Smart People Choke Under Pressure People perceived as the most likely to succeed might also be the most likely to crumble under pressure. A new study finds that individuals with high working-memory capacity, which normally allows them to excel, crack under pressure and do worse on simple exams than when allowed to work with no constraints. Those with less capacity score low, too, but they tend not to be affected by pressure. "The pressure causes verbal worries, like 'Oh no, I can't screw up,'" said Sian Beilock, assistant professor of psychology at Miami University of Ohio. "These thoughts reside in the working memory." "When they begin to worry, then they're in trouble," Beilock told LiveScience. The findings are detailed this week's issue of Psychological Science. Working memory, also known as short-term memory, holds information that is relevant to performance and ensures task focus. The study analyzed 93 undergraduate students from Michigan State University to determine their working-memory capacities.
The bright side of sadness Thomas Jefferson defended the right to pursue happiness in the Declaration of Independence. But that’s so 237 years ago. Many modern societies champion everyone’s right to be happy pretty much all the time. Good luck with that, says psychologist Joseph Forgas of the University of New South Wales in Sydney. A lack of close friends, unfulfilled financial dreams and other harsh realities leave many people feeling lonely and forlorn a lot of the time. But there’s a mental and social upside to occasional downers that often goes unappreciated. “Bad moods are seen in our happiness-focused culture as representing a problem, but we need to be aware that temporary, mild negative feelings have important benefits,” Forgas says. Growing evidence suggests that gloomy moods improve key types of thinking and behavior, Forgas asserts in a new review paper aptly titled “Don’t worry, be sad!” Vertes Edmond Mihai/Shutterstock Feelings as information Individuals aren’t slaves to their moods, Schwarz cautions.
Loi de Zipf On nomme Loi de Zipf une observation empirique de la fréquence des mots dans un texte. Elle a pris le nom de son auteur, George Kingsley Zipf (1902-1950). Cette loi a été par la suite généralisée par Benoit Mandelbrot. Genèse Zipf avait entrepris d'analyser une œuvre monumentale de James Joyce, Ulysse, d'en compter les mots distincts, et de les présenter par ordre de nombre (La notion de nombre en linguistique est traitée à l’article « Nombre grammatical ».) décroissants d'occurrences. La légende dit que le mot le plus courant revenait 8 000 fois ; le dixième mot 800 fois ; le centième, 80 fois ; et le millième, 8 fois. Ces résultats semblent, à la lumière (La lumière est l'ensemble des ondes électromagnétiques visibles par l'œil humain, c'est-à-dire comprises dans des longueurs d'onde de 380nm (violet)...) d'autres études que l'on peut faire en quelques minutes ( Forme première d'un document : Droit : une minute est l'original d'un acte. où s est juste légèrement plus grand que 1.
What's YOUR country famous for? Map reveals that UK leads the world in fascist movements while U.S. has most Nobel laureates and lawnmower deaths The map is based on statistics gathered from across the internet from sources including the World Bank and Guinness World RecordsIt was created by DogHouse Diaries and shows that some stereotypes seems to be true, such as the U.S. eating the most hotdogsThe map also highlights surprising things associated with certain countries, such as Spain and cocaine and Peru and sandboarding By Sarah Griffiths Published: 11:50 GMT, 22 October 2013 | Updated: 15:35 GMT, 22 October 2013 From making babies to being struck by lightning, a new map has revealed the surprising things that countries are best at. The map is based on statistics gathered from across the internet - ranging from sources as diverse as the World Bank to the Guinness World Records. Created by online comic and website DogHouse Diaries, the map shows what each country leads the rest of the world in and the words picked - which are written across the country's geographical territory - are in many cases surprising. Enlarge
Lonely lemurs listen to, understand other species’ warning calls While not the brightest of primates, one species of lemur has shown that it can still learn a trick or two, staying safe from predators by heeding the alarm calls of other creatures in the forest. Of all the species of lemur living on the island of Madagascar, only one, Lepilemur sahamalazensis, has been found to exhibit this trait. The solitary, nocturnal creatures were found to respond to the alarm calls of the blue-eyed black lemur and to those from several different species of bird. A team of researchers from Bristol University, Bristol Zoo, and Torino University in Italy studied the behaviour of the Lepilemur, called the Sahamalaza sportive lemur because of the way it leaps between trees. As a solitary creature, the Sahamalaza sportive lemur doesn’t have the benefit of relying on others from its group to warn it of predators. Watching the behavior of sportive lemurs suggested that they might be very aware of what goes on in the forest.
How Machines Really Work Scientists use iPods, car batteries to build a frog surveillance net Put this on your playlist: scientists at the University of Puerto Rico have developed a system to monitor wildlife in tropical rainforests, using captured audio in real time to remotely record the sounds made by animals. Using hardware that includes iPods, solar panels, and car batteries, the scientists created a network of radio-connected listening posts around the world that allows them to collect data 24 hours a day over long periods of time. The sound will help them track the effects of environmental changes—such as deforestation and climate change—on endangered species. The system, called Arbimon (Automated Remote Biodiversity Monitoring Network), was created by a team led by Dr. The collected audio is then transmitted over a 900MHz radio signal back to a collection base station—which can be up to 24 miles away—and is uploaded over the Internet to the team's server in Puerto Rico.
13 Ingenious GIFs That Will Make You Wish You Paid Attention In Chemistry Quantum Levitation Syndrome from Pixar's The Incredibles levitates things on zero-point energy. We study methods [1,2] for the manipulation of the force of the quantum vacuum known as the Casimir force. It is possible to turn the Casimir force from attraction to repulsion and to use it for levitating mirrors on, literally, nothing. This research may be interesting for applications in nanotechnology, because the Casimir force is the ultimate source of friction for micro- and nano-machines. In the following we explain the science behind Quantum Levitation [1]. See also the article Perfect lens could reverse Casimir force in PhysicsWeb. Gecko feet [3]. A gecko can hang on a glass surface using only one toe. Field lines of the van der Waals force between two atoms or molecules. What is the van der Waals force? The physics behind the van der Waals force: neutral atoms or molecules electrically polarize each other. However, the dipole of one molecule does only form in the presence of another particle. U.
This comic is incredible Conjecture de Poincaré Un article de Wikipédia, l'encyclopédie libre. Elle faisait jusqu'alors partie des problèmes de Smale et des sept « problèmes du prix du millénaire » recensés et mis à prix en 2000 par l'Institut de mathématiques Clay[1]. En 2006, cette démonstration a été validée par l'attribution d'une médaille Fields à Perelman (qu'il a refusée) ; de plus, en mars 2010, l'institut Clay a officiellement décerné le prix correspondant à Perelman, prix qu'il a également refusé, en raison d'un « désaccord avec les décisions de la communauté mathématique[2] ». Historique[modifier | modifier le code] Formulation[modifier | modifier le code] La conjecture fut formulée pour la première fois par Henri Poincaré en 1904, et s'énonce ainsi : Poincaré ajouta, avec beaucoup de clairvoyance, un commentaire : « mais cette question nous entraînerait trop loin ». Ni la sphère ni un autre espace tridimensionnel dépourvu de frontière autre que Progrès récents[modifier | modifier le code] Voir aussi[modifier | modifier le code]