Research Suggests Compassion Can Be Taught
The brain scans revealed "a pattern of neural changes" in those who had received compassion training, including "neural systems implicated in understanding the suffering of other people, executive and emotional control, and reward processing." - Pacific Standard 05/22/13

Debating How The Internet Is Changing Our Culture
"The internet ideology is difficult to dislodge because it is not simply an immaterial ideal; it is materially embedded in a global infrastructure made up of machines, software, private businesses and public institutions. This infrastructure influences how we think and behave, and once locked in may be difficult to change." - Times Literary Supplement 05/22/13

Cloning Yourself With 3D Printers - It's Creepy But Popular In Japan
"The cloning service is popular among some Japanese women looking to preserve that special moment in life such as their wedding day, cloning hair & makeup and even the dress they wore." - MessyNessyChic 05/17/13

Why Rational People Buy Into Conspiracy Theories
"'The best predictor of belief in a conspiracy theory is belief in other conspiracy theories,' says [researcher] Viren Swami ... Psychologists say that's because a conspiracy theory isn't so much a response to a single event as it is an expression of an overarching worldview." - The New York Times Magazine 05/26/13

What College Is Really For: Pleasure
"Overall, college education seems a matter of mastering a complex body of knowledge for a very short time only to rather soon forget everything except a few disjointed elements." So what's the point of higher education? Pleasure, says Gary Gutting. (Yes, that's the word he uses.) - The New York Times 05/22/13

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Brazilian Dance Sweeps The Internet
"The Passinho dance style adapts elements of North American breakdancing and R&B with indigenous styles like Capoeria, Samba no Pé ("Foot Samba") and Forró. The result is a sleek dance style that has quickly spread through the urban slums where it originated and, with the help of social media, is cracking into the mainstream, both in Brazil and abroad." - CBC 05/22/13

Torvill And Dean's Ice-Dancing TV Competition To End
"Dancing on Ice mentors Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean have revealed that the ITV series would end in early 2014" as the Olympic champions prepare to retire. - The Telegraph (UK) 05/21/13

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Why Teens Are Turning Off Facebook
"The report cites teens' dislike for over-sharing and stressful "drama" on the social network. Teens also don't like the fact that more and more adults are joining Facebook, although Pew found that 7 in 10 teens are Facebook friends with their parents." - Mashable 05/22/13

An E-Book Education Revolution In Poorest Countries
"Is there another way to provide affordable education to poor people on a giant scale Bridge is betting that there is -- in fact, its business and academic models are based on scale." - The New york Times 05/23/13

The World's Largest Youth Arts Festival Is Beginning - But Did Anyone Tell The Target Audience?
The Come Out Festival, which opens this week, has been taking place in Adelaide, Australia for four decades. But when Shona Benson asked around the city, she got fond-but-vague memories from adults and blank stares from teenagers (who showed interest once she filled them in, and obvious tie-ins in the national media have been going unmade. What gives? - Limelight (Australia) 05/22/13

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Reality TV Is The New Family TV
They make performance more exciting, or they game-ify aspects of adult life, like cooking or traveling or making money. And though "appropriate" is a relative term, they tend to do it in relatively clean terms. - Time 05/23/13

Here Comes Honey Boo Boo Is 'Exactly The Kind Of Cultural Product America Should Be Exporting'
"The Thompson/Shannons are the anti-Kardashians - an unprivileged and guileless family that gets along. ... They're not in denial of their problems, but they're not defined by them, either. ... Their antics offer a counterweight to the jealousy, striving, and backstabbing of the Housewives. And they defy the tropes assigned to their many female reality-show peers: the slut, the fame-seeker, the betrayer." - The Atlantic 05/22/13 (includes video)

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How John Adams Knows When An Audience Is 'Engaged And Intelligent'
"I talked to them after the show, at the CD signing. But you can also tell by the ambient noise in the room during the performance, the coughing. I'm highly attuned to that sort of thing." - Washington City Paper 05/22/13

When Wagner's Music Was Hazardous To Your Health
"His music was seen not just as a symptom of the physical and sexual pathologies associated with a nervous modernity - everything from neurasthenia [nervous exhaustion] and degeneration to perversion and fatigue - but also as the direct cause of these." - The Guardian (UK) 05/22/13

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Composer Henri Dutilleux, 97
"Known for his symphonies, concertos and other orchestral pieces, he was prized for his subtle blends of ear-catching colors and formal rigor. Though steeped in the French modernist tradition that spans Debussy through Messiaen and Boulez, Dutilleux was also notably independent minded, unwilling to chase the latest fashions." - WQXR (New York) 05/22/13

On Richard Wagner's 200th Birthday, His Great-Grandson Slams Him Again
"The 66-year-old musicologist, writer and lecturer [Gottfried Wagner] sets himself apart from the other members of the sprawling Wagner clan by refusing, as he sees it, to sweep under the carpet the darker side of one of history's most controversial composers. - Expatica (AFP) 05/19/13

Wagner's Hitler Correspondence Will Not Be Published, Says Great-Granddaughter
Katharina Wagner: "It's very difficult to make all the widely dispersed documents available to the public, because they are owned in part by all four branches [of the family] ... If even just one says 'No', then I can't do anything about it, no matter how outrageous I might find it." - Agence France-Presse 05/19/13

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A Plan To Sell Fan Fiction
"On Wednesday, Amazon announced a new scheme in which writers of fan fiction can self-publish and sell that writing with the sanction of the original copyright holder." - Los Angeles Times 05/23/13

Lydia Davis Wins Man Booker International Prize For Her (Very) Short Stories
"Davis - who has only written one novel - beat out a shortlist of 10 contenders for the 60,000-pound ($90,800) prize that included two authors banned in their home countries, the youngest ever nominee and one shortlisted for the second time." The American author won "for a body of work that includes some of the briefest tales ever published." - Reuters 05/22/13

Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2013 To Bakker's The Detour
"Dutch writer Gerbrand Bakker has won this year's £10,000 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize with his novel The Detour ... It is the author's second major literary prize win; his previous novel, The Twin, won the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2010." - The Bookseller (UK) 05/21/13

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Scotland's Oldest Theatre is Saved
"The Theatre Royal in Dumfries, which has been in operation for more than 200 years, has been given £455,000 by Dumfries and Galloway Council. The grant ... will allow the theatre to be refurbished and additional facilities installed." - The Guardian (UK) 05/22/13

Casting Directors: The Unknown, The Powerful
"They are rarely interviewed. Few people outside theatre, film and TV know who they are. Yet casting directors rank among the most influential operators in show business. ... So who are they, and what do they do?" - The Guardian (UK) 05/21/13

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Legendary Picasso Catalogue Returns To Print
"Comprising 33 volumes and more than 16,000 images," Pablo Picasso - known in the art world as "the Zervos" - "was the result of an intense four-decade collaboration between the artist and [scholar/dealer Christian] Zervos." - The New York Times 05/23/13

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