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September 5, 2008 7:46:16 PM CDT

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Stories related to: intelligence

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  • August 2008

    • C-E-R-T-A-I-N Scrabble Winners

      Mental Floss Magazine  |  Aug 30, 08 10:01 AM CDT

      C-E-R-T-A-I-N Scrabble Winners

      (Newser) - Sure, Bart Simpson could fake it at Scrabble—but for those of us playing against a wit sharper than Homer's, here are some gems Mental Floss magazine dug up that actually mean something: Cwm: A valley created by glacial shifts. Adz: An axe-like woodworking tool. Xu: The currency of Vietnam. More »

      Tags

      mental health  • intelligence  • Scrabble  • words  • board games  • intelligence tests

  • June 2008

    • Focus, Not IQ, Might be Best School Skill

      Newsweek  |  Jun 5, 08 3:43 PM CDT

      Focus, Not IQ, Might be Best School Skill

      (Newser) - EF is the new IQ, and if educators accept that new acronym mantra, more preschoolers will be playing games, Newsweek reports. Executive function—the ability to repress distracting thoughts and focus on a task—could be a better indicator of scholarly success than intelligence alone; psychologist Adele Diamond implemented an EF approach in New England preschools, and the results were striking. More »

      Tags

      psychology  • intelligence  • public schools  • preschool  • learning  • cognitive development

    • Chavez Takes Over Intelligence Agencies

      New York Times  |  Jun 3, 08 10:24 AM CDT

      Chavez Takes Over Intelligence Agencies

      (Newser) - Hugo Chavez has ordered a draconian restructuring of Venezuela’s intelligence agencies, bringing them under his personal control, increasing domestic spying powers, and levying prison sentences on citizens who decline to cooperate, the New York Times reports. One justice on Venezuela’s top court expressed outrage, calling it “a step toward the creation of a society of informers.” More »

      Tags

      Venezuela  • Hugo Chavez  • intelligence  • Patriot Act  • government spying  • domestic intelligence  • informant

  • April 2008

    • Mental Exercises Boost Brain Power, Study Says

      Scientific American  |  Apr 29, 08 8:37 PM CDT

      Mental Exercises Boost Brain Power, Study Says

      (Newser) - Psychological research has long supported the conclusion that training on cognitive tasks doesn’t result in intelligence gains that transfer to other tasks—ie, memorizing long strings of numbers doesn’t help learning long strings of letters. But researchers say they've made a long-sought breakthrough that could lead to better treatments for learning disorders and memory loss, Scientific American reports. More »

      Tags

      intelligence  • memory  • training  • psychological research  • intelligence tests

    • UK Intelligence 'Sent Citizens to Be Tortured'

      Guardian (UK)  |  Apr 29, 08 3:40 AM CDT

      UK Intelligence 'Sent Citizens to Be Tortured'

      (Newser) - British intelligence officers have been accused of sending citizens to a Pakistani agency to be tortured, reports the Guardian.  MI5 officials requested Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency to arrest British terror suspects in the country, where they were subjected to beatings, whippings, sleep deprivation and fingernail extraction, according to lawyers for the victims. More »

      Tags

      Pakistan  • United Kingdom  • War on Terror  • torture  • intelligence  • intelligence agencies  • MI5  • Inter Service Intelligence

    • Brain Training Can Boost Smarts

      Wired  |  Apr 29, 08 3:13 AM CDT

      Brain Training Can Boost Smarts

      (Newser) - Software claiming to improve intelligence has met with market success in recent years— along with plenty of skepticism—but sales could now get a boost with the discovery that it really is possible to improve general intelligence with mental gymnastics. Researchers had thought so-called "fluid intelligence" was purely genetic, but tests have demonstrated that mental workouts can improve capacity, Wired reports. More »

      Tags

      software  • brain  • intelligence  • neuroscience  • human intelligence

  • February 2008

    • A.I. Will Match Human Brain in 20 Years

      BBC  |  Feb 16, 08 6:54 PM CST

      A.I. Will Match Human Brain in 20 Years

      (Newser) - One engineer and futurist says it’s only a matter of time before machines are as smart as people, and people are part machine, the BBC reports. Ray Kurzweil claims that artificial intelligence will produce human-level smarts and even emotions by 2029. Humans, meanwhile, will inject nanobots into their brains to improve intelligence. More »

      Tags

      brain  • intelligence  • robots  • artificial intelligence  • nanotechnology  • Ray Kurzweil  • futurism

    • Ken Jennings They're Not

      Reuters  |  Feb 2, 08 7:15 AM CST

      Ken Jennings They're Not

      (Newser) - Perhaps there's no sadder commentary on the state of society—or at least society's IQ—than dumb responses from contestants on game shows. Reuters combs a (now-defunct) website for high and low points: Q: What was Gandhi's first name? A: Goosey Goosey. Q: What happened in Dallas on November 22, 1963? A: I don't know, I wasn't watching it then. More »

      Tags

      list  • intelligence  • humor  • Nicole Kidman  • Gandhi  • game show  • Forrest Gump

  • January 2008

    • Men Aren't Smarter, But Think They Are

      Newsweek  |  Jan 24, 08 2:12 PM CST

      Men Aren't Smarter, But Think They Are

      (Newser) - Men aren't any smarter than women, reveals a new analysis of several studies on IQ, but they think they are. The surprise is that women go along with it. In an interview with Newsweek , researcher Adrian Furnham said both sexes overestimate male intelligence and underestimate female intelligence. "It's what we call the male hubris and female humility effect," Furnham says. More »

      Tags

      gender  • intelligence  • IQ

    • Stop Picking on Nerds!

