Born On A Cusp

We now know more to realise that IQ (more precisely, a high intelligence quotient) is not the most important thing in a person’s life. We know about multiple intelligences — that you and I could both be described as “intelligent” though in different manners: you in body and I in music, for instance. We also know how EQ, emotional quotient — or the ability to deal with one’s self, peers, and the world — is equally, if not more, important than being smart.

Yet the human brain continues to fascinate us. There doesn’t seem to be an end to the ways in which we poke around this 3-lb-grey matter between our ears to discover more about how it works, and how to make it work better.

The e-magazine, Wired, carries an article about boosting one’s intelligence. Quoting doctors, research institutions, studies, the article says there’s more than one way to get smarter, and none of them is rocket science. Excerpts:

Distract yourself. Distract yourself by studying stuff that’s slightly different from whatever you’re trying to learn. Your brain will then work harder to permanently store the original information.

Caffeinate with care. For optimal brain gain, regular tea breaks are more effective than a 20-ounce French roast sucked down at Starbucks in lieu of breakfast. Even better, add a lump of sugar or have a carbohydrate-rich snack for an extra cognitive kick. Glucose and caffeine together do more to enhance cognition than either does alone.

Think positive. It’s a virtuous circle: When you think you’re getting smarter, you study harder, making more nerve-cell connections, which in turn makes you … smarter.

Embrace chaos. One way to learn better: Mix yourself up. Volunteers in his experiments exhibited superior recall when they learned information in randomly ordered chunks.

Slow down. Studies show that fast readers fare worse than slower ones when questioned about the text. So, to get smarter, slow down. The motor response of the retina, and the time it takes the image of a word to travel from the macula to the thalamus to the visual cortex for processing, limits the eye to about 500 words a minute.

More of the Wired piece here.

China acts to counter the negative publicity from protests that marred the Olympic torch’s stops at various cities, and sends a team to take the flame to the summit of Mt Everest.

News sites show screen grabs from official Chinese television showing the team of mountaineers reaching the peak this morning, 9.20 local time. They held up banners and the Olympic logo, cheering, “Beijing welcomes you!” and “One world, one dream”, the official slogan of the Beijing Olympics.

The torch’s international relay was met with highly publicised protest actions in several cities — Paris, San Francisco, and London — by activists critical of China’s human rights record.

I’ve always thought the platypus looked odd.

And, apparently, so does the rest of the world. Such is the curiosity about the platypus that scientists have been hard at work trying to learn more about it. They spent years decoding the platypus genome and analysing it. They’re done, and have shared with the world what they learned — that the platypus is, indeed, no simple creature: it is part bird, part reptile, and part lactating mammal. A genetic hodgepodge, in other words.

The platypus is classified as a mammal because it produces milk and is covered in coat of thick fur. It has reptile-like attributes too: females lay eggs, and males can stab enemies with a venom that flows from a spur tucked under its hind feet. The bird-like qualities, meanwhile, include webbed feet, a flat bill similar to a duck’s, and the gene sequences that determine sex: humans have two sex chromosomes, platypuses have 10.

“It is much more of a melange than anyone expected,” said one of the genome analysts.

Suddenly you feel so ordinary.

They say you find love in the most unexpected places. For Londoners, it could be the tube.

Half of residents of the British capital quizzed in an online poll said they had dated someone they had met for the first time on the city’s underground railway system, affectionately called the ‘tube.’

(The Tube. Photograph by bornonacusp.)

A third of respondents said they were more likely to be attracted to someone they have spotted on the Underground than in usual hangout places like pubs.

Classic pick-up lines, according to the respondents, include “Going my way?” and “I’ve forgotten where my stop is, can you tell me where you get off?”

Read the wires story here.

I found love somewhere else, but I have very fond memories of the tube. It rightfully deserves to be iconic of London.

… Is Paul Simon’s classic song.

This, meanwhile, is 50 Ways to Help the Planet.

(A belated Earth Day blog post.)

Reading online news from the Philippines and saw this article on civet coffee, a brew made from the excreta of the civet cat.

Apparently the production of coffee from the palm civet, known locally as alamid, is taken very seriously in the Philippines and so-called ‘plush’ coffee shops in some of the big cities are today serving cups and cups of the drink to enthusiastic consumers.

Civets are cat-sized mammals that feed on the cherries of the coffee plant, choosing only the best beans. After swallowing the coffee cherry whole, the civet’s digestive system takes care of the outer red skin and the flesh, leaving the coffee bean covered with a final layer that protects it from contamination. The civet’s digestive system ferments the beans, giving the coffee a sweet, chocolatey aroma.

In the mornings, farmers scour the forest grounds and gather the animal droppings, which then go through a thorough cleaning process.

I found one account of a first-timer who enthuses, “If you can’t taste the difference with civet cat coffee, you are either brewing it wrong or you should stick to Nescafé. The body, like a good wine or whisky, was complex and full of sweet, strong elements not found in normal coffee. The aftertaste was almost free from bitterness and lingered in my mouth. My journey had ended and I was a believer.”

Now that’s a rave.

I’ve stopped drinking coffee but maybe this one is worth a taste.