What's New on the 13 Topics AJCann Follows?

Research is by its nature social. We build on one another’s ideas and we share ours publicly to keep the conversation going. But it’s not social the way Facebook is. Facebook is a data-gathering machine. It’s a blank slate on which we write so that they can aggregate and monetize what we freely share.

When I search, I don’t want what I wrote in an email or what I watched on YouTube to change what I find. Sure, there are places where my scholarly interests blur into my idle curiosity and into my social relationships. I also know that my choice of search terms and even the questions I decide to ask will be influenced by things I have read or conversations I’ve had. But somehow, I want search to be pure, not influenced by my own limitations and blind spots. I want to find what is out there, not what I’ve already expressed. I

Here's a teaser for the upcoming "Plants and Pathogens" teaching tool. One of the many ways that plant pathogens have shaped human history!

"From the data, it seems that a growth mindset, whereby you believe that intelligence can improve, lends itself to a more adaptive response to mistakes – not just behaviorally, but also neurally: the more someone believes in improvement, the larger the amplitude of a brain signal that reflects a conscious allocation of attention to mistakes. And the larger that neural signal, the better subsequent performance. That mediation suggests that individuals with an incremental theory of intelligence may actually have better self-monitoring and control systems on a very basic neural level: their brains are better at monitoring their own, self-generated errors and at adjusting their behavior accordingly. It’s a story of improved on-line error awareness—of noticing mistakes as they happen, and correcting for them immediately…."

"Auto dashboards are becoming an arcade of text messages, GPS images, phone calls and web surfing, the government says, and it's asking carmakers to curb those distractions when vehicles are moving."

Sacbrood virus (SBV) primarily infects honeybee broods, and in order to deal with the problem cost effective detection methods are required.

...and LAMP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop-mediated_isothermal_amplification) turns out to be a good way to do it!  Like this...

http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/content/28/12/e63/F1.large.jpg

NoteScraper does what it says on the tin. Works a treat and copies your highlights and notes straight into Evernote.

Inspired, in equal measures, by Hurricane Katrina, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz, and a love for books, “Morris Lessmore” is a story of people who devote their lives to books and books who return the favor.