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Are People Better Thinkers When They Aren't Trying?

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 06:40:29 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Brain Makes Good Unconscious Decisions

Researchers have shown that the human brain — once thought to be a seriously flawed decision maker — is actually hard-wired to allow us to make the best decisions possible with the information we are given.

Contrary to Kahnneman and Tversky’s research, Alex Pouget, associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, has shown that people do indeed make optimal decisions — but only when their unconscious brain makes the choice.

“A lot of the early work in this field was on conscious decisionmaking, but most of the decisions you make aren’t based on conscious reasoning,” says Pouget.

reach a reasonable decision in a reasonable amount of time. If we had to wait until we’re 99 percent sure before we make a decision, Pouget says, then we would waste time accumulating data unnecessarily. If we only required a 51 percent certainty, then we might reach a decision before enough data has been collected.

Tags: decision making, brain, unconscious

Water-filled glasses, adjustable for anyone

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 04:57:09 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Can be produced by the millions, adjusted on site in 3rd world by the users themselves, most of whom stand a one in a million chance of ever visiting with an optometrist.

Clip Source: www.core77.com

British inventor Josh Silver, a former professor of physics at Oxford University, has come up with a game-changer of a product design with his water-lensed glasses.

Inside the device's tough plastic lenses are two clear circular sacs filled with fluid, each of which is connected to a small syringe attached to either arm of the spectacles.

The wearer adjusts a dial on the syringe to add or reduce amount of fluid in the membrane, thus changing the power of the lens.

with very little guidance people are perfectly capable of creating glasses to their own prescription

Silver's goal is to help the hundreds of millions of people in developing countries who suffer from poor eyesight

in Ghana, Silver met a man

who had been forced to retire as a tailor because he could no longer see to thread the needle

He was about 35

We put these specs on him, and he smiled, and threaded his needle, and sped up with this sewing machine. He can work now. He can see

Tags: eyesight, poverty

Songs From The Sea: Deciphering Dolphin Language With Picture Words

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 23:22:53 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Dr. Horace Dobbs, a leading authority on dolphin-assisted therapy, has joined the team as consultant. "I have long held the belief that the dolphin brain, comparable in size with our own, has specialized in processing auditory data in much the same way that the human brain has specialized in processing visual data. Nature tends not to evolve brain mass without a need, so we must ask ourselves what dolphins do with all that brain capacity. The answer appears to lie in the development of brain systems that require huge auditory processing power. There is growing evidence that dolphins can take a sonic 'snap shot' of an object and send it to other dolphins, using sound as the transmission medium. We an therefore hypothesize that the dolphin's primary method of communication is picture based. Thus, the picture-based imaging method, employed by Reid and Kassewitz, seems entirely plausible."

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

In an important breakthrough in deciphering dolphin language, researchers in Great Britain and the United States have imaged the first high definition imprints that dolphin sounds make in water.

The key to this technique is the CymaScope, a new instrument that reveals detailed structures within sounds, allowing their architecture to be studied pictorially.

The resulting "CymaGlyphs," as they have been named, are reproducible patterns that are expected to form the basis of a lexicon of dolphin language, each pattern representing a dolphin 'picture word.'

Certain sounds made by dolphins have long been suspected to represent language but the complexity of the sounds has made their analysis difficult

Our ultimate aim is to speak to dolphins with a basic vocabulary of dolphin sounds and to understand their responses

This is uncharted territory but it looks very promising

Tags: dolphins, echolocation, language

Potentially Seperated at Birth

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:54:47 GMT

clipped by: chestnut501
clipper's remarks: chuckle

Clip Source: www.yellow-llama.com

Tags: funny, humor

Why working out may help memory

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:10:28 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: Glucose metabolism naturally slows with age, and memory begins to decline in our 30s, says co-author Scott Small, an associate professor of neurology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. The new study suggests a possible association between the two, because elevated blood sugar appears to damage the dentate gyrus, Small says.

The dentate gyrus's exact function is unknown. But it's one of several circuits in the hippocampus that, if disrupted, impairs memory, such as a person's ability to learn the names of new people or to remember where they parked their car.

The possible connection between its dysfunction and poor glucose regulation may explain earlier observations that exercise benefits the dentate gyrus, Small says. Until now, scientists believed that physical activity reduced the risk of age-related memory loss by allowing glucose to be absorbed more quickly into muscle cells, but were not sure why.

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

A new study shows that sugar may not be so sweet for the brain – and may lead to memory problems.

Researchers from four universities report in the Annals of Neurology that people who absorb glucose more slowly than those who metabolize it quickly are more forgetful and are more likely to have a faulty dentate gyrus, a pocket in the hippocampus section of the brain. The hippocampus is involved with learning and memory formation.

The findings were based on glucose testing, memory evaluations and fMRI scans of the brains of 240 healthy people ages 65 and older without dementia, and applied even in those without diabetes, which is characterized by an inability to readily convert sugar into energy.

Tags: workout, brain