“What Slime Knows” is an essay by Lacy M. Johnson, in Orion magazine: Here in this little patch of mulch in my yard is a creature that begins life as a microscopic amoeba and ends it as a vibrant splotch that produces spores, and for all the time in between, it is a single cell […]
“To smell again, perchance to learn better” would be a poetical way to speak of this study about teaching sleeping children in Germany how to read and write better English: “How Odor Cues Help to Optimize Learning During Sleep in a Real Life-Setting,” Franziska Neumann, Vitus Oberhauser, and Jürgen Kornmeier, Scientific Reports, vol. 10, no. […]
Should students devote time to studying ‘useless’ subjects? The debate has been running for (at least) 127 years. The arguments often boil down to questions such as: ‘Maybe something that seems useless now, could be useful in the future?’ or ‘Who’s in a position to say what’s useless anyway?’ For an early example, see the […]
There are a fair number [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] of opportunities for those who’d like to explore the possibilities of enhancing their leadership skills with the help of horses. But, those who follow the world of equine-assisted team and leadership development paradigms might have asked themselves, at some stage, the simple yet all-important question : ‘Why horses?’ If […]
This week’s Learning-Quiz question: What, if anything, could the authors of this study possibly have hoped to learn from doing this study? The study is: “What is beautiful is good, even online: Correlations between photo attractiveness and text attractiveness in men’s online dating profiles“, Rebecca J. Brand, Abigail Bonatsos, Rebecca D’Orazio, Hilary DeShong, Computers in […]
The concepts of Organizational Learning (OL) and Learning Organisation (LO) have been prevalent in the management literature for several decades [1] [2] – but exactly what, if anything, differentiates Organizational Learning (OL) from Learning Organisation (LO)? Answers are to be found in the SCMS Journal of Indian Management, January – March, 2012, where authors Dr. […]
Peaco Todd’s special duty at recent Ig Nobel Prize ceremonies was to accompany Nobel laureate William Lipscomb. Peaco has written some thoughts triggered by Bill’s recent death at the age of 91. (She and Professor Lipscomb are pictured here on the cover of the special Professor Lipscomb issue of the Annals of Improbable Research.) Her essay, which appears on […]
What is the relationship between learning and jerks in science? This paper asks and answers the question plainly: “Engagement, Wonder, and Learning by Jerks in Science: Perspectives of Pre-Service Elementary Education Students, Medical Students, and Research Science Doctoral Students,” Nancy Pelaez [pictured here], Kimberley D. Ryder, B. Subah Packer and Michael R. Cohen, Paper presented at […]