http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas.shtml Copyright 2009 Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:41:28 -0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.33 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss "Brain scans of avid players of the hugely popular online fantasy world World of Warcraft reveal that areas of the brain involved in self-reflection and judgement seem to behave similarly when someone is thinking about their virtual self as when they think about their real one."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/how_people_get.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/how_people_get.shtml ideas Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:51:30 -0800 Remember that notorious 1966 issue of Time magazine whose cover read simply, "Is God Dead?" The article covered "what may be the last theological craze in history," an intellectual movement "to turn Nietzsche's proclamation of the deity's demise from frightful blasphemy into the basis of a new kind of faith."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/when_god_was_de.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/when_god_was_de.shtml ideas Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:14:32 -0800 "The couch's lumpy, bumpy shape is a three-dimensional version of a brain scan, specifically a three-second recording of designer Lucas Maassen's alpha brain waves as he closed his eyes and thought of the word 'comfort'."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/the_brainwave_s.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/the_brainwave_s.shtml ideas Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:01:24 -0800 "One side, the functionalist school, sees gossip as a useful tool for enforcing social rules and maintaining group solidarity. The other school sees gossip more as a hostile endeavor by individuals selfishly trying to advance their own interests."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/office_gossip_i.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/office_gossip_i.shtml ideas Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:19:44 -0800 http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/think_youre_so.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/think_youre_so.shtml ideas Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:00:43 -0800 Psychologist Todd Kashdan points out that the two mechanisms evolved together and complement each other. "Anxiety is in fact one-half of a quite useful yin-yang process. Rather than resist it, he argues, we should acknowledge its existence and turn up the volume on the other side of the equation: the impulse that pulls us toward challenge and exploration."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/curiosity_the_a.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/curiosity_the_a.shtml ideas Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:23:46 -0800 http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/yet_another_con.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/yet_another_con.shtml ideas Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:14:28 -0800 "Good intentions and police action may be no match for the encroachments of gadgetry and wirelessness. Life is and always has been full of distractions, yes; it may be that life itself is a distraction--from death. But our attention flits and wanders as never before. The consequences, outside the cockpit and the driver's seat, are as yet unclear."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/our_common_offe.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/our_common_offe.shtml ideas Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:21:53 -0800 "The researchers found that most people in countries widely described as collectivist have a specific mutation within a gene regulating the transport of serotonin, a neurochemical known to profoundly affect mood."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/study_culture_c.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/study_culture_c.shtml ideas Sun, 01 Nov 2009 08:00:39 -0800 http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/what_we_get_wro.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/what_we_get_wro.shtml ideas Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:06:56 -0800 "If Kierkegaard were on Facebook or could post a You Tube video, he would certainly complain that we, who have listened to Prozac, have become deaf to the ancient distinction between psychological and spiritual disorders, between depression and despair."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/understanding_d_1.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/understanding_d_1.shtml ideas Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:04:02 -0800 According to a study published in the journal Cerebral Cortex, people "with a gene variant limiting the availability of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) performed more than 20 percent worse on a driving test than people without it."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/bad_driving_may.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/bad_driving_may.shtml ideas Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:54:16 -0800 "What are you thinking about? Which memory are you reliving right now? You may think that only you can answer, but by combining brain scans with pattern-detection software, neuroscientists are prying open a window into the human mind."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/has_the_mindrea.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/has_the_mindrea.shtml ideas Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:00:14 -0800 http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/what_makes_a_cu.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/what_makes_a_cu.shtml ideas Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:31:07 -0800 "[D]o some languages contain an intrinsic bias towards pulling happy faces? In other words, do some languages predispose -- in a subtle way -- their speakers to be merrier than the speakers of other languages?"... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/might_we_be_hap.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/might_we_be_hap.shtml ideas Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:04:15 -0800 "The folks at Zillow.com have created their first Trick or Treat Housing Index, which draws on the site's real estate data to determine the top-five neighborhoods in Seattle and Los Angeles to maximize candy intake this Saturday."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/hey_kids_crowds.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/hey_kids_crowds.shtml ideas Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:57:19 -0800 "'Our broad conclusion is that testosterone causes men essentially to be stingy,' says Karen Redwine, a neuro-economist at Whittier College in California, who presented the work at the Society for Neuroscience's annual meeting in Chicago last week."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/did_moliere_kno.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/did_moliere_kno.shtml ideas Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:43:06 -0800 "The world has perhaps 5000 living languages - though estimates vary - so by the end of this century there will be only half this number. In North America alone, there were between 600 and 700 languages when Columbus landed in 1492. This number had fallen to 213 by 1962, of which only 89 languages had speakers ranging from children to the elderly."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/the_worlds_shri.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/the_worlds_shri.shtml ideas Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:38:18 -0800 "Total recall may be beneficial for businesses and courts, clinics and insurance agencies, even possibly in settling occasional disputes with significant others, but rarely would it be deeply rewarding for the humble self."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/remember_everyt.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/remember_everyt.shtml ideas Sun, 25 Oct 2009 19:49:44 -0800 "What is it about music that is capable of swaying human emotions? To answer that question, you have to start by asking another one: What does music mean? We know what a pop song or an opera aria means because the words tell us--but how do we know what a symphony means?"... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/music_whats_it.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/music_whats_it.shtml ideas Sun, 25 Oct 2009 09:06:08 -0800 You know how sometimes you watch a wheel spin and parts of it appear to rotate backwards? And how frightening events can seem to happen in slow motion? It turns out that humans don't perceive things continuously, but rather in a series (or several concurrent series) of snapshots, as happens with movies.... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/do_our_brains_c.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/do_our_brains_c.shtml ideas Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:07:32 -0800 "You don't need psychedelic drugs to start seeing colors and objects that aren't really there. Just 15 minutes of near-total sensory deprivation can bring on hallucinations in many otherwise sane individuals."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/how_to_hallucin.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/how_to_hallucin.shtml ideas Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:45:40 -0800 http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/hypocrisy_there.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/hypocrisy_there.shtml ideas Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:11:18 -0800 "For actors at auditions, musicians at competitions or anyone else whose work is sequentially judged against that of others, a nagging question often arises: Would I rather be the first person to be evaluated, or the last? New research suggests both have their advantages, and either is far preferable than being stuck in the middle."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/attention_audit.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/attention_audit.shtml ideas Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:01:57 -0800 "[A] German psychologist, along with colleagues from the Netherlands and the United States, has discovered a creative way of decreasing the temptation to indulge. Simply gaze at the delectable confection and think to yourself: Wouldn't this make an excellent doorstop?"... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/how_to_resist_t.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/10/how_to_resist_t.shtml ideas Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:11:23 -0800