via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave
Fairfax County, Virginia, circa 1926
“Freeman House Store – Vienna, Va.”
A historic structure that figured in the Civil War. Our title comes from a retail detail.
National Photo Company Collection glass negative.
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Is Genius in Your Genes?
via Big Think by Orion D Jones
Those who believe genius is more hereditary than environmental can now point to new research completed at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis which has identified a specific gene that may help manage our skill level for organizing things logically.
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
When did “He’s a machine” become a compliment in praise of one’s work ethic? Probably around the time sleep became an affront to capitalism… more
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How Exercise Works on the Brain to Reduce Stress & Anxiety
via Big Think by Orion D Jones
Princeton scientists have found that mice are less anxious about experiencing stressors, such as entering a pool of cold water, when they are allowed regular exercise. The report, recently published in the Journal of Neuroscience, explains the experiment and how the “[mice’s] brains exhibited a spike in the activity of neurons that shut off excitement in the ventral hippocampus, a brain region shown to regulate anxiety”. Princeton’s Elizabeth Gould said that by helping researchers pinpoint brain cells and regions important to anxiety regulation, the study will work to create a better understanding of human anxiety disorders and help treat them in the future.
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How To Play A Piano Like A Guitar
via Big Think by Kecia Lynn
A team of designers, composers and musicians at Queen Mary-University of London has created a addition to the classic piano keyboard that uses touch-screen technology to produce sound effects, such as vibrato and pitch slides, similar to those heard through string instruments.
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
The travelling salesman problem provides the mathematical basis for modern transportation systems. It also suggests the limits of human knowledge… more
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Singing the Lesbian Blues in 1920s Harlem
via Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder
Ben Marks of Collectors Weekly says:
Our own Lisa Hix has written a terrific article about how Bessie Smith and other blues divas of the 1920s led not-entirely secret double lives as lesbians, occasionally taunting their audiences with revealing lyrics. For example, in the 1928 song Prove It on Me, Gertrude “Ma” Rainey—known as “The Mother of Blues”—sang, “It’s true I wear a collar and a tie, … Talk to the gals just like any old man”. While such lyrics might not seem like a big deal to us today, back then, pursuing same-sex relations could get you thrown in jail.
Read more in Music at Boing Boing
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Were Paleolithic Cave Painters High on Psychedelic Drugs? Scientists Propose Ingenious Theory for Why They Might Have Been
via 3 Quarks Daily via AlterNat by Steven Rosenfeld
Prehistoric cave paintings across the continents have similar geometric patterns not because early humans were learning to draw like Paleolithic pre-schoolers, but because they were high on drugs, and their brains – like ours – have a biological predisposition to “see” certain patterns, especially during consciousness altering states.
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
For a people to resist tyranny, they must think of themselves as a people. Thus Stalin regarded free association as a greater threat than free enterprise… more
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We’re Never More Persuasive Than On Our First Day on Earth
via Big Think by Kevin Dutton
We are never more persuasive than on our very first day on earth. If you think about it on our very first day on earth, as newborn babies, we had to convince those around us, without intention, without consciousness, without any of the techniques of modern linguistic sophistry currently at our disposal, to take care of us, to see us on our way, to subjugate their own interests at the expense of ours. And you know what? We did it, didn’t we? Because otherwise we wouldn’t be sitting here this afternoon talking about it.
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