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When driving, don't talk to your car - or your phone. That's the underlying message of new neuroscience published Thursday that raises new questions about the safety of voice-activated technology in many new cars. The technology, heralded by many automakers, allows consumers to interact with their phones and their cars by issuing voice commands, rather than pushing buttons on the dashboard or phone. However, research found that the most complicated voice-activated systems, and the vocal and auditory tasks associated with them, can take a motorist's mind off the road for as long as 27 seconds after he or she stops interacting with the system. Even less complex systems can leave the driver distracted for 15 seconds after a motorist disengages. See the article for an embedded .pdf of the full study. But good news: apparently listening to the radio or audiobooks don't pose much distraction.

25 reasons for why people get into car accidents and what we can do to avoid them.

"...for many Swedes, gender equality is not enough. Many are pushing for the Nordic nation to be not simply gender-equal but gender-neutral. ... Just days after International Women's Day a new pronoun, hen (pronounced like the bird in English), was added to the online version of the country's National Encyclopedia. ... critics believe it can be psychologically and socially damaging, especially for children ... toddlers cannot weigh arguments for and against linguistic interventions and they do not conceive of or analyze gender roles in the way that adults do ... One Swedish school got rid of its toy cars because boys 'gender-coded' them and ascribed the cars higher status than other toys."

"Susan Levine finds that simply repeating the numbers isn't as good as helping kids understand what they mean... "Counting objects and saying, 'Oh, you have four cars: one, two, three, four,' while you point at them - seems to be better," Levine says."

I would be lying if I told you that this was a really good article. This is actually a badass article about how we use swear words and strong language to emphasize a point in daily conversation. If I were to say, "Wow! That is a really big car!" it does not carry much weight as if I were to say, "Damn! That's a big-ass car!" This article explains how using this kind of language adds a pop of color and richness to our day to day conversations.

Columbia University linguist predicts 600 languages will remain in 2115 This will be due to the movement of people and parents not teaching their children 'native' languages used to particular parts of the world Dr John McWhorter says languages will also likely become more simple Translating tools will not be enough to preserve linguistic diversity Sci-fi visions of the future may focus on soaring skylines and flying cars, but the world in 100 years may not only look different, but sound different too.

Last week we learned that China had officially overtaken Japan to become the world's second-biggest economy. Earlier this year, China surpassed Germany as the world's largest exporter, and it recently overtook the United States as the world's largest car market.

I think the best piece of advice from this is to show, not tell. I also like the idea of taking a risk, as long as the topic of choice isn't offensive or makes someone feel uncomfortable.

I agree with Kaylin that being yourself is the best way to catch the reader's attention and show your own voice. Colleges don't want to read essays about the generic stories you think they want to hear. Instead they want to read a story coming from memories and thoughts in your head so they can feel as if they know the "real" you instead of the persona put on the paper.

"If we are what we eat, we are also what we write." I liked this article because it was basically saying that you have to display your true self in every way that you can through your writing. Trying to stray from being generic and vague. From this article, I know that what makes a good college essay stand out is to not be afraid to use your sensory but then have reason as to why you're using it and don't just simply "tell", let the reader know exactly what's going on in full specifics as much as possible, use a hook that can work in your favor, and lastly remain original and unique.

"Mondegreen" means a misheard word or phrase that makes sense in your head, but is, in fact, entirely incorrect. Hearing is a two-step process. First, there is the auditory perception itself: the physics of sound waves making their way through your ear and into the auditory cortex of your brain. And then there is the meaning-making: the part where your brain takes the noise and imbues it with significance. That was a car alarm. That's a bird. Mondegreens occur when, somewhere between the sound and the meaning, communication breaks down. You hear the same acoustic information as everyone else, but your brain doesn't interpret it the same way.

@kbendernyc *originally published 09/08/2014 AT 04:45 PM EDT Ben McMahon of Melbourne, Australia, can't remember the serious car accident that left him in a coma for over a week, but what he recalled upon waking up is truly astounding. McMahon awoke from his coma with the ability to speak near-perfect Mandarin, reports .

