reasons," News.com.au quoted professor David Bunce as saying. “Although the presence of the lesions was confirmed through MRI scans, we were able to predict those persons who had them through very simple-to-administer tests," he added. The research took in almost 430 men and women, aged 44 to 48 and many based in the Canberra area, and less than 10% were found to have the lesions. It was very low cost and could be performed during a standard doctor's check-up.
How Technology is Changing the Way Children Think and Focus Thinking. The capacity to reflect, reason, and draw conclusions based on our experiences, knowledge, and insights. It’s what makes us human and has enabled us to communicate, create, build, advance, and become civilized. Thinking encompasses so many aspects of who our children are and what they do, from observing, learning, remembering, questioning, and judging to innovating, arguing, deciding, and acting. There is also little doubt that all of the new technologies, led by the Internet, are shaping the way we think in ways obvious and subtle, deliberate and unintentional, and advantageous and detrimental The uncertain reality is that, with this new technological frontier in its infancy and developments emerging at a rapid pace, we have neither the benefit of historical hindsight nor the time to ponder or examine the value and cost of these advancements in terms of how it influences our children’s ability to think. You can think of attention as the gateway to thinking.
120 Ways to Boost Your Brain Power Here are 120 things you can do starting today to help you think faster, improve memory, comprehend information better and unleash your brain’s full potential. Solve puzzles and brainteasers.Cultivate ambidexterity. Use your non-dominant hand to brush your teeth, comb your hair or use the mouse. Write with both hands simultaneously. Switch hands for knife and fork.Embrace ambiguity. Readers’ Contributions Dance! Contribute your own tip! There are many, many ways to keep our brains sharp. Media influence on teenagers Media influences do play a part in shaping teenage behaviour. When your child is aware of media influence, she’ll be able to handle media pressure better. Concerns about media influence on teenagers It’s normal to be worried about the influence of media on your child. Media influence on teenagers can be deliberate – for example, advertising is often directed at children and teenagers. Media influence can also be more indirect. These indirect media influences can suggest to teenagers that these are ‘normal’ ways to look and behave. But being exposed to media influence, images and messages doesn’t automatically mean your child is at risk. The media isn’t the only source of information for teenagers – or the only way they get media messages and images. Media influence and risky teenage behaviour There are some links between media content and negative teenage behaviour. Media influence on body image Your child’s body image is influenced by many factors. How media celebrities influence teenagers
7 Skills To Become Super Smart People aren’t born smart. They become smart. And to become smart you need a well-defined set of skills. Here are some tips and resources for acquiring those skills. Memory If you can’t remember what you’re trying to learn, you’re not really learning. If you want to amaze your friends with remembering faces, names, and numbers, look to the grand-daddy of memory training, Harry Lorayne. Reading Good scholars need to be good readers. Evelyn Woodski Slow Reading Course Announcer … Dan Aykroyd Man … Garrett Morris Woman … Jane Curtin Surgeon … Bill Murray … Ray Charles Announcer V/O: [The following words rapidly appear on a blue screen as they are read by the fast-talking announcer:] This is the way you were taught to read, averaging hundreds or thousands of words per minute. Psychologists have found that many people who take speed reading courses increase their reading speed for a short time but then fall right back to the plodding pace where they started. Writing Speaking Numeracy Empathy
Educational Technology: Effectiveness of Computers in Education Computers are increasingly being incorporated into school curriculums. Teachers present processes and concepts using programs such as Powerpoint, and students can utilize visual models and word processor to enhance their learning experience. Are Computers Effective at instructing students to retain information better? Some studies show a dramatic increase in performance while others show that CAI has small to moderate-sized positive effects on achievement (Avrim, 2000). From research, it can be concluded that CAI is best used when it is in addition to the instruction of a teacher and not when it replaces the teacher. The exact implications of computers in the classroom are unclear, but one thing that is apparent is that the outlook of computers in education is promising. The Pros and Cons of Education Technology: A short on the promises and pitfalls of educational technology Pros of Educational Technology Cons of Educational Technology Computers in the classroom also come with pitfalls.
Out of Our Brains The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless. Where is my mind? The question — memorably posed by rock band the Pixies in their 1988 song — is one that, perhaps surprisingly, divides many of us working in the areas of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Look at the science columns of your daily newspapers and you could be forgiven for thinking that there is no case to answer. We are all familiar with the colorful “brain blob” pictures that show just where activity (indirectly measured by blood oxygenation level) is concentrated as we attempt to solve different kinds of puzzles: blobs here for thinking of nouns, there for thinking of verbs, over there for solving ethical puzzles of a certain class, and so on, ad blobum. (In fact, the brain blob picture has seemingly been raised to the status of visual art form of late with the publication of a book of high-octane brain images. ) But then again, maybe not. Where is my mind?
Internet Addiction 'Disrupts Teenage Brains' As Much As Alcohol And Cocaine, Chinese Study Claims Internet addiction disrupts nerve wiring in the brains of teenagers, a "groundbreaking" study has found. Similar effects have been seen in the brains of people exposed to alcohol, cocaine and cannabis. The discovery shows that being hooked on a behaviour can be just as physically damaging as addiction to drugs, scientists believe. Internet addiction disorder (IAD) is a recently recognised condition characterised by out-of-control internet use. Sufferers spend unhealthy amounts of time "online" to the extent that it impairs their quality of life. Denied access to their computers, they may experience distress and withdrawal symptoms including tremors, obsessive thoughts, and involuntary typing movements of the fingers. Until now research on IAD has focused on psychological assessments. The new study, from China, used a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technique to look at its effects on brain structure. "In addition, white matter integrity may serve as a potential new treatment target."