Articles of Interest - Feb 19

***TECHNOLOGY

Drones that dodge obstacles without guidance can pursue you like paparazzi  MIT Technology Review 

In the future we won’t edit genomes—we’ll just print out new ones  MIT Tech Review

***BIG DATA & AI

Even a moth’s brain is smarter than an AI: a neural network that simulates the way moths recognize odors also shows how they learn so much faster than machines  MIT Tech Review

Buzzwords Just Create Confusion about Data Science  Dark Reading 

The misuse, abuse and traps of “statistical significance”  Christensen Institute

 ***SOCIAL MEDIA

Want the Perfect Instagram Photo? This Park Hires a Photographer for You  Bloomberg

Facebook’s two-factor authentication system auto-posts replies on your profile  The Verge

Snapchat founder says user complaints 'validate' redesign  CNN

Why Facebook’s earliest efforts to kill off Snapchat completely backfired  Recode

***GOOGLE

Carry Around Your Google Account's Backup Two-Step Verification Codes in Case Your Phone is Stolen  Life Hacker

Tired of texting? Google tests robot to chat with friends for you  The Guardian

Google is replacing Facebook’s traffic to publishers  Recode

The ‘Stories’ format is coming to Google search next  The Verge

What Is Google Really Up To With Chrome Ad Blocking?  Popular Mechanics

***PERSONAL GROWTH

The Cult of Convenience  Becoming (my blog) 

The Tyranny of Convenience (opinion)  New York Times

The ABCs of Fake Empathy: what it is, what it isn’t and how to cultivate it  The Polymath Project 

***JOURNALISM

Why ‘Dialogue Journalism’ Is Having a Moment  PBS Media Shift 

When it comes to press freedom, America is no longer a ‘beacon’ for the world  Columbia Journalism Review

The Heartbreak and Frustration of Covering One Mass Shooting After Another  New Yorker

How the non-disclosure agreement became a tool for powerful people to stymie journalists from informing the public  Columbia Journalism Review

John Oliver: Is He a Journalist, Despite His Protests?  Variety

Best practices for reporting through social media during a mass shooting  Poynter 

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

Guide to Audience Revenue and Engagement of News Audiences  Columbia Journalism Review

New York Times CEO: Print journalism has maybe another 10 years  CNBC

How much U.S. newspapers charge for digital subscriptions  American Press Institute

***FAKE NEWS

The most common hashtags tweeted by Russian trolls  Quartz

Fake news is an existential crisis for social media  Tech Crunch

***LITERATURE

In 'Freshwater,' A College Student Learns To Live With Separate Selves  NPR

***GENDER  

Education Department says it is no longer investigating transgender bathroom complaints  BuzzFeed

Judge gives grandparents custody of Ohio transgender teen  CNN

Male and female brain rhythms show differences  Science Daily

***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES

‘Resist White Supremacy’: A sign. A farm. And the fury that followed  Washington Post

NBC Insists On Saying 'Pyeongchang' Incorrectly Because 'It's Cleaner' Huffington Post

How Diverse Casting in Branded Videos Expands Your Audience  Video Strategist

***FREE SPEECH

Provosts are generally confident of free speech rights at their own colleges and universities, but many are worried about the situation more broadly in higher education  Inside Higher Ed

The 10 worst colleges for free speech: 2018  The FIRE

***LEGAL ISSUES

Law School Accreditor Proposes Easing Limits on Online Education  Inside Higher Ed

Supreme Court Tackles Fourth Amendment Case Involving Cellphone Privacy  Law.com

Beyoncé Songs Come to the Olympics. But Who Pays for the Rights?  New York Times

Judge Rules News Publishers Violated Copyright by Embedding Tweets of Tom Brady Photo  Hollywood Reporter

In-Line Linking May Be Copyright Infringement–Goldman v. Breitbart News  Technology & Marketing Law Blog

***RELIGION

Author of “The Faith of Donald J. Trump” is challenged on Morning Joe  MSNBC

Charlotte Mother Jailed For Baptism: Mother Reports To Jail  WSOC-TV

***ART & DESIGN

A landmark 5Pointz case shows the legal reasons why graffiti is art  Quartz

How restaurateur Mr Chow became the unlikely hero of the art world  Dazed

What the 5Pointz ruling means for street artists  The Conversation

***MUSIC

Classical Music Couples Throughout History  NPR

A Town In Mexico Sees Guitar Sales Soar Thanks To The Movie 'Coco'  NPR

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT

Bill Would Hold College Presidents Accountable for Sexual Abuse by Employees  Chronicle of Higher Ed 

