You can't budge an egghead...

Image by basykes via Flickr

Now I know why I never won an argument (and never lost, I have to owe it)- it is difficult to budge an egghead, no matter what you throw at it-
How facts backfire - The Boston Globe:

"And if you harbor the notion — popular on both sides of the aisle — that the solution is more education and a higher level of political sophistication in voters overall, well, that’s a start, but not the solution. A 2006 study by Charles Taber and Milton Lodge at Stony Brook University showed that politically sophisticated thinkers were even less open to new information than less sophisticated types. These people may be factually right about 90 percent of things, but their confidence makes it nearly impossible to correct the 10 percent on which they’re totally wrong. Taber and Lodge found this alarming, because engaged, sophisticated thinkers are “the very folks on whom democratic theory relies most heavily.”

Moscow's Dostoevsky station could be 'suicide mecca' - Telegraph

Image via Wikipedia

"'What did you want? Scenes of dancing?'

Dostoevsky does not have them,' he (Alexander Mozhaev) said."

The Moscow Metro, where about eighty people kill themselves every year, has reopened with 'gloomy' murals drawn from Dostoevsky's novels. The representation of dark, brooding Dostoveskian characters in the metro that already has a reputation of inspiring suicidal thoughts has invited criticism from Russian psychologists.

Alexander Mozhaev, the artist who made the murals finds them inspiring, though. 

Read more at 

Moscow's Dostoevsky station could be 'suicide mecca' - Telegraph:

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Of Cats and Wolves

Ever since I came across this meme, I couldn't get it out of my head: every time I look at someone with an interesting gait, I can't stop wondering- but, you can't be sure, can you? Unless you are a Certified Discerning Observer-

"The discerning observer may infer women's experience of vaginal orgasm from a gait that comprises fluidity, energy, sensuality, freedom, and absence of both flaccid and locked muscles"
-NCBI ROFL: Friday flashback: A woman’s history of vaginal orgasm is discernible from her  walk. | Discoblog

Either Autism is a rumour or is contagious...

Either Autism is a rumour or is contagious is some way we don't know how.


"Researchers at Columbia University say that a child who lives 250 meters from another child who has been diagnosed with autism has a 42 percent increased chance of being diagnosed himself or herself. Children who live between 250 and 500 meters of another child diagnosed with autism have a 22 percent increased chance of being diagnosed themselves. The researchers based this conclusion on a study of more than 300,000 children in California between 1997 and 2003. Children who live further away from another child diagnosed with autism have a lower risk of being diagnosed themselves."

via The Essential Read 

Image Credit: EdwardPrevost.info 

An Interesting Blog

Found this interesting blog with great links- Barking up the wrong tree.

You find all kinds of interesting, crazy, zany stuff here- all backed up by research findings.

The last few posts being-

 Do candy cigarettes turn kids into smokers?

Why are people cynical? What can be done about it?

  

Do good moods make people less trusting?

  

How to add meaning to your life:

  

For a healthy relationship, should cohabiting couples have more or less sex than married couples?

  

What predicts cheating in a relationship?

I do hope you check the blog: you can spend all day clicking links and reading stuff.

Brilliant.