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.

Doing the rounds of the e-mail circuit these days is a collection of eight photographs from the book, ‘Hungry Planet: What the World Eats’.

The 2005 book, by photographer Peter Menzel and author-journalist Faith D’Alusio, documents the weekly diets of different families across the globe.

The photograph above, for example, shows a family of nine in Ecuador, surrounded by mostly potatoes, their staple. There’s a snapshot of a family from North Carolina, whose dining table is awash with crisps and french fries. One of a family in Italy, with lots of fruits and vegetables. In all, the two journalists give us snapshots of 30 families in 24 countries.

‘Hungry Planet’ makes us reconsider our own fortunes, revisit our priorities. The photo chronicle makes us realise how culturally diverse the world is. It’s at once a feast for the eyes (if you love photography) and food for the mind. The best part about it is that it does so without patronising cultures whose diets may be different from ours. It does not make us feel superior, as in, ‘Oh, pity this family in Chad.’ It just makes us discover diversity.

‘Hungry Planet’ is brilliant. I first saw it a few years back when it was published, and I’m glad someone has now taken the time to scan their copy and e-mail. It’s certainly one of those forwarded messages I don’t think anyone would mind landing in their inbox.

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.)

I like travel lit, and Pico Iyer’s Video Night in Kathmandu and multi-authored Stories from Nowhere remain my favourites of this genre. Reading travel stories not only allows me to live these writers’ lives vicariously, they actually help, too, during the times I go on my own travels.

Thus I find the controversy surrounding the book, ‘Do Travel Writers Go To Hell?’, of great interest.

See, there’s this Lonely Planet writer who decided to spill the beans on the methods he utilised for his research trip to Brazil, in the book to be released April 22. According to Amazon’s editorial review ahead of the book’s release, the guidebook writer, Thomas Kohnstamm, promises quite a nonchalant, funny, account of his adventures in Brazil, making no bones about his misadventures and the unglamorous side of travel writing, including sexual romps and making a quick buck from illegal drugs.

Kohnstamm’s stories are everything but funny, however, as far as Lonely Planet the company, is concerned. Lonely Planet has preempted the book’s release by issuing statements proclaiming that Kohnstamm is nothing more than a “rogue element.”

But then, in Lonely Planet’s internal online forum, a piece by another writer — leaked to a newspaper — described Kohnstamm’s book as “a car crash waiting to happen.”

This piece in Australia’s The Age puts things in perspective. In this essay, Chris Taylor, who has done books for Lonely Planet, discusses Kohnstamm’s ‘revelations’ in the context of the stiffly competitive world of travel writing.

Taylor says the huge proliferation of guidebook titles in the market in recent years has come parallel to the rise of the internet.

“In times past, the only way to research a guidebook was to actually go there — the alternative, plagiarising another guidebook, was, and still is, difficult to cover up. Today, you can sit at home and Google the town you might otherwise be exploring on foot, and hopefully some random blogger has done the legwork for you.”

The result of this huge market, he says, is that of publishers cutting budgets for actual research. At the same time, travellers like you and me have become smarter, using the internet to acquire information — like the professional guidebook writers.

Taylor: “The result: the death of the guidebook, at least as a reliable source of information of what’s happening in a place real time.”

“Writing is so humbling, there’s no confidence involved. It helps to have some experience, a greater degree of familiarity with the process of writing. I think each time you start a story or novel or whatever, you are absolutely at the bottom of the ladder all over again. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done before.”

Pulitzer winner Jhumpa Lahiri has written her third book, Unaccustomed Earth. I’ve read one of the stories in the anthology (excerpted two weeks back in a daily here in Delhi) and can’t wait to read the rest of it. No matter what critics might say — that she has become “a brand” after the Pulitzer and thus can sell books no matter if they’re good or not — I adore her.

Read the entire Outlook interview, where she talks about her two passions: her writing and her children.

Bob Dylan — singer, songwriter, author, musician — has been given a special Pulitzer prize “for his profound impact on popular music and American culture.” He was cited for his “lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.”

Dylan, now 66, has made history as the first rock and roll artist to be awarded the Pulitzer. Of course, the man isn’t just a rock and roll superstar. One of his most loved songs, Blowin’ in the Wind:

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, ‘n’ how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, ‘n’ how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they’re forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, ‘n’ how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, ‘n’ how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.

How many years can a mountain exist
Before it’s washed to the sea?
Yes, ‘n’ how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
Yes, ‘n’ how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn’t see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.

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.