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This is about the "Mozart effect" and if it does indeed help babies become more intelligent by listening to classical music at a young age.

This BBC article notes how media totally misconstrued the modest results reported by the original UC Irvine study, which found that students who listened to Mozart did better at tasks where they had to create shapes in their minds. These students had stronger performance on spatial tasks: specifically, looking at folded up pieces of paper with cuts in them and predicting: how they would appear when unfolded. This effect, however, was sadly temporary: about fifteen minutes. A subsequent meta-analysis of sixteen different studies confirmed that listening to music does lead to a temporary improvement in the ability to manipulate shapes mentally, but the benefits are short-lived and it doesn't make us more intelligent. In 2010 a larger meta-analysis of a greater number of studies again found a positive effect, but that other kinds of music worked just as well, provided that listeners enjoyed what they were listening to. The article concludes that what's crucial in performance is "cognitive arousal": getting your brain more alert, whether it's through music, a Starbucks frappacino, or shooting hoops.

Daniel T. Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, notes that while Google is good at finding information, the brain beats it in two essential ways. 1. Context: Champions of Google underestimate how much the meaning of words and sentences changes with context. With the right knowledge in memory, your brain deftly puts words in context. 2. Speed Quick access is supposed to be a great advantage of using the internet. Students have always been able to look up the quadratic equation rather than memorize it, but opening a new browser tab takes moments, not the minutes required to locate the right page in the right book. Yet "moments" is still much slower than the brain operates. That's why the National Mathematics Advisory Panel listed "quick and effortless recall of facts" as one essential of math education. Speed matters for reading, too. Researchers report that readers need to know at least 95 percent of the words in a text for comfortable absorption. Pausing to find a word definition is disruptive. Good readers have reliable, speedy connections among the brain representations of spelling, sound and meaning. Speed matters because it allows other important work - for example, puzzling out the meaning of phrases - to proceed. Using knowledge in the head is also self-sustaining, whereas using knowledge from the internet is not. Every time you retrieve information from memory, it becomes a bit easier to find it the next time.

This article is a short, one minute video about how a deaf rapper is able to make a music career through the use of sign language.

Republicans and Democrats are easily distinguishable through one minute speeches by their vocabulary and phrase use.

Rhett and Link go through an entire day basically only saying one word. I find this to be pretty interesting for the first few minutes, but it gets boring afterwards. This is due to the fact that they end up using gestures (like pointing or mimicking) to convey what they mean. While it gets boring, there are some moments where they seem to understand each other perfectly. Other people also catch on, so that is pretty interesting too.

Your mind is like a big city that has millions of roads. Once you set your start point at one of the roads your mind will take you down the road automatically. If you got exposed to certain positive words for few seconds you are very likely to think positively for the next few minutes. It's interesting when I read that if you use words such as strong, strength, power, while talking to other people, you will empower people to become stronger even if you were talking about the best way to cook food.

Useful strategies to get the most out of meetings: 1. Learn the art of the pre-meeting: Get the agenda well in advance. Relentless preparation and studying the agenda will help you plot the moments for your contributions. Think of some specific ways you hope to add value or your point of view ahead of time. Before the meeting, build support for your ideas in casual chats. The direction of a meeting, including who will be contributing, is often decided in the first few minutes: participate early. 2. Be actively engaged; speak up. By not doing so, you're withholding something valuable from the team. Silence is not an act of generosity when you have a great idea. 3. Embrace the uncomfortable; speak truth to power; don't be afraid to dissent. The benefits often far outweigh the risks, even if your workplace has not embraced dissent as a necessary tool for improvement. If something does not feel right to you, odds are it is not just you. 4. Be selective re: what meetings you attend. Acknowledge the invitation and express your appreciation, then politely explain that you are unclear about how your presence will add anything and suggest that you skip it. Frame your absence as an opportunity for others to add more to the meeting.

It was found that kids who frequently use smartphones have delays in expressive speech. In an experiment, it was shown that for every 30 minutes of screen time, there was a 49% increased chance of speech delay. Even if parents are showing children educational videos, it's more important to have face-to-face interactions

Useful info for all collaborative activities. The 3 takeaways: 1. SET THE AGENDA The meeting's agenda can be summarized on a handout, written on a whiteboard or discussed explicitly at the outset, but everyone should know why they've gathered and what they're supposed to be accomplishing. The agenda provides a compass for the conversation, so the meeting can get back on track if the discussion wanders off course. 2. ​START ON TIME. END ON TIME. A definitive end time will help ensure that you accomplish what's on your agenda and get people back to their work promptly. 3. ​END WITH AN ACTION PLAN Leave the last few minutes of every meeting to discuss the next steps. This discussion should include deciding who is responsible for what, and what the deadlines are. Otherwise, all the time you spent on the meeting will be for naught. Mark Toro, managing partner of North American Properties - Atlanta, a real estate operating company, uses a phrase to end meetings that has become a common acronym in office e-mails: W.W.D.W.B.W., which stands for "Who will do what by when?"

