The third story in the series from the New York Times.
Brain Power The Gut Feeling
For all that scientists have studied it, the brain remains the most complex and mysterious human organ — and, now, the focus of billions of dollars’ worth of research to penetrate its secrets.
This is the third article in a series that is looking in depth at some of the insights these projects are producing
This is a great story that shows the potential for understanding how we use our brains:
Everyone has hunches — about friends’ motives, about the stock market, about when to fold a hand of poker and when to hold it. But United States troops are now at the center of a large effort to understand how it is that in a life-or-death situation, some people’s brains can sense danger and act on it well before others’ do.
Experience matters, of course: if you have seen something before, you are more likely to anticipate it the next time. And yet, recent research suggests that something else is at work, too.
Small differences in how the brain processes images, how well it reads emotions and how it manages surges in stress hormones help explain why some people sense imminent danger before most others do.
Brain Power – In Battle, Hunches Prove to Be Valuable Assets – Series – NYTimes.com.
From Mike Dover at Wikinomics blog:
A lot of people run into these etiquette errors as they are getting used to a new social network. I have a presentation that I’ve delivered several times (often for fifty bucks and bus fare) where I describe LinkedIn as a Grey Flannel Suit and Facebook as a Hawaiian Shirt. It’s good to have both in your wardrobe, but if you show up at a board meeting in a Hawaiian Shirt you look like a goof and if you show up on a boathouse roof in a Grey Flannel Suit you look like an ass.
via Wikinomics» Blog Archive » Grey Flannel Suit vs. the Hawaiian Shirt.
The article in the Christian Science Monitor sets up the story, the headline and tag line read:
Scientists and the public often don’t see eye to eye
Most people view scientists favorably, but the lack of scientific knowledge on controversial issues can impact policy decisions.
The Monitor’s article highlights a study by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Pew Research Center.
Organizations like the AAAS are trying to encourage scientists to do a better job of communicating what they do to the general public. It’s a notion that seems to be resonating with many younger scientists, Dr. Leshner and other say, although it’s still tough to do while trying to teach, conduct research, and hunt for the grant money that will pay for the research.
As readers of this blog know, I live in the academic world. Everyone in academic has their strength a dn key skill sets. Just as I would be out of my strenghts in most clinical research labs, many of the scientist-academic-researchers I work with are lost in the world of telling their story to the public. I read grant proposals often with gritted teeth and rolling eyes and I struggle through their prose. While it is often successful at attracting grant dollars (which is the point after all) its the kind of stuff that makes any Microsoft user manual seem like a cliff hanger.
It’s a double edged sword, like any professional development. On the one edge, successful researchers feel “if its not broken, why fix it?” It the grant dollars are coming in, the scholarly papers are being written (for a shrinking audience of peer reviewers and the rank, promotion, and tenure committee) then why change?
On the other edge of the sword, as the study points out, public policy is being made without the benefit of their scholarly knowledge, which is a huge global loss.
The AAAS web site shares this insight:
As the 40th anniversary of the moon landing approaches, just 17% say U.S. scientific achievements rate as the best in the world, compared with nearly half (49%) of scientists who hold that view.
The article wraps up with this
“A very small percentage of Americans know a scientist personally,” he explains. “Scientists are just not on their radar.”
To change that, “scientists need to reach out to America,” he continues. Personal contact may not change an individual’s worldview, Mr. Mooney suggests, but it does have the potential to demystify scientists and the way they approach their world more than huddling in a lab would.
A great preview to a book I am looking forward to reading.
The Case for Working With Your Hands – NYTimes.com.
One shop teacher suggested to me that “in schools, we create artificial learning environments for our children that they know to be contrived and undeserving of their full attention and engagement. Without the opportunity to learn through the hands, the world remains abstract and distant, and the passions for learning will not be engaged.”
A gifted young person who chooses to become a mechanic rather than to accumulate academic credentials is viewed as eccentric, if not self-destructive. There is a pervasive anxiety among parents that there is only one track to success for their children. It runs through a series of gates controlled by prestigious institutions. Further, there is wide use of drugs to medicate boys, especially, against their natural tendency toward action, the better to “keep things on track.” I taught briefly in a public high school and would have loved to have set up a Ritalin fogger in my classroom. It is a rare person, male or female, who is naturally inclined to sit still for 17 years in school, and then indefinitely at work.
This may be one of the better overviews of Twitter I’ve read.
Finding Utility in the Jumble of Tweeted Thoughts – NYTimes.com.
Soon, machines could twitter as much as people. Corey Menscher, a graduate student at New York University, developed the Kickbee, an elastic band with vibration sensors that his pregnant wife wore to alert Twitter each time the baby kicked: “I kicked Mommy at 08:52 PM on Fri, Jan 2!” Mr. Menscher is now considering selling the product.
Pairing sensors with Twitter leads some to think Twitter could be used to send home security alerts or tell doctors when a patient’s blood sugar or heart rate climbs too high. In the aggregate, such real-time data streams could aid medical researchers.
This quote helps understand why Twitter is changing things:
“Twitter reverses the notion of the group,” said Paul Saffo, the Silicon Valley futurist. “Instead of creating the group you want, you send it and the group self-assembles.”
