Dave Munger
dmunger
Posts by this author
June 21, 2006
Since polls and surveys are always some of our most popular posts, we decided to post today's gentle reminder in the form of a poll:
To donate, just click on the box to the left... or click here. It's completely legit to donate before you respond!
June 21, 2006
Here's this week's Ask a Scienceblogger question:
How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?...
Funny you asked. It's actually rather a long story. You see, about a…
June 21, 2006
I've spent the morning looking around the Web to bring you today's news snippets, but then I came back to ScienceBlogs and realized that the best posts on cognitive science are being made right here.
Jonah Lehrer has an excellent analysis of Malcolm Gladwell's Blink. Having just finished the book…
June 19, 2006
Last week's article on the Aymara language and metaphorical depictions of time generated a lot of discussion. I think part of the confusion there had to do less with the specific example and more with basic questions about metaphorical representations of time, so today I'm going to cover some of…
June 19, 2006
Breastfeeding is the topic of the day here at Scienceblogs, inspired by a New York Times article on the subject.
I want to make the case that breastfeeding isn't always the best choice. As the Times article points out, research isn't exactly on my side: Breastfeeding is associated with higher IQ,…
June 19, 2006
I heard about 20 minutes' worth of today's Diane Rehm show about childhood obesity on NPR. The program was motivated by Bill Clinton's recent deal with the soft drink industry to ban sales of some soft drinks in schools.
The plan will be implemented by 2009, and will include the following…
June 16, 2006
Greta and I -- and the kids -- had fun watching the movie Bride and Prejudice, which told the story of Jane Austen's renowned novel Pride and Prejudice, only Bollywood style: the "Elizabeth Bennet" character's angstings about her parent's plans to arrange her marriage with an intolerably dull…
June 16, 2006
We're off to a great start in the ScienceBloggers' Donors Choose fundraiser for teachers, but we've still got a long way to go. Now there's even more great news: SEED magazine will match all the funds we raise up to $10,000. Add that to my and Greta's offer to do a 10 percent match if Cognitive…
June 16, 2006
The Canadian Automobile Association is proposing a ban of all distracting electronic devices for new drivers. It's an interesting approach -- instead of a global ban on cell phones, for example, this ban would target only new drivers.
"It is also our hope that a preventative measure like this one…
June 15, 2006
I've just got time for two quick links on women's brains and sex.
First, Vaugan at MindHacks points to a new study showing that women's brains respond more quickly to erotic images than non-erotic images.
Now all we need is a study on how quickly women can respond when their lovers glance at other…
June 15, 2006
The New York Times has an article about the influence of genetics on behavior. It's a synthesis of a number of recent studies implicating a genetic relationship between predispositions for a number of different phenomena, from "wild streaks" to obesity.
ScienceBlogs' own Jonah Lehrer has already…
June 15, 2006
Greta and I love what we do here at Cognitive Daily, and we'd love to see more people getting excited about careers in cognitive psychology. But before you can become a scientist (or a science writer), you need a good background in the basics. Unfortunately, for too many children, that education is…
June 14, 2006
Just a quick shoutout to Shelley at Retrospectacle, who has a great analysis of our cell phone ringtone poll results. Also, take a look at her commentary on the Southern Baptist convention's threat to remove their children from public schools. Retrospectacle is fast becoming one of my favorite…
June 14, 2006
Yesterday's Can you hear this post attracted plenty of interest -- apparently nearly all of our readers can hear the ringtone that's supposedly only audible by kids. But two of our commenters noted that the sound published by the New York Times wasn't actually 17 kHz, the range studies have shown…
June 14, 2006
In many ways, my career has been dominated by efforts to make "work" bear as much resemblance to "having fun" as possible. Today's article only confirms that rule. Yesterday afternoon, I spent an hour watching a World Cup soccer match, and for once I could claim that it was completely relevant to…
June 14, 2006
An emailer pointed me to a great description of research on the Aymara language, a language where the metaphoric representation of time is reversed compared to all known languages, claim the researchers. When an Aymara speaker wishes to indicate something in the past, she points ahead of herself,…
June 13, 2006
A new study adds fuel to the notion that older people misremember how happy they were when they were young. What's more, young people mistakenly figure they won't be as happy when they're older.
"People often believe that happiness is a matter of circumstance, that if something good happens, they…
June 13, 2006
I'm blatantly stealing this idea from several other web sites, but clearly this is a topic that's crying for a poll. As Retrospectacle and others have already reported, kids are downloading ringtones that are apparently inaudible to adults, just so they can IM each other in class without the…
June 12, 2006
Experiments on change blindness have revealed striking limitations in visual memory. Take a look at the video below, for example (click to play -- and note that the video is contained in a java applet that may take a while to load -- but it's worth it!).
The woman is giving directions to one "…
June 12, 2006
This week's Ask a Scienceblogger inquires about our other research interests:
Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?...
We talked about this one over the weekend, considering all the…
June 10, 2006
Science Magazine is reporting on a new sensor which should help robots achieve a humanlike sense of touch. It's a thin film that can be applied to nearly any surface. When the film touches something, it causes the material to light up. A camera can then record the lighting changes and use them to…
June 9, 2006
If you haven't had a chance to visit the new ScienceBlogs home page, go now. It's got a slew of brand-new features, and we've more than doubled the number of bloggers. What's more, there are now several blogs that are in fields closely related to Cognitive Daily, which have conveniently been…
June 9, 2006
Remember the movie Rain Man, where Dustin Hoffman's character, stricken with autism, was amazingly talented with numbers, able to easily count cards and win a fortune at blackjack?
Researchers have found a way to temporarily duplicate that facility in ordinary individuals. By placing a strong…
June 8, 2006
This one's been linked from all over the net: A Sixth Sense for a Wired World.
The idea is that by implanting a magnet in your fingertip, you're endowed with a "sixth sense," which enables you to detect magnetic fields. Useful for determining if a wire has electric current running through it, or if…
June 8, 2006
The Wall Street Journal has an article -- unfortunately behind their subscription paywall -- about how scientific journals appear to be attempting to game the impact factor system which claims to offer an unbiased rating of a journal's influence. The article describes John B. West's experience in…
June 8, 2006
The always-excellent Chris Chatham has a thoughtful analysis of the computational model of critical periods of development. This is the idea that there are certain periods during which we are primed to learn particular things. It can explain how we learn language, or learn to walk, or why…
June 7, 2006
The BBC has a very simple test to determine how happy you are.
I took it and got the following assessment:
Satisfied
People who score in this range like their lives and feel that things are going well. Of course your life is not perfect, but you feel that things are mostly good. Furthermore, just…
June 7, 2006
Synesthesia -- the ability to experience a sensation like vision in another mode, like hearing -- is thought to be quite rare. Yet all of us have the ability to combine sensory modes, and we do it every day. The modes we combine just happen to be ones we don't think about as often: taste and smell…
June 7, 2006
Here's a video of a brain-computer interface that's entering clinical trials. Unlike the MRI interface we reported on last week, this one requires an electrode to be embedded in the user's brain. Still, it offers impressive functionality:
One thing I've always wondered about these crude brain-…
June 6, 2006
CNN reports on a study which finds that a disproportionate number of first-graders are overweight when they have authoritarian parents -- the most strict form of parenting.
Strict mothers were nearly five times more likely to raise tubby first-graders than mothers who treated their children with…