Though the article is geared for married couples, some of the communication pointers are applicable to any situation where two people are trying to resolve a conflict. Psychologist Dr. John Gottman advocates the ATTUNE model, where both speaker and listener have responsibilities to uphold; the actual article further describes these responsibilities and what they entail. Speaker's Role A = Awareness T = Tolerance T = Transforming criticisms into wishes and positive needs Listener's Role U = Understanding N = Non-Defensive Listening E = Empathy During his research, Dr. Gottman discovered that problem solving or giving your partner advice before understanding their feelings or perspective is counterproductive and actually interferes with reaching a resolution. Learning how to use conflict as an opportunity to understand and get to know each other better is a vital part of attunement.

Although this article is directed towards couples, the advice provided can easily apply to any relationship: familial, friendship, or professional, where a conflict needs to be resolved amicably.

A quick 1 minute listen or read on the debate over whether or not COVID-19 is feminine or masculine in the French language.

Researchers at the University of Washington developed a play-based, intensive, English-language method and curriculum and implemented the research-based program in four public infant-education centers in Madrid, Spain. Based on years of UW's I-LABS (Institute of Learning and Brain Science) research on infant brain and language development, UW's pilot bilingual education method utilized the following brain-research principles: 1. social interaction 2. play 3. high quality and quantity of language from the teachers. 4. Use of "infant-directed speech", or "parentese": the speech style parents use to talk to their babies, which has simpler grammar, higher and exaggerated pitch, and drawn-out vowels. 5. Active child engagement. The country's extensive public education system enabled the researchers to enroll 280 infants and children from families of varying income levels. Babies aged 7 to 33.5 months were given one hour of English sessions a day, using the UW method, for 18 weeks, while a control group received the Madrid schools' standard bilingual program. Both groups of children were tested in Spanish and English at the start and end of the 18 weeks. Children who received the UW method showed rapid increases in English comprehension and production, and significantly outperformed the control group peers at all ages on all tests of English. By the end of the 18-week program, the children in the UW program produced an average of 74 English words or phrases per child, per hour; children in the control group produced 13 English words or phrases per child, per hour. This 3 minute video succinctly captures the study: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE5fBAS6gf4

This article discusses a study that explored the average rate that people read in their native languages. Through this study, it is evident that the various aspects that make up a language play a large role when it comes to the speed that a person reads at. Spanish speakers read the fastest syllables at 526 syllables per minute.

This article highlights three "conflict blueprints" and associated strategies to help constructively manage conflict around unsolvable problems. Although the advice geared for married couples, you can easily extrapolate the information and strategies to other close relationships you have. Conflict Blueprint #1: Current Conflicts -Share perspective in a calm way, and take turns speaking. Use "I" statements. Use repair attempts. Take a 20 minute break to deactivate the fight/flight response. Conflict Blueprint #2: Attachment Injuries -Genuinely apologize to your partner, regardless of your agreement or disagreement with their perspective. Focus only on the fact that you hurt your partner and that you need to take responsibility. Verbalize what you can take responsibility for, as well as any other factors that played into you getting caught up in the fight. Ask your partner what he or she needs from you to heal and move forward, and follow through. Conflict Blueprint #3: Gridlock and Dialogue Take turns speaking and listening. Communicate clearly and honestly. Where does your perspective or position on the issue come from, and what does it symbolize for you? What kinds of lifelong dreams or core issues are at stake for you? As a listener, create a safe space for the speaker. No judging, arguing, giving advice, or trying to solve the problem. Show genuine interest in what your partner is telling you; allow them time and space to fully communicate their concerns. Ask questions so that you can both fully explore the issue and its related meaning. Find ways to create small compromises that can pave the way to larger plans. If your dreams differ, try to find overlapping areas, or try to make plans to give each partner's dreams a chance to grow and become reality.

This is a super interesting article + podcast/interview about the last native speakers of Hawaiian. You learn about life and language on the Island of Niihau which is something we will never get to experience. It's 30 minutes and they discuss the tensions between second language speakers and native speakers of Hawaiian, evolution versus engineering of a language, the English influence over the Hawaiian accent, and more.