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Why grammar mistakes in a short email could make some people judge you Julie Boland, Robin Queen I’m a cognitive psychologist who studies language comprehension. If I see an ad for a vacation rental that says “Your going to Hollywood!” it really bugs me. But my collaborator, Robin Queen, a sociolinguist, who studies how language use varies across social groups, is not annoyed by those errors at all. We were curious: what makes our reactions so different? We didn’t think the difference was due to our professional specialties. So we did some research to find out what makes some people more sensitive to writing mistakes than others. What prior research tells us Writing…
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Covid supercentenarian
Lucile Randon DC (French: [ly.sil ʁɑ̃.dɔ̃]; 11 February 1904 – 17 January 2023), also known as Sister André (French: Sœur André), was a French supercentenarian. Living to the age of 118 years and 340 days, she had been the world’s oldest verified living person since April 19, 2022, following the death of Kane Tanaka.[1][2] ] Randon was blind and used a wheelchair from the early 2010s.[6] In January 2021, she tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in an outbreak at her retirement home. She was asymptomatic and tested negative days before her 117th birthday, making her the oldest known survivor of the COVID-19 pandemic.[1][3][10]
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Shoe Envy
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Your Brain on Red Alert
In February of 2020, as a mysterious zoonotic virus winged its way across the planet, I resolved to do whatever I could to stay on top of pandemic reports. I created a coronavirus browser folder, filled it with trusted news links, and checked it multiple times a day. But as the pandemic’s finish line receded into the future, my optimism flagged and my resolve to stay informed dwindled. Soon I felt like a panic-saturated sponge, incapable of absorbing any more bad news. I descended into the numbness so many of us have experienced, but the alerts kept coming. When alarm signals bombard us from every direction, our concentration and judgment…
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Jim Abbott
Amanda J Hales April 25, 2016 Baseball is a game that requires its athletes to run and to bat, catch and pitch a ball. We know the game as America’s Pastime and it’s about as summery as you can get. Young boys and girls play as youngsters with the hopes of one day making it to the big leagues, but the big leagues are only for the elite. What happens, then, if you have a disability? Well, if you are Jim Abbott it’s no big deal. Jim Abbott was born in Flint Michigan and attended the University of Michigan. He excelled at both baseball and football, albeit without the use…
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Covid stole my Dad’s final months
OPINION: Because of the pandemic, I couldn’t visit him in his nursing home, and because of his dementia he couldn’t understand why. Mismanagement of this crisis has failed the elderly and caused incalculable hurt. By Alison McCook 11.09.2020 On September 16, my father died. He lived the last six months of his life entirely cut off from his family and friends. That’s because he was one of the 1.3 million people living in nursing homes across the country. He didn’t have Covid-19, but even though the disease didn’t take his life, it took his time. It took his last months away from him, during which he couldn’t enjoy the relationships…
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‘Canceling’ Student Debt is Unfair to Graduates Like Me Who Sacrificed to Pay Off Our Loans
Matthew Noyes &emsp &emsp &emsp &emsp &emsp &emsp January 26, 2021 A year after graduating from college, I was able to pay off my student loans in full. Now, President Biden wants me to pay for my peers who have yet to do the same. Biden’s platform includes “student loan forgiveness” of at least $10,000 per person. Meanwhile, Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer have proposed $50,000 in debt forgiveness per individual. On its surface, this sounds generous. American student loan debt is nearing $1.6 trillion, and the cost of college is higher than ever. But what does this “forgiveness” entail on a moral level? Loans are not “forgiven”…
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Digital Text is Changing How Kids Read— Just Not in the Way That You Think
Holly Korbey Aug 21, 2018 After his bath each night, Julie Atkinson’s eight-year-old son grabs the iPad and settles into bed for some reading time through kids’ book app Epic! Though Atkinson and her husband were accustomed to reading to him, now their son explores different subjects on his own inside the app’s 25,000 titles, reading biographies, history and fiction all pre-selected for his reading level. Atkinson is impressed with Epic’s quality titles, and likes the recommendation feature that makes the monthly subscription service feel like Netflix. But Atkinson, who guesses that her…
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A Teachers Union Shaped CDC School Guidance. Is That a Problem?
The influence of the union has prompted debate over its role in scientific decision making. BY HANNAH THOMASY June 10, 2021 WHEN THE U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued much-anticipated guidelines for school reopening in February, some critics argued that the nation’s premier health agency had set unreasonably strict standards for schools to follow. But the two largest teachers unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, long hesitant about reopening schools amid the Covid-19 pandemic, rallied in support of the document. “For the first time since the start of this pandemic, we have a rigorous road map, based on science, that our members can…
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The Freeway Flag
I was driving home today and saw a faded American flag hanging on a freeway bridge near Rancho Cucamonga. I figured it was probably from one of the local Marines that was killed last year in Kabul during our shameful exit from Afghanistan. So here’s my question: Why hasn’t anyone who played a part in this foreign policy disaster been fired? None of the high ranking military officers, cabinet secretaries, and other experienced officials were really held accountable for this debacle. Our military left billions of dollars in military equipment behind, abandoned a valuable airport, left Americans in Afghanistan, and the marines were killed on their watch. Nothing. I wonder…
