Is the Internet making us dumber? (Nope, just different)

Is the Inter­net Real­ly Mak­ing Us Dumb­er? (Der Spiegel): “In Ger­many, scores increase by about 3 IQ points each decade. In fact, the tests have to be adjust­ed every few years to keep up. The test cur­rent­ly used for chil­dren is called the WISC-IV. A per­son claim­ing to have an IQ of 130 needs to…

Read More

Encephalon #61: Brain & Mind Reading for the Holidays

Wel­come to the 61st edi­tion of Encephalon, the blog car­ni­val that offers some of the best neu­ro­science and psy­chol­o­gy blog posts every oth­er week. We do have an excel­lent set of arti­cles today. cov­er­ing much ground. Enjoy the read­ing: — Neu­ro­science and Soci­ety  Neu­roan­thro­pol­o­gy, by Greg Downey The Fly­nn Effect: Trou­bles with Intel­li­gence Aver­age IQ test…

Read More

Brain and Mind News and Articles

Here you have a col­lec­tion of recent news cov­er­age on brain heath, fit­ness and train­ing top­ics: 1- Great Mem­o­ry Spe­cial in Nation­al Geo­graph­ic, includ­ing — Inter­ac­tive 3D map of the brain — Mem­o­ry Game 2- Fas­ci­nat­ing What the Bea­t­les Gave Sci­ence, by Sharon Beg­ley at Newsweek — “Even in novices, med­i­ta­tion leaves its mark. An eight-week course…

Read More

Good habits, and other memes

Meme: “The term “meme” (rhyming with “theme”), coined in 1976 by the biol­o­gist Richard Dawkins, refers to a “unit of cul­tur­al infor­ma­tion” which can prop­a­gate from one mind to anoth­er in a man­ner anal­o­gous to genes. If you haven’t read Dawkins’ clas­sic book The Self­ish Gene…it is nev­er too late to enjoy it! There are some “memes”…

Read More

Everyone a Changemaker”, Ashoka and Google

What an event yes­ter­day night. My wife and I were for­tu­nate to vis­it the Google Cam­pus and attend the Sixth Annu­al North Amer­i­can Fel­low­ship Induc­tion Pro­gram of Ashoka: Inno­va­tors for the Pub­lic, a social ven­ture fund where we have been involved for a num­ber of years, and thanks to which (thanks Michele!) my wife and…

Read More