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Question: "He, are you aware that people think that you are younger than 16 and what do you say about that?" Answer: "My real age is 16. I don't care what other people say. I want other people to know that 16 is my real age."

In this light, it’s not surprising that people behave less morally as they become skeptical of free will. Further, the Vohs and Schooler result fits with the idea that people will behave less responsibly if they regard their actions as beyond their control. If I think that there’s no point in trying to be good, then I’m less likely to try.

Watching black and white television as a child may explain why older people are less likely to dream in colour than younger people, according to new study reported in New Scientist.

Resilience is the ability to successfully manage life and adapt to stressful events. Resilience is developed in childhood, when there are loving people available to help during difficult times, but if a child feels alone, resilience is not developed just because challenging things are happening.

Due to recent brain research on neuroplasticity, we know that brains are growing and creating neural pathways during childhood and through adolescence. What's new in this book is the focus on a repetitive practice that strengthens these neural pathways and teaches young people concrete skills to calm themselves and focus their attention.

The interesting part of the connection between stress and learning is that the prefrontal cortex of the brain is the area for paying attention, calming, and focusing as well as the area for short- and long-term memory.

Welcome to the Collaboration Age, where even the youngest among us are on the Web, tapping into what are without question some of the most transformative connecting technologies the world has ever seen. These tools are allowing us not only to mine the wisdom and experiences of the more than one billion people now online but also to connect with them to further our understanding of the global experience and do good work together. These tools are fast changing, decidedly social, and rich with powerful learning opportunities for us all, if we can figure out how to leverage their potential.

The creativity at the faire wasn't limited to hardware and electronics, either. There were tables of people silk-screening their own designs and creating new things with old cloth and thread. The overall lesson of the day: Ingenuity and creativity is something we all possess, and, as with any other skill, your inner DIYer can be cultivated.

Most IQ tests attempt to measure two types of intelligence--crystallized and fluid intelligence. Crystallized intelligence draws on existing skills, knowledge and experiences to solve problems by accessing information from long-term memory. Fluid intelligence, on the other hand, draws on the ability to understand relationships between various concepts, independent of any previous knowledge or skills, to solve new problems. The research shows that this part of intelligence can be improved through memory training.

For middle-aged and older adults, searching the Internet could be a boost to the brain, a new study suggests.

People who had written about a situation in which they were not in control were more likely to draw non-existent connections between the coincidences, the researchers found.

finished reading a deeply philosophical essay by Isaac Mao from The People’s Republic of China called “Sharism: A mind revolution.”  This essay is part of a collection of essays gathered by Joi Ito  to celebrate the power of Web 2.0 and “all the people who are willing to share.”  It was first brought to my attention by Will Richardson who reflected on Mao’s thoughts in his own blog last week as he lamented that there are still educators out there who are not willing to share their best teaching practices and lessons with others online (Nov. 18, 2008). 

Google just announced that it will gradually phase out Google Notebook and many people are looking for alternatives. Here is a brief side-by-side comparison of Google Notebook and Diigo:

The American research, which looked at brain scans of more than 1800 people, comes after Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council released draft guidelines warning that more than two drinks a day posed a health risk.

Their MRI scans revealed brain volume of moderate drinkers was almost 1% smaller than teetotallers while those who had 14 or more drinks a week suffered 1.2% shrinkage.

In a nutshell, the device converts electrical signals sent to the visual cortex into images that can be viewed on a computer screen. In their experiment, they showed test subjects the six letters in the word neuron and succeeded in reconstructing the word on screen by measuring their brain activity. As the technology progresses, it could be possible to "see" what people are thinking, what they dream about and record it for posterity. What do you think? Would that be awesome or scary as hell? All I know is that image weirds me out. [Yahoo Image via Pink Tentacle Thanks Roger!]