      Washington Post  |  Jan 1, 08 6:25 PM CST

      Stop Picking on Nerds!

      (Newser) - Americans mock nerds ad nauseum , and psych prof David Anderegg says it's time to lay off. In his new book, Nerds: Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them , Andregg breezily but thoroughly critiques a cultural prejudice that he claims dates back to Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Washington Post reports.  More »

      Tags

      education  • parenting  • Bill Gates  • psychology  • intelligence  • sociology

  • December 2007

    • Iran Flip Shows US Intelligence Turnaround

      New York Times  |  Dec 5, 07 11:43 AM CST

      Iran Flip Shows US Intelligence Turnaround

      (Newser) - In reversing its 2005 finding that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons, the US intelligence community is putting into practice changes adopted after crucial failures in the run-up to the Iraq war. The original used weak sourcing and less than rigorous fact-gathering, critics say. “I think people should take comfort from the fact that they’ve changed their view," a former CIA official tells the New York Times . More »

      Tags

      Iraq war  • Iran  • CIA  • Mahmoud Ahmadinejad  • intelligence

  • November 2007

    • Breastfeeding Boosts Baby IQs

      Reuters  |  Nov 6, 07 4:27 AM CST

      Breastfeeding Boosts Baby IQs

      (Newser) - A gene found in 90% of the human race helps explain why breast-fed babies are more intelligent than infants raised on bottled milk, scientists have discovered. Researchers found that the IQs of children who had been breast fed were 6 to 7 points higher than bottle-fed babies—but only if they had a variant of the FADS2 gene, according to the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. More »

      Tags

      intelligence  • breast feeding  • IQ

  • October 2007

    • Feed Me, Seymour! Lab Decodes Floral Intelligence

      Wired  |  Oct 30, 07 3:30 PM CDT

      Feed Me, Seymour! Lab Decodes Floral Intelligence

      (Newser) - Plants have signaling and response systems that could make major contributions to robotics and communications research. The controversial field of “plant neurobiology” starts from the assumption that plant biology mirrors the human nervous system—and has a lot to teach scientists and engineers, Wired reports. The head of the world’s only plant intelligence lab says smarts aren’t “only about having a brain.” More »

      Tags

      Mars  • telecommunications  • intelligence  • robots  • artificial intelligence  • plants

    • Brits Plotting Our Destruction: Russia Spy Chief

      Daily Telegraph (UK)  |  Oct 11, 07 7:31 AM CDT

      Brits Plotting Our Destruction: Russia Spy Chief

      (Newser) - Marking the latest low in British-Russian relations, the head of Russian intelligence claims to have uncovered evidence of a plot by Britain to "dismember" his country. The charge, in an interview with a Russian journal, raised fears of  a new wave of expulsions of British diplomats, reports the Telegraph . More »

      Tags

      Russia  • United Kingdom  • intelligence

  • September 2007

    • What's Baby Got That Chimps Don't?

      Time  |  Sep 7, 07 12:05 PM CDT

      What's Baby Got That Chimps Don't?

      (Newser) - What makes humans smarter than their primate relatives? Into the ongoing debate comes a new study that concludes it's not just size, it's the particular kind of computing power. A study matching human toddlers with chimps and orangutans compared their performance on a battery of different kinds of tasks. The children were no better at "physical learning" —i.e. finding hidden objects—but miles ahead in "social learning." More »

      Tags

      children  • baby  • evolution  • intelligence  • chimpanzees  • learning  • apes

  • August 2007
  • June 2007

    • US, Iran Split Over Terrorist Group

      Wall Street Journal  |  Jun 25, 07 3:54 PM CDT

      US, Iran Split Over Terrorist Group

      (Newser) - As the US and Iran inch toward the table, a sticky wicket could be the US relationship with the Mujahedin e-Khalq, a paramilitary group that militantly opposes the Tehran government. The US, meanwhile, shelters the MEK in a base on the Iraq-Iran border that has become the organization's operations center. More »

      Tags

      Iran  • United States  • terrorist  • intelligence

    • How Firstborns Get Smarter

      New York Times  |  Jun 24, 07 9:58 PM CDT

      How Firstborns Get Smarter

      (Newser) - In the wake of the study released last week on intelligence and birth order, parents and social scientists are scrambling to explain why firstborns score an average of three IQ points over subsequent children. Theories range from the role older children play as tutors to younger sibs to the notion that adding a child may diminish the family’s  "intellectual environment."  More »

      Tags

      children  • family  • intelligence  • siblings  • IQ

    • Oldest Kids Take Lead in Sibling Rivalry

      New York Times  |  Jun 22, 07 9:29 AM CDT

      Oldest Kids Take Lead in Sibling Rivalry

      (Newser) - Big siblings have long suspected it, and now science backs them up: Oldest children have slightly higher IQs than younger kids. Family dynamics, not biological factors, account for the 3-point discrepancy, which holds up for children who become the oldest after the firstborn dies. That tiny gap may mean the difference between a "name" college and a state school. More »

      Tags

      children  • family  • intelligence  • siblings  • IQ

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