Research shows that under some conditions, music actually improves our performance, while in other situations music makes it worse - sometimes dangerously so. Absorbing and remembering new information is best done with the music off, suggests a 2010 study published in Applied Cognitive Psychology. Nick Perham, the British researcher who conducted the study, notes that playing music you like can lift your mood and increase your arousal - if you listen to it before getting down to work. But it serves as a distraction from cognitively demanding tasks. Music might enhance performance if a well-practiced expert, e.g. a surgeon, needs to achieve the relaxed focus necessary to execute a job he's done many times before, but not all physicians in the operating room agree re: the benefits of music. A study of anaesthetists suggested that many felt that music distracted them from carrying out their expected tasks. Another study found that singing or listening to music while operating a simulated car increased drivers' mental workload and slowed responses to potential hazards, leading them to scan their visual field less often and to focus instead on the road right in front of them. Other iPod rules drawn from the research: Classical or instrumental music enhances mental performance more than music with lyrics. Music can make rote or routine tasks (think folding laundry or filing papers) less boring and more enjoyable. Runners who listen to music go faster. But when you need to give learning and remembering your full attention, silence is golden.

Swearing expresses many different types of emotions. Kinda like when people use their car horns.

This article explores into depth the reason why and when we swear. One reason we swear is to insert a direct emotional component into the discussion to express frustration, anger or surprise. Swearing frees us of the feelings of anger or frustration we hold inside of us and provides an alternative from physical violence. The second use of swearing is in the form of jokes and humor, sex talk, story telling and social commentary. Our word choice is dependent on the people we are surrounded by, the relationship we have with that group of people and the setting of the situation. For example, people are less likely to use swear words in mixed company or in the work place. We are more likely to swear with people of the same gender or with our sexual partners. This article also describes the amount of swearing in our lives.

Why do people swear? Why does using a swear word make us feel better? How do we choose which word we use? Luckily for you, the Association of Psychological Science's Perspectives on Psychological Science just published an article that answers these important scientific questions in an article by Timothy Jay (2009).

When your brain encounters sensory stimuli, such as the scent of your morning coffee or the sound of a honking car, that input gets shuttled to the appropriate brain region for analysis. The coffee aroma goes to the olfactory cortex, while sounds are processed in the auditory cortex. That division of labor suggests that the brain's structure follows a predetermined, genetic blueprint. However, evidence is mounting that brain regions can take over functions they were not genetically destined to perform. In a landmark 1996 study of people blinded early in life, neuroscientists showed that the visual cortex could participate in a nonvisual function - reading Braille. Now, a study from MIT neuroscientists shows that in individuals born blind, parts of the visual cortex are recruited for language processing. The finding suggests that the visual cortex can dramatically change its function - from visual processing to language - and it also appears to overturn the idea that language processing can only occur in highly specialized brain regions that are genetically programmed for language tasks. "Your brain is not a prepackaged kind of thing. It doesn't develop along a fixed trajectory, rather, it's a self-building toolkit. The building process is profoundly influenced by the experiences you have during your development," says Marina Bedny, an MIT postdoctoral associate in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and lead author of the study, which appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of Feb. 28.

A neologism is a newly-coined word. The website Word Play Masters keeps an archive of humorous neologisms: words created by changing a real word by one letter, in order to give new, witty meanings to existing words. Some examples: 1.Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it. 2. Beelzebug (n.) : Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out. 3. Coptimism The irrational hope that the police car behind you is pulling over someone else FYI: This contest is often (incorrectly) attributed to either the Washington Post or Mensa International, but is actually an Internet phenomenon. You can view the present year's winners, and listing of winners dating back to 2010

This comprehensive talks about what AI is and where it came from, along with the basics of why it has gained so much success lately. It explores how we can go about trusting this new technology, both in terms of tailored online services like ChatGPT and in terms of bigger machinery such as smart homes, self-driving cars, and more.