Turkey Holidays

Click on the Random Read Generator for a chance article. I'll be back December 2nd.

Hoofy & Boo, The News, & Their New "Feminism"

How the two decided to compete in the news.

The Stray Dogs of Moscow

35,000 stray dogs roam Moscow. That's "about 84 dogs per square mile. You see them everywhere. They lie around in the courtyards of apartment complexes, wander near markets and kiosks, and sleep inside metro stations and pedestrian passageways. You can hear them barking and howling at night.Every so often, you would see one waiting on a metro platform. When the train pulled up, the dog would step in, scramble up to lie on a seat or sit on the floor if the carriage was crowded, and then exit a few stops later. They figure out where they are by smell, by recognising the name of the station from the recorded announcer’s voice and by time intervals."

"The metro dog also has uncannily good instincts about people, happily greeting kindly passers by, but slinking down the furthest escalator to avoid the intolerant older women who oversee the metro’s electronic turnstiles. If, for example, you come every Monday and feed a dog, that dog will know when it’s Monday and the hour to expect you, based on their sense of time intervals from their ­biological clocks."

"A few years ago Yulia Romanova, a 22-year-old model. On a winter evening was returning with her beloved Staffordshire terrier from a visit to a designer who specialises in kitting out canine Muscovites in the latest fashions. The terrier was sporting a new green camouflage jacket as he walked with his owner through the crowded Mendeleyevskaya metro station. There they encountered Malchik, a black stray who had made the station his home, guarding it against drunks and other dogs. Malchik barked at the pair, defending his territory. But instead of walking away, Romanova reached into her pink rucksack, pulled out a kitchen knife and, in front of rush-hour commuters, stabbed Malchik to death.

Romanova was arrested, tried and underwent a year of psychiatric treatment. Typically for Russia, this horror story was countered by a wellspring of sympathy for Moscow’s strays. A bronze statue of Malchik, paid for by donations, now stands at the entrance of Mendeleyevskaya station. It has become a symbol for the 35,000 stray dogs that roam Russia’s capital." More

To see a photo album of Moscow's stray dogs, click here.

Free will not an illusion after all

"Champions of free will take heart. A landmark 1980s experiment that purported to show free will doesn't exist is being challenged.

In 1983, neuroscientist Benjamin Libet asked volunteers wearing scalp electrodes to flex a finger or wrist. When they did, the movements were preceded by a dip in the signals being recorded, called the "readiness potential". Libet interpreted this RP as the brain preparing for movement.

Crucially, the RP came a few tenths of a second before the volunteers said they had decided to move. Libet concluded that unconscious neural processes determine our actions before we are ever aware of making a decision (Brain, vol 106, p 623).

Since then, others have quoted the experiment as evidence that free will is an illusion - a conclusion that was always controversial, particularly as there is no proof the RP represents a decision to move." More (Requires a subscription)

A synopsis of the full article:

Jeff Miller and Judy Trevena of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, experimented to determine what prompts the Readiness Potential (RP).

Like Libet, they used scalp electrodes, but with a difference. Volunteers did not decide when to move. Miller and Trevena had them wait for an audio tone. Upon hearing it they could decide whether or not to tap a key.

Given Libet's view of the RP, Miller and Trevena held that it should be greater after the volunteer chose to tap the key.

What did they find out? The RP was the same, both before and after the decision to move. For that reason, they posit that the RP may merely be a sign that the brain is paying attention and does not indicate that a decision has been made.

What about Libet's view that decision-making is subconscious? In a second experiment, they failed to find evidence for it. In this experiment, volunteers pressed a key after the tone, but had to decide whether to use their left or right hand.

This is revealing because movement in the right limbs relates to left hemisphere brain signals; the left side, to the right. If an unconscious process is driving this decision, brain location should depend on choice of hand. Choice did not correlate.

The findings do not refute Libet's experiments but they do undermine them.

The original experiments by Benjamin Libet can be read about in Mind Shadows here.

IQ & Mass Media

Google, rock videos, and the Web will no more make you stupid and shallow than propping a heavy encyclopedia on your lap will make you smart and deep, argues Steven Pinker.

"New forms of media have always caused moral panics: the printing press, newspapers, paperbacks and television were all once denounced as threats to their consumers’ brainpower and moral fiber.

So too with electronic technologies. PowerPoint, we’re told, is reducing discourse to bullet points." More

The Power Of Negative Thinking

Was Norman Vincent Peale right? "Is there power in positive thinking? A study just published in the journal Psychological Science says trying to get people to think more positively can actually have the opposite effect: it can simply highlight how unhappy they are."

An experiment "provides support for newer forms of psychotherapy that urge people to accept their negative thoughts and feelings rather than try to reject and fight them. In the fighting, we not only often fail but can also make things worse. Mindfulness and meditation techniques, in contrast, can teach people to put their shortcomings into a larger, more realistic perspective. Call it the power of negative thinking." More

Also see Mind Shadows "Barbara Ehrenreich, Positive Thinking, & Smiley Faces Like Tony Robbins & Joel Osteen."