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A state-of-the-art medical scanner will help scientists unveil the secrets of how the brain processes languages. The magneto-encephalography machine, which was unveiled yesterday at the inauguration of New York University Abu Dhabi's Neuroscience of Language Laboratory, will be able to analyse language processes in the brain faster and more efficiently than current neuroscience technology.

This New York Times interactive chatbox simulates a text conversation that you might have with a friend that's skeptical about getting COVID-vaccinated. One of the authors, Dr. Gagneur is a neonatologist and a professor of pediatrics at the University of Sherbrooke. His research has led to programs that increase childhood vaccinations through motivational interviewing. The second author, Dr. Tamerius is a former psychiatrist and the founder of Smart Politics, an organization that teaches people to communicate more persuasively. Dr. Gagneur highlights 4 principles that lead to more effective conversation: The skills introduced here are the same ones needed in any conversation in which you want to encourage behavior change, whether it's with your recalcitrant teenager, a frustrated co-worker or a vaccine-hesitant loved one. When you talk with people about getting vaccinated, there are four basic principles to keep in mind: ● Safety and rapport: It's very difficult for people to consider new ways of thinking or behaving when they feel they are in danger. Vaccine conversations must make others feel comfortable by withholding judgment and validating their concerns. Rather than directly contradict misinformation, highlight what they get right. Correct misinformation only late in the conversation, after they have fully expressed their concerns and have given you permission to share what you know. ● Respect for autonomy: The choice of whether to get vaccinated is others' to make, not yours. You can help guide their decision-making process, but any attempt to dictate the outcome - whether by commanding, advising, lecturing or shaming - will be met with resistance. ● Understanding and compassion: Before people will listen to what you have to say, they need to know you respect and appreciate their perspective. That means eliciting their concerns with curious, open-ended questions, showing you understand by verbally summarizing what you've heard and empat

This article describes the effects of comic books in children's education, how the preconceived idea is that comic books lead to lower reading scores. The research found that this assumption was wrong and it promotes more organized thoughts and more linear narrative writing.

"Few students are as lucky as Chris Bail [...] When I was about 11 or so, a group of kids threw stones at me, and that stuck in my head. That was just a big, big experience for me, and I guess I'm really lucky to have that because I know kids that are writing about, like, concerts they went to and stuff like that.'' I am disturbed greatly. What does not kill us will only make us stronger... Scary thought: Students trying to get into college will take extremes for more interesting topics to write about. What if it happens? Pressure. It exists. But don't let it RULE or RUIN your life.

I find it quite sad that students will go to the extremes and seek something that they think admissions officers will find intriguing rather than it coming from their gut and what is important to them. In my opinion the best advice I could give to someone writing their college essay is, be yourself. Don't try to be someone you're not.

"And though they seem to have more collaborators than ever before, from cooperative English teachers to new Web sites that offer successful essays for sale, the competition seems tougher than ever, now that so many early applicants have whittled the number of available slots." To me the college application is sounding more and more deceptive. By the time you take that raw essay written by purely yourself and it goes through multiple English teachers and websites, and other peers, it goes from your writing to like your teacher's writing. I feel that after all of the processes it goes through, all the people who review it, the finished product really doesn't show the college who YOU are.

Reaching for the right words (Image: Jean-Luc Chapin/Agence VU/Camera Press) LAST month, a New York court ruled that Hercules and Leo, two research chimps at Stony Brook University, had no right to legal personhood. But the fact that such a case made it through the courts at all shows our new willingness to consider the issue of personhood for other species.

A new study by Joseph Grenny and David Maxfield, authors of the New York Times bestseller Crucial Conversations, shows nearly everyone has either seen or suffered from a catastrophic comment. Specifically, 83 percent have witnessed their colleagues say something that has had catastrophic results on their careers, reputations and businesses. Here are the top 5 blunders: 1) SUICIDE BY FEEDBACK: You thought others could handle the truth-but they didn't. 2) GOSSIP KARMA: You talked about someone or something in confidence with a colleague only to have your damning comments made public. 3) TABOO TOPICS: What it looks like: You said something about race, sex, politics or religion that you thought was safe, but others distorted it, misunderstood it, took it wrong, used it against you, etc. 4) WORD RAGE: You lost your temper and used profanity or obscenities to make your point. 5) "REPLY ALL" BLUNDERS. You accidentally shared something harmful via technology (email, text, virtual meeting tools, etc).

This was a really interesting article about how language use impacted the amount of donations received by a hospital. It shows that by complimenting people and using positive adjectives, people will be more inclined to donate money. When trying to do fundraisers, complimenting potential donors and/or speaking to them with positive adjectives will, on average, increase the amount of money raised. In addition, even though many forms of communication are now online, people will be more inclined to donate if you send them a hard copy in the mail.

Interesting article on how reading books and embracing seemingly looked down upon majors like music, literature and such help when writing codes.

The New York Times ran a sobering cover story today on the epidemic of gun violence in the nation titled "A Drumbeat of Multiple Shootings, but America Isn't Listening". In the piece, journalists analyzed 358 armed encounters across the country where four or more people were killed or wounded - and the results were staggering.

This article is about what we talked about earlier in the semester - that in order to fully learn an L2, children must first be proficient in their L1. It reinforced the idea that being bilingual isn't something to be looked down upon and something that hinders education, but something that enhance learning.

In relation to the current election that just passed, it was pretty obvious that there was a huge disconnect between two opposing sides. Words of frustration and anger flooded newsprints and social media. In the past, researchers found that there was a curious phenomenon in known as "positive feedback", which refers to people's tendency to use more positive words than negative words. In recent years, Google Books and the New York Times partnered to disprove this phenomenon. Both major print companies forged through tons of texts and found that 16.2 million of those texts contained negative language. They also found that negative words were used more frequently during times of unemployment, poverty, inflation rates, wartime casualties and political tension. More research has been conducted by psychological scientist including William Hamilton and Mark Liberman. Shockingly, they found that events like these were being triggered more often and positive language has decreased in the last 200 years.

This article is pretty self-explanatory based on the article - it talks about how monkeys' vocal cords and bodies are physiologically able to talk and make distinct sounds. However, monkeys lack the brain circuits used by humans to learn sounds, and the special nerve sets humans use to control the shape of our vocal tracts.

An old article (2006), but explains how texting spread and which languages are more suited to texting than others

An in-depth look into the science of MultiTasking, along with the real-world consequences it can have in business, school, and our daily lives.