Ah, the secret life of the human brain. It's hard to imagine that something that exists inside of each of us, that governs our every waking moment (and every sleeping moment for that matter), can be too complex for us to completely understand--more mysterious than the depths of the deepest ocean. In just one second,…
Category: Science
Stuff that Keeps Smart People Awake at Night
I don't know about you, but when I go to bed at night, my brain goes into Super Worry Overdrive. I worry about my bills, my kids, my first drafts (like Anne Lamott, I am afraid someone will find my unedited work and will assume I have committed suicide when I realized my talent was gone).…
Scientists Determine Publication Date of “The Iliad”
Homer's 'Iliad' codex from approximately the late 5th-early 6th century A.D. Image: Public Domain Evolutionary theorist Mark Pagel (University of Reading) and his colleagues, geneticist Eric Altschuler (Univ. of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey) and linguist Andreea Calude (also of Reading as well as the Sante Fe Institute in New Mexico) have dated one of literature's most…
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The Beginnings of a Sea Change
In an area of Nigeria that is "as densely populated as Paris" but contains only one primary school, innovative architecture aims to make education available to all. In the water community of Makoko just off the coast of Lagos, Nigeria, an exciting new project attempts to turn the tide of limited education and unstable infrastructure.…
Shakespeare? It’s in the DNA
Are you old enough to remember when floppy disks were actually floppy? Or maybe when disks were 3" wide? (Yes, kids, that's what that little icon to "save" your work to your hard drives and flash drives represents, a hard little disk that held approximately two Word files or a half a dozen pictures (but not at…
Catcher in the Rye To Be Dropped from Curriculum? Puh-lease
New Common Core Standards drop classic novels in favor of "informational texts." The US school system will undergo some big changes within the next two years, chiefly due to a decision to remove a good deal of classic novels from the curriculum, or so the recent media reports would have you think. The idea behind…
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The Enchantress of Numbers
The curious tale of the world's first computer programmer. Today I stray a little from the ordinary literary and educational news updates, after coming across a nod to an exceptional woman I couldn't pass the day without commemorating, not only for her role in mathematics, but also for her role as a woman in mathematics,…
Why Children Make the Best Scientists
The intersection of science and play.
We are taught from a young age that authority in any academic realm must be allocated to adults only--or more specifically grey haired men in tweed jackets staring down their noses at us from in front of a chalkboard or behind a cluttered desk. But…