Uncategorized
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Remember Typewriters?
Richard Polt, a philosophy professor at Xavier University, celebrates a (nearly) obsolete technology at his “Classic Typewriter Page.” His site features a brief history of typewriters, facts about the “little charmers” known as Remington portables, and many other tidbits of information concerning this handy writing device. Go to: http://xavier.xu.edu/~polt/typewriters.html
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From the June 25, 1932, issue
ARTIFICIAL LIGHTNING FLASHED AT 10 MILLION VOLTS The most powerful manmade lightning is flashing across the cover of this week’s Science News Letter from new equipment in the Pittsfield laboratories of the General Electric Co., which has twice the capacity of any preceding apparatus of its kind. This is a discharge through a 15-foot space […]
- Physics
U.S. time now flows from atom fountain
The United States has switched to the atomic fountain clock, which sets itself according to the resonant frequency of rising and falling balls of cold cesium.
- Physics
Magnets trap neutrons for a lifetime
A new device that uses magnets to trap neutrons may enable physicists to measure more precisely how quickly free neutrons decay, a time period with implications for understanding both the weak force and the early universe.
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Social thinking in schizophrenia
Training that fosters thinking skills in social situations may improve attention, memory, and social skills of people with schizophrenia.
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19083
That six college students in London should require more brain activity than Italian students in decoding words is consistent with the use of whole-language methods favored in London classrooms when these respondents were young. For people not trained in phonics, word decoding is more difficult. A more complete study would include students from Scotland, where […]
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Readers’ brains go native
Brain functions linked to reading reflect cultural differences in spelling systems.
- Health & Medicine
Survivors’ Benefit?
Smallpox outbreaks throughout history may have endowed some people with genetic mutations that make them resistant to the AIDS virus.
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19082
I thought this article was quite interesting, but I would derive a different conclusion than did the scientists featured. I would not presume that Easterners have less capacity to make logical inferences than Westerners, but that they give logical inferences less import. The primary religions in the East–Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism–stress the importance of harmony […]
- Anthropology
Cultures of Reason
East Asian and Western cultures may encourage fundamentally different reasoning styles, rather than build on universal processes often deemed necessary for thinking.
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19081
This article seems to ignore the fatal flaw in the search for the virtual person: While such a model is designed to represent all people, it in reality represents no individual. The ergonometric model says that a man is 5 feet, 9 inches tall and weighs 160 pounds. I can tell you–as a man 6 […]
- Tech
Building a Supermodel
Researchers are combining ergonomics and biological research with computer power to build a virtual human that can simulate human biology from anatomy down to the genetic code.
