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cortex | April 15, 2010A forthcoming paper by Michael Kraus and Dacher Keltner at UC-Berkeley investigates the correlation between "tactile communication" and success in the NBA. In essence, the paper demonstrates that "touchier" teams - and this includes everything from pats on the ass to high-fives - are also more likely to win. (The two touchiest teams during the 2008-2009 season were the Lakers and the Celtics, while the touchiest player was Kevin Garnett, followed by Chris Bosh.) Here's the abstract:
Tactile communication, or physical touch, promotes cooperation between people, communicates distinct emotions,…
gregladen | April 15, 2010These ads actually appear on our local TV. Not cable, just regular:
This one's funny:
But this one's risqué:
And finally, the story behind "Ballroom Jeans"
jgoldman | April 14, 2010I have a new Scibling! I only got to retain the title of newest blog here for about 24 hours, because yesterday Alex Wild's blog, Myrmecos, was assimilated into the Borg.
You might remember Alex as the first photographer featured last year at the Photo Synthesis blog. He is ScienceBlogs' new resident bug expert. Go say hi!
gregladen | April 14, 2010... if you take time off from work to do so.
Nice.
Massey Energy told employees that if they miss work to attend the funerals they would be fired, workers said. A Massey worker, who did not give his name because he is afraid of losing his job, said that his coworkers were outraged that they were not given time off to mourn their friends and brothers.
The WSWS spoke to workers and relatives outside a local market. Chuck Smith, an unemployed miner with seven years work underground, said Massey's decision to force miners to work during the funerals was a calculated move. "What would it look like…
gregladen | April 14, 2010 ... Or is he the Congressmember from the Fifth District of Minnesota?
I suppose it is quite reasonable that the man chosen by the Republicans to run against Fifth District Congressman Keith Ellison, is a firm believer that we are presently in the End Times and that the Antichrist is almost here.
Is Keith Ellison the Anti-Christ? at Quiche Moraine
gregladen | April 14, 2010There's been a flurry of interest on reference managers, and especially Mendeley, so I thought I'd throw up a few links that you will find useful.
Reference managers were discussed at ScienceOnline 2010.
A blog post about that session:Gearing up for scio10: Online Reference Managers
A handy Wikipedia page
An interview with Mendeley's Victor Henning
mspringer | April 14, 2010Here's an experiment to try. It's a thought experiment - it would be almost impossible to carry out in reality, though more delicate experiments roughly along these lines have been done.
You're in one of the space shuttles, or the Discovery One, or your favorite fictional but realistic spacecraft. It has a hallway extending the length of the spacecraft from bow to stern. You stand at one end of the hallway with a laser pointer, and shine a brief pulse of light down the other end. Make that a very brief pulse. You want the physical length of the pulse as it flies down the hall to be short…
gregladen | April 13, 2010It is said that the forceps ... for delivering babies ... was invented by a doctor working in the American Midwest* who used it only to deliver the babies of people to whom he was related. The forceps caused babies who might have died during childbirth to live and may have increased the survivorship of the mothers as well. In this way, inclusive reproductive success of Dr. Forceps increased significantly. Presumably, as more people moved into the region, and still more were born there, and the land was divided up and farmed, competition between farmsteads would have increased. By using…
cortex | April 13, 2010I've gotten a lot of emails from people about my recent WSJ article, which looked at the superstar effect, choking and performance anxiety. Most of the letters ask a similar question:
Can anything be done to prevent choking? Or are we destined to sabotage ourselves when it matters the most?
Let's begin with the bad news: choking, which I'll define as "performing below skill level due to performance related anxieties," is far more prevalent than most people assume. In recent years, choking has been shown to underlie everything from the achievement gap to the poor performance of girls on math…
cwilcox | April 13, 2010While it might sound science fiction or comic book fodder, scientists have actually developed a kind of wearable protective cloth from T-shirts that contains the same ultra-strong material used to armor tanks.
Modern high-impact military vehicles and bulletproof vests are reinforced with a substance called boron carbide. It's the third hardest material known to man at room temperature, with a hardness of 9.3 on the mohs scale, just a hair behind diamond's hardness of 10. It's hard to imagine how such a rigid material could be comfortable to wear, but scientists have recently developed the…
revere | April 13, 2010The Grant (here, here, here) is finally done and going in Fed Ex tomorrow morning. It's been a long haul and we will undoubtedly be sending in preliminary results or new publications between now and the end of September, since the review isn't until November. That's right. I've been working on it for a year and now we won't find out anything until next December. The current funding period goes until a year from now. We've proposed to do a lot of complicated science over 5 years, which always makes me think of the saying that there is only 2 things that can go wrong when you submit a grant.…
agelman | April 12, 2010Mark Buchanan wrote a cover article for the New Scientist on random matrices, a heretofore obscure area of probability theory that his headline writer characterizes as "the deep law that shapes our reality."
It's interesting stuff, and he gets into some statistical applications at the end, so I'll give you my take on it.
But first, some background.
About two hundred years ago, the mathematician/physicist Laplace discovered what is now called the central limit theorem, which is that, under certain conditions, the average of a large number of small random variables has an approximate normal (…
gregladen | April 12, 2010What was that sound? A hand-cranked railroad cart that needed oiling? An old firetruck with a broken siren? A group of boy scouts with a dying hippopotamus?
No, no, not a hippopotamus. Too artifactual sounding. Too human-made sounding. More like the siren, like an old fashioned air raid siren. And as I listened, not only did it get louder, but I had the distinct impression that it was getting closer.
Read on (QM)
cortex | April 12, 2010Everybody wants a creative child - in theory. The reality of creativity, however, is a little more complicated, as creative thoughts tend to emerge when we're distracted, daydreaming, disinhibited and not following the rules. In other words, the most imaginative kids are often the trouble-makers.
Eric Barker recently referred me to this interesting study, which looked at how elementary school teachers perceived creativity in their students. While the teachers said they wanted creative kids in their classroom, they actually didn't. In fact, when they were asked to rate their students on a…