http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas.shtml Copyright 2009 Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:14:20 -0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.33 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss With dozens of animators pitching in through a specially built Facebook application, the slick clip from the crowdsourcing specialists at Mass Animation is a rare "art by committee" success story.... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/crowdsourced_an.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/crowdsourced_an.shtml ideas Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:14:20 -0800 http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/how_will_religi.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/how_will_religi.shtml ideas Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:22:17 -0800 "Elite athletes distinguish themselves through hard work, grit and, most importantly, raw talent. However new research, along with a study conducted by New Scientist, points to another trait of the most accomplished jocks: a handsome face." It seems that "the same genetic variations could influence both traits."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/betterlooking_a.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/betterlooking_a.shtml ideas Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:16:55 -0800 The author sees lists as falling into two (very Eco-ist) categories: "those that evidence the 'poetics of 'everything included'' and those that express the 'poetics of the 'etcetera'." The former covers a finite number of items (as with a phone book) and aims for completeness; the latter (as with a medieval writer's list of devils) "is limited only by the imagination's disinclination to invent more."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/umberto_eco_con.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/umberto_eco_con.shtml ideas Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:03:25 -0800 http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/in_brains_is_bi.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/in_brains_is_bi.shtml ideas Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:45:50 -0800 "For all the fun we have with them, illusions do serious work in illuminating how our brains work, and in particular how perception works. They may also help us understand how consciousness developed, and tell us about our 'neuro-archaeology'."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/maybe_perceptio.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/maybe_perceptio.shtml ideas Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:13:10 -0800 http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/who_are_natures.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/who_are_natures.shtml ideas Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:04:03 -0800 "[B]eyond the entertainment value, there's growing evidence that listening to music can also help stimulate seemingly lost memories and even help restore some cognitive function." As neuroscientists begin to understand how that happens, "they are starting to work hand in hand with music therapists to develop new therapeutic programs."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/for_alzheimers.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/for_alzheimers.shtml ideas Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:10:19 -0800 "Public goods situations crop up all over the place, including decisions on maintaining roads, funding the police and whether or not to shirk at work. This leads us to an important question: is it possible to make people care enough about such problems to do their bit?"... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/the_power_of_re.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/the_power_of_re.shtml ideas Sun, 15 Nov 2009 09:31:38 -0800 http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/english_is_the.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/english_is_the.shtml ideas Sun, 15 Nov 2009 08:54:35 -0800 "A new rodent study shows that newborn neurons destabilize established connections among existing brain cells in the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in learning and memory. Clearing old memories from the hippocampus makes way for new learning, researchers from Japan suggest."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/study_new_brain.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/study_new_brain.shtml ideas Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:39:25 -0800 "Researchers asked 16 lifelong musicians and 15 non-musicians to listen to speech in a quiet or noisy environment while they were wearing scalp electrodes to monitor their brain activity. Background noise delayed the brain's response, but this delay was much shorter in the musicians. What's more, in the noisy environment, the musicians' brainwaves were more similar to the sound waves of the speech than in non-musicians."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/study_musicians.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/study_musicians.shtml ideas Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:33:42 -0800 http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/a_thoroughly_mo_2.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/a_thoroughly_mo_2.shtml ideas Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:43:54 -0800 Conceptual artist Jonathon Keats, the founder of the bank, is issuing anti-money backed by anti-matter, which he defines as "the physical opposite of anything made with atoms, from luxury condos to private jets." He adds, "Like all banks, The First Bank of Antimatter will issue more currency than we have assets."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/the_first_bank.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/the_first_bank.shtml ideas Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:31:14 -0800 http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/religious_sacri.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/religious_sacri.shtml ideas Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:02:28 -0800 Domestic pigs have shown that they understand mirrors and can use them to find hidden food. They "are brilliant at remembering where food stores are cached and how big each stash is relative to the rest." Not to mention that they can roll out rugs, herd sheep (Babe was not an anomaly), and play videogames with joysticks.... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/a_fine_swine_ne.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/a_fine_swine_ne.shtml ideas Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:52:49 -0800 A new paper "argues that the main function of rapid-eye-movement sleep, or REM, when most dreaming occurs, is physiological. The brain is warming its circuits, anticipating the sights and sounds and emotions of waking."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/are_dreams_mere.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/are_dreams_mere.shtml ideas Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:13:31 -0800 Could touch screens and moldable clay interfaces replace traditional artist tools?... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/artist_tools_go.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/artist_tools_go.shtml ideas Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:58:28 -0800 In an analysis of the cries of 60 newborns, half from German-speaking families and half from francophones, researchers found that "cry melodies were distinctive and different. The French newborns tended to cry with a rising melody contour, while the German tots wailed with a 'falling' tone, a signature feature in each language."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/waaah_eng_ouain.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2009/11/waaah_eng_ouain.shtml ideas Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:04:04 -0800 "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 Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:51:30 -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