Well, it's all in the mind

Why having fun makes time speed

Scientists have come up with a theory for why time flies when you are having fun - and drags when you are bored.
Scans have shown that patterns of activity in the brain change depending on how we focus on a task.

Concentrating on time passing, as we do when bored, will trigger brain activity which will make it seem as though the clock is ticking more slowly.

The research, by the French Laboratory of Neurobiology and Cognition, is published in the magazine Science.

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My mom says I was reading Mad magazine when I was three.

Studying Hyperlexia May Unlock How Brains Read

Understanding hyperlexia may . . . help explain how normal brains accomplish the feat of reading. Unlike seeing and hearing, skills acquired through evolution, reading is usually not acquired naturally. Humans have been reading for only a few thousand years, and the pressure for everyone to become good readers has become intense in only the past couple of centuries.

Reading involves a complex series of brain activities: Visual centers must first perceive variable, tiny features of printed symbols on a page, then those changes must be mentally converted into strings of sound, and finally the patterns of sound must be interpreted by language centers in the brain to register their meaning.

"Hyperlexia is the antithesis of dyslexia," said Guinevere Eden, director of Georgetown University's Center for the Study of Learning, who has studied Alex. "We spend all our time studying individuals who have a hard time learning to read, and here are these children who acquire reading in a spontaneous way. It's as if they know it already."

[...] In a paper published in the journal Neuron in January, the researchers reported that the Bethesda youngster had heightened brain activity in two areas, according to lead author Turkeltaub. One area was the left interior frontal gyrus, located behind the middle of the temple, the other was the left superior temporal cortex, over and behind the ear.

"If you're reading a word that you've never seen before, you need to first translate the letters into sounds, and then put those sounds together to make a whole word," Turkeltaub said in an e-mail. "In your brain, the left superior temporal cortex will translate the letters to sounds, and the left inferior frontal gyrus will put those sounds together to create the whole word."

(no subject)

"You're thinking of outer space. That's where the Lord lives, Beavis."

"Oh yeah."

(no subject)

It's morning. The girls aren't up yet. I have about 4-6 more hours before my babysitting expedition is over.

I love my nieces, but I'll be glad to go home. There's only so much playing with Barbies that I can stand.

(no subject)

My older niece is rather fond of panties. When we were playing with her Barbies, she kept pointing out the underwear. It took me a while to figure out that she wanted me to dress her in panties, too.

(Despite her age, my niece is not yet potty-trained.)

It was very odd, babysitting this girl. I mean, it's okay for girls to be obsessed over Barbie dolls, but feminine underwear? Her fascination seems out of the ordinary.

I kept telling her, "This is why you need to learn how to use the potty. Then you can wear panties all the time." She nodded as if she understood. Maybe she does understand; I'm not sure. To her credit, she managed to hold everything until I again put her in a diaper.

A sign of the apocalypse

This Is No Yolk

People in the Albanian capital Tirana have been shocked by an increasing number of eggs without yolks, local television reported Thursday.

"We broke half of the eggs we bought but they lacked their yolks. Friends of ours told us the same had happened to them and in restaurants as well," a woman told the News24 TV station.

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I smell entrapment

Man in Holding Cell Succumbs to Cookies

A New Hampshire man being held by police was caught snacking on a handful of Girl Scout cookies and charged with larceny.

Ethan Frock, 30, of Keene, N.H., was riding in a car with his brother when they were stopped by police. They discovered that Frock was in possession of a small amount of marijuana.

He was taken to the Vermont State Police barracks in Rockingham and briefly kept in a storage room because the barracks lack a holding cell.

The room contained several boxes of Girl Scout cookies, and court documents state that police specifically told Frock to leave the cookies alone.

But Frock had a snack and was charged after police caught him. He pleaded guilty to marijuana possession and petit larceny, receiving a fine of $500.