Monday 3 June 2013

NET GLEANINGS 009

Electric car fallacies and fables:
'The more I go into the pros and cons of electricity versus the internal-combustion engine purely from the point of view urban transport and of relative carbon footprints, toxic emissions and so forth, the more it becomes clearer to me that in spite of electricity being "dirty", the whole process of getting a vehicle to get from point A to point B leaves the electric vehicle a winner by a large margin.'

Blood-vessels in the eye linked With IQ and cognitive function:
'Having wider retinal venules was linked with lower IQ scores at age 38, even after the researchers accounted for various health, lifestyle, and environmental risk factors that might have played a role. Individuals who had wider retinal venules showed evidence of general cognitive deficits, with lower scores on numerous measures of neurospsychological functioning, including verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory, and executive function. Surprisingly, the data revealed that people who had wider venules at age 38 also had lower IQ in childhood, a full 25 years earlier.'

He said 'one small step for a man' not 'for man':
'When Neil Armstrong took his first step on the Moon, he claimed he said, "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind" -- but many listeners think he left out the "a." A team of speech-scientists and psychologists from Michigan State University (MSU) in East Lansing and The Ohio State University (OSU) in Columbus is taking a novel approach to deciphering Armstrong's quote by studying how speakers from his native central Ohio pronounce "for" and "for a."'