Published: January 14, 2012
A hotter home appears to produce babies with better cognitive abilities – but before you turn up the home heater to make your baby brainier, the research was conducted on the Australian lizard Bassiana duperreyi by researchers from the University of Sydney.
Many traits in young reptiles are determined by the temperature of the nest, so Joshua Amiel, a PhD student in the School of Biological Sciences, and his supervisor, Professor Rick Shine, looked at how incubation temperature would affect the learning performance of these lizards.
Published in the UK’s Royal Society journal Biology Letters, the research found that lizard eggs incubated at higher temperatures resulted in baby lizards with enhanced learning performance. [continue reading…]
Yesterday’s NYT Mind over Mass Media – Steven Pinker does a great job of addressing the debate that the internet has a negative effect on cognitive functioning.
Yes, the constant arrival of information packets can be distracting or addictive, especially to people with attention deficit disorder. But distraction is not a new phenomenon. The solution is not to bemoan technology but to develop strategies of self-control, as we do with every other temptation in life. Turn off e-mail or Twitter when you work, put away your Blackberry at dinner time, ask your spouse to call you to bed at a designated hour.
And to encourage intellectual depth, don’t rail at PowerPoint or Google. It’s not as if habits of deep reflection, thorough research and rigorous reasoning ever came naturally to people. They must be acquired in special institutions, which we call universities, and maintained with constant upkeep, which we call analysis, criticism and debate. They are not granted by propping a heavy encyclopedia on your lap, nor are they taken away by efficient access to information on the Internet. continue reading
Source: New York Times
Why is it that I’m drawn to this headline? Could it be I’m in need of a “boost”. Is it overwork or am I a typical baby boomer? Temma Ehrenfeld writes for Newsweek about six brain-sharpening recommendations that mindful folks of any age can follow.
Forget about mind-blowing fun. Nowadays the kids who came of age in the ’60s are turning 60. And they’d rather keep their minds intact, thank you. With that wave of elder boomers looming, scientists are hard at work on ways to prevent dementia and ordinary mental decline. The research is beginning to bear fruit: it’s clear that a healthy lifestyle and mental exercise can measurably improve cognitive functioning. So the next time you hear yourself refer to “what’s his name” or find yourself wandering a parking lot in search of your car, resolve to start a brain-fitness program. Here are six brain-sharpening recommendations that mindful folks of any age can follow. (Why not start early?)
Link to read this Newsweek Article and stay sharp!
Source: Newsweek
The first generation to grow up with the Internet is now 15 years old. But we know very little of the effects of daily internet use on these adolescents development.
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UBC’s Jennifer Shapka is conducting the first study in Canada to directly monitor the online activities of young teens. She is tracking 500 young people in 400 households to determine of internet use affects their cognitive development, social skills and obesity rates.
Link: Teen Tech Research Project
Source:The Leading Edge
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