“In the latest example of the study of ’embodied cognition’ – the notion that metaphors don’t just help us express abstract ideas but can also shape basic perception – researchers had 40 students recall and describe either an ethical or unethical deed from their past. … [P]articipants in the unethical condition judged the room to be darker than did participants in the ethical condition.”
Tag: 03.05.12
Survival Of The Fittest Or Survival Of The Most Social? (Both)
“A consensus is emerging that humans have an impressive capacity for open-ended change, much as culturalists have claimed, but that this is a result of genetic evolution – and is itself an evolutionary process.”
Political Turmoil At The Opéra De Nice
Murky and vindictive politics in the Riviera metropolis have led to the first successful general director the house has had in years being completely undermined by a city councilor and his colleagues.
Vermeer’s Woman In Blue Gets Its Blue Back
“Visitors to the Rijksmuseum will soon be able to see Vermeer’s newly restored Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, 1663-64, when it returns home following a Japanese tour which funded the work’s restoration.”
Can Animals Be Homophobic?
“Not as far as we know. Homosexual behavior has been documented in hundreds of animal species, but the same does not hold for gay-bashing.”
Lucio Dalla, Top Italian Singer-Songwriter, Dead At 68
“Widely respected as one of the fathers of contemporary Italian popular music, … [he] belonged to a genre of Italian songwriters known as ‘cantautori,’ whose lyrics gave voice to the aspirations and frustrations of a postwar generation seeking societal change.”
Tate Gallery Buys Eight Million Works By Ai Weiwei
“The Tate has acquired approximately 8m individual sculptures, its largest number of works of art ever, although each is smaller than a little finger nail: 10 tonnes of Ai Weiwei’s famous porcelain sunflower seeds.”
Telling Gay Prisoners’ Stories In A Site-Specific Play
“In a cold and dilapidated rehearsal room … five men in blindfolds are being led on lengths of thread by five others. On the floor are sheets of paper covered in bread arranged into sculptural shapes. … From 16 March, in a short run in a secret location, audiences will walk through an installation led by actors playing prison officers and … experience moments of tenderness in the gay prisoners’ harsh lives.”
Yet Another Controversy Over 9/11 Museum
“The planned museum at ground zero in Lower Manhattan has hit yet another stumbling block as families of some of the victims of the 9/11 attacks have voiced opposition to a plan for storing human remains below the museum.”
Five Hundred Unknown Fairytales Discovered In Germany
“A whole new world of magic animals, brave young princes and evil witches has come to light with the discovery of 500 new fairytales, which were locked away in an archive in Regensburg, Germany for over 150 years.”