Online education and the latest hype from Thomas
Friedman

post from Top stories on 21 May 2012 10:53:39 PM. © Top stories

Americans claim that education is one of their top concerns every time they are polled before an election. Yet, most of them don?t take education seriously at all.

Read The Full Article:
http://machineslikeus.com/news/online-education-and-latest-hype-thomas-friedman

Digg this

Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Muslims

post from Top stories on 21 May 2012 10:37:46 PM. © Top stories

Story Source

While religion as a whole is a negative influence on society, at any given time or location one religion may be worse than the others.

Read The Full Article:
http://machineslikeus.com/news/sam-harris-christopher-hitchens-and-muslims

Digg this

First academic case competition proposes novel
ways to put IBM Watson to work

post from Top stories on 21 May 2012 10:27:44 PM. © Top stories

Story Source

The University of Rochester (UR) Simon School of Business and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced winners of the first Watson academic case competition.

Read The Full Article:
http://machineslikeus.com/news/first-academic-case-competition-proposes-novel-way
s-put-ibm-watson-work

Digg this

Soldiers who desecrate the dead see themselves as
hunters

post from Top stories on 21 May 2012 10:19:43 PM. © Top stories

Story Source

Modern day soldiers who mutilate enemy corpses or take body-parts as trophies are usually thought to be suffering from the extreme stresses of battle.

Read The Full Article:
http://machineslikeus.com/news/soldiers-who-desecrate-dead-see-themselves-hunters

Digg this

Weight struggles Blame new neurons in your
hypothalamus

post from Top stories on 21 May 2012 10:15:31 PM. © Top stories

Story Source

New nerve cells formed in a select part of the brain could hold considerable sway over how much you eat and consequently weigh, new animal research by Johns Hopkins scientists suggests in a study published in the May issue of Nature Neuroscience.

Read The Full Article:
http://machineslikeus.com/news/weight-struggles-blame-new-neurons-your-hypothalam
us

Digg this

Herpesvirus infection linked to macular
degeneration

post from Top stories on 21 May 2012 10:08:25 PM. © Top stories

Story Source

A team of researchers, including a scientist from the Viral Immunology Center at Georgia State University, have found that a type of herpesvirus infection of the eye is associated with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a disease that causes blindness in the elderly.

Read The Full Article:
http://machineslikeus.com/news/herpesvirus-infection-linked-macular-degeneration

Digg this

Rare neurons discovered in monkey brains

post from Top stories on 21 May 2012 10:03:05 PM. © Top stories

Story Source

Max Planck scientists discover brain cells in monkeys that may be linked to self-awareness and empathy in humans.

Read The Full Article:
http://machineslikeus.com/news/rare-neurons-discovered-monkey-brains

Digg this

How to diffract a Cadbury's creme egg...

post from Supernova Condensate on 21 May 2012 08:11:03 PM. © Supernova Condensate

It's quite easy to talk me into doing silly things. Actually, if I'm honest, it's very easy. Especially if those silly things are entertaining and tenuously scientific. For instance, I'm writing this because of a conversation (with certain people) about diffracting Cadbury's creme eggs. There's... not a lot more I can say about that really. (I don't know how these things happen, they just do).

(Read more ...)

Read The Full Article:
http://invaderxan.livejournal.com/155674.html

Digg this

NCBI ROFL: Getting bad customer service Maybe you
should change your clothes.

Customer service as a function of shopper’s attire.

“A field experiment explored whether a female shopper’s appearance would influence the customer service she received. Specifically, a female confederate dressed in formal work clothes (skirt and blouse) or informal gym clothes (tights and t-shirt) entered a series of randomly selected women’s clothing stores in a large mall and proceeded to “shop.” The amount of time that passed before an employee approached and acknowledged the confederate served as the dependent variable. As hypothesized, she was acknowledged significantly sooner when formally attired than when informally dressed. Thus, clothing, like other aspects of appearance, influences how people are evaluated and treated by others.”

Photo: flickr/Tsar Kasim

NCBI ROFL. Real articles. Funny subjects.
Read our FAQ!

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NcbiRofl/~3/kMhJ7uyZeG4/

Digg this

The great renovation

My Scienceblogs site is a-changin'. National Geographic has been working behind the scenes to convert and move all the old data to a newer and prettier website, and the final surge of fixes is going into place tonight and tomorrow — so don't bother commenting over there for a while until it's all stabilized.

I suspect it will all go smoothly (and the new site is looking good) except for a little bit of drama. NatGeo has informed Abbie Smith that they want the ERV slimepit posts taken down, according to Abbie's own account on facebook. There are various accusations as well that it's us here at FtB who are responsible for the complaints that are bringing it down — which is not true. All along, NatGeo has been telling me that there will be new Standards & Practices rules at the National Geographic-branded Scienceblogs site — it's why I took proactive steps to move all of the new godless anti-religion content to the new site at Freethoughtblogs. I've said since last August that there were posts that bugged our new NatGeo overlords, and that there were changes coming.

Abbie Smith is in denial. Now, in addition to implying that Sb crew at FtB are responsible for shutting down the slimepit, she claims I've been lying about the imminent changes.

NatGeo have been just fine. Not being sarcastic. PZ was blatantly *lying* about censorship from NatGeo last year.

So I said NatGeo would be lightly censoring content last year. This year, NatGeo is telling Abbie Smith to censor some offensive posts. Therefore, in Abbie Smith's world, I was lying when I said NatGeo would be asking us to censor some content.

I don't get it.

Read the comments on this post...

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/BSoqa4jLooQ/the_great_r
enovation.php

Digg this