May 24, 2011
A sinecure [sahy-ni-kyoor] (Latin: sine ‘without,’ cura ‘care’) means an office that requires or involves little or no responsibility, labor, or active service. Sinecures have historically provided a potent tool for governments or monarchs to distribute patronage, while recipients are able to store up titles and easy salaries.
A sinecure is not necessarily a figurehead, which generally requires active participation in government, albeit with a lack of power. A sinecure, by contrast, has no real day-to-day responsibilities, but may have de jure power.
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May 24, 2011
Tafoni (singular: tafone) are small cave-like features found in granular rock such as sandstone, with rounded entrances and smooth concave walls. They often occur in groups that can riddle a hillside, cliff, or other rock formation.
They also frequently occur in granitic rocks. Small versions of tafoni are sometimes called alveoli; like the former, they are hypothesized to be results of salt weathering.
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May 24, 2011
Semantic satiation is a cognitive neuroscience phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener, who can only process the speech as repeated meaningless sounds. The explanation for the phenomenon was that verbal repetition repeatedly aroused a specific neural pattern in the cortex which corresponds to the meaning of the word. Rapid repetition causes both the peripheral sensorimotor activity and the central neural activation to fire repeatedly, which is known to cause reactive inhibition, hence a reduction in the intensity of the activity with each repetition.
Several activities demonstrate the operation of the semantic satiation effect in various cognitive tasks such as rating words and figures that are presented repeatedly in a short time, verbally repeating words then grouping them into concepts, adding numbers after repeating them out loud, and bilingual translations of words repeated in one of the two languages. In each case subjects would repeat a word or number for several seconds, then perform the cognitive task using that word. It was demonstrated that repeating a word prior to its use in a task made the task somewhat more difficult.
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May 21, 2011
A doodle is an unfocused drawing made while a person’s attention is otherwise occupied. They are simple drawings that can have concrete representational meaning or may just be abstract shapes.
Doodling can aid a person’s memory by expending just enough energy to keep one from daydreaming, which demands a lot of the brain’s processing power, as well as from not paying attention. Thus, it acts as a mediator between the spectrum of thinking too much or thinking too little and helps focus on the current situation.
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May 21, 2011
Amygdala [uh-mig-duh-luh] hijack is a term coined by psychologist Daniel Goleman in his 1996 book ‘Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ.’ Goleman uses the term to describe emotional responses from people which are out of measure with the actual threat because it has triggered a much more significant emotional threat. The brain processes stimuli by having the thalamus direct sensory information to the neocortex (the ‘thinking brain’). The cortex then routes the signal to the amygdala (the ’emotional brain’) for the proper emotional reaction. The amygdala then triggers a flood of peptides and hormones to create emotion and action.
Perceived potential threats, however, can disrupt this smooth flow; the thalamus bypasses the cortex and routes the signal directly to the amygdala, which is the trigger point for the primitive fight-or-flight response; when the amygdala feels threatened, it can react irrationally and destructively. Goleman states that ‘Emotions make us pay attention right now – this is urgent – and give us an immediate action plan without having to think twice. The emotional component evolved very early: Do I eat it, or does it eat me?’ The emotional response ‘can take over the rest of the brain in a millisecond if threatened.’ An amygdala hijack exhibits three signs: strong emotional reaction, sudden onset, and post-episode realization that the reaction was inappropriate.
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May 21, 2011
The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence is a Pulitzer Prize winning 1977 book by Carl Sagan. In it, he combines the fields of anthropology, evolutionary biology, psychology, and computer science to give a perspective of how human intelligence evolved.
The opening quote is by Greek philosopher Plotinus: ‘Mankind is poised midway between the Gods and the Beasts.’
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May 20, 2011
Nectars are a type of non-carbonated soft drink made with fruit juice. In some countries, the beverage industry distinguishes nectars from drinks labeled as juice. In the United States and the United Kingdom, the term ‘fruit juice’ is restricted to beverages that are 100% pure juice.
Nectar is generally accepted in the U.S. and in international trade for a diluted juice to denote a beverage that contains fruit juice and fruit puree. A juice or nectar including concentrate must state that it does. A blend of fruit juice(s) with other ingredients, such as high-fructose corn syrup, is called a juice cocktail or juice drink.
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May 20, 2011
Desiderata [dih-sid-uh-rey-tuh] (Latin: ‘desired things’) is a 1927 poem by American writer Max Ehrmann (1872-1945).
The text was largely unknown in the author’s lifetime and became widely known after its use in a devotional in 1959 by a church in Baltimore. When Adlai Stevenson died in 1965, a guest in his home found the Desiderata near his bedside and discovered that Stevenson had planned to use it in his Christmas cards.
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May 19, 2011
Malicious compliance is the behavior of a person who intentionally inflicts harm by strictly following the orders of management or following legal compulsions, knowing that compliance with the orders will cause a loss of some form resulting in damage to the manager’s business or reputation, or a loss to an employee or subordinate. In effect, it is a form of sabotage used to harm leadership or used by leadership to harm subordinates.
Work-to-rule is the expression of malicious compliance as an industrial action, in which rules are deliberately followed to the letter in an attempt to reduce employee productivity.
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May 18, 2011
In the context of a work of fiction, the term canon denotes the material accepted as ‘official,’ in a fictional universe’s fan base. It is often contrasted with, or used as the basis for, works of fan fiction, which are not considered canonical. It is used in two slightly different meanings: first, it refers to the overall set of storylines, premises, settings, and characters offered by the source media text. In this sense, canon is the original work from which the fan fiction author borrows. Secondly, it is used as a descriptor of specific incidents, relationships, or story arcs that take place within the overall canon; thus certain incidents or relationships may be described as being canon or not.
The use of the word ‘canon’ in reference to a set of texts derives from Biblical canon, the set of books regarded as scripture. The term was first used in the context of fiction to refer to the Sherlock Holmes stories and novels, written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, to distinguish those works from subsequent pastiches by other authors. It has subsequently been applied to many media franchises. Among these are science fiction franchises such as Star Trek, Star Wars, and Doctor Who, in which many stories have been told in different media, some of which contradict or appear to contradict each other.
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May 18, 2011
The chupacabra (literally ‘goat sucker’) is a legendary cryptid rumored to inhabit parts of the Americas. The name comes from the animal’s reported habit of attacking and drinking the blood of livestock, especially goats.
The most common description of chupacabras is a reptile-like being, appearing to have leathery or scaly greenish-gray skin and sharp spines or quills running down its back. Approximately 3 to 4 feet (1 to 1.2 m) high, it stands and hops in a similar fashion to a kangaroo.
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May 18, 2011
Tartanry [tahr-tn-ree] is a word used to describe the kitsch elements of Scottish culture that have been overemphasized or superimposed on the country first by the emergent Scottish tourist industry in the 18th and 19th centuries, and later by an American film industry. The earliest use of the word ‘tartanry’ itself is said to have been in 1976.
It refers to often misrepresented or invented aspects of Scotland such as clan tartans, kilts, bagpipes, Scottish Gaelic and Highland culture more generally.
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