Thursday, June 29, 2006

brain Detecting prejudice in the brain. Three Florida teenagers recently pleaded not guilty to the brutal beatings and in one case, death, of homeless men. One of the beatings was caught on surveillance video and in a most chilling way illustrates how people can degrade socially outcast individuals, enough to engage in mockery, physical abuse, and even murder. According to new research, the brain processes social outsiders as less than human; brain imaging provides accurate depictions of this prejudice at an unconscious level. read more [Science Blog -] 11:13:35 PM    comment

games Gaming to Save the World. The recent Games for Change Conference was covered on NPR, featuring interviews with the developers of games such as Darfur is Dying and Peacemaker. The premise of these games is that to reach the Net Generation with socially progressive ideas, you need to engage them with their favorite interactive media. Since one of the familiar objectives in many of our campus' strategic plans is to develop the next generation of leaders, and to ensure that our graduates participate effectively in the political process, these new models of developing thoughtful and yet engaging game environments to teach progressive values seem worth paying attention to, both for the lessons they teach, and more generally as models of platforms for thinking about future educational environments. [Academic Commons -] 9:57:45 AM    comment

networking Research Projects You Should Know About. - sharing wifi with your neighbors -- BL [Slashdot] 9:54:09 AM    comment

persuasion Drinking coffee makes you more open-minded. Caffeine can make you more easily convinced by arguments that go against your beliefs because it improves your ability to understand the reasoning behind statements, suggests experiments at University of Queensland. ... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News] 9:29:08 AM    comment