In The Wake Of Rob Porter Allegations, Mormon Women Say Church Leaders Encouraged Them To Stay With Their Abusers  BuzzFeed

The Moral Responsibility of Restaurant Critics in the Age of #MeToo  The New Yorker

Bill Would Hold College Presidents Accountable for Sexual Abuse by Employees  Chronicle of Higher Ed

The Call-In: Knowing Sexual Harassers  NPR

Breaking the Silence: the #MeToo Moment in Scholarly Communication  Scholarly Kitchen

***HEALTH

New malleable 'electronic skin' self-healable, recyclable  University of Colorado Boulder

Google AI can scan your eyes to predict heart disease  Engadget

***RELATIONSHIPS

No, opposites do not attract  The Conversation

8 facts about love and marriage in America  Pew Research Center

How to avoid hugs (video)

***GOOD NEWS

A single dad walked 11 miles to work every day—until his co-workers found out  CNN

How Two Police Drones Saved a Woman's Life  The Atlantic

50 Years Later, Mister Rogers Remains Our Favorite Neighbor NPR

***PSYCHOLOGY

What Color Is a Tennis Ball?  The Atlantic

The Psychology Behind Successful Apps (opinion)  Media Post

***PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy Relies on Those Double Majors  The Splintered Mind

A Celebrity Philosopher Explains the Populist Insurgency  New Yorker

***ETHICS

Tech’s Ethical ‘Dark Side’: Harvard, Stanford and Others Want to Address It  New York Times

***RESEARCH

Meet the ‘data thugs’ out to expose shoddy and questionable research   Science Mag

***HIGHER ED

How Russian Bots Spread Fear at University in the U.S.  Inside Higher Ed

Students who attend for-profit colleges are outperformed on earnings and employment by other students in nearly every category  Brookings

In a fast-changing world, nearly everything is unsettled in higher education  Inside Higher Ed

What students know that experts don't: School is all about signaling, not skill-building  LA Times

Getting from ‘Hello’ to ‘I Do’ on a Christian College Campus  Christianity Today

Female students at Christian colleges more likely to experience gender discrimination  Christianity Today

 ***TEACHING

Harnessing the Power of the Developing Brain  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Hybrid learning techniques in both online and traditional classes can be better used (opinion)  Hechinger Report

Online Courses Are Harming the Students Who Need the Most help  New York Times

Future economy demands workers who can learn online  The Hill

The lack of meaningful pedagogical training during graduate school  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Since the mid-1970s, college students have become increasingly less likely to major in education  Market Watch

***STUDENT MEDIA  

College PR offices fight against student media to manipulate narrative  Student Press Law Center

Students hassled by transit authority and local cops for filming on the sidewalk of a public bus station    

Student reporter interviews classmates during shooting  Fort Worth Star-Telegram

***STUDENT LIFE

The 7 Things Students Think About When Choosing a College  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Millennials Are Obsessed With Pets  Media Post

College roommates underestimate each other's distress, new psychology research shows  Science Daily

***ACADEMIC LIFE

Why I Collapsed on the Job: Academics are silent workaholics—so free to work whenever we want that many of us end up working all the time  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Michigan State University Faculty Senate passes no confidence vote in Board of Trustees  Michigan Radio

History in the Face of Catastrophe: After my son died, how could I know anything for certain?  Chronicle of Higher Ed

The Cult of Convenience

Everyone, or nearly everyone, is on Facebook: It is the most convenient way to keep track of your friends and family, who in theory should represent what is unique about you and your life. Yet Facebook seems to make us all the same. Its format and conventions strip us of all but the most superficial expressions of individuality, such as which particular photo of a beach or mountain range we select as our background image.

I do not want to deny that making things easier can serve us in important ways, giving us many choices (of restaurants, taxi services, open-source encyclopedias) where we used to have only a few or none. But being a person is only partly about having and exercising choices. It is also about how we face up to situations that are thrust upon us, about overcoming worthy challenges and finishing difficult tasks — the struggles that help make us who we are. What happens to human experience when so many obstacles and impediments and requirements and preparations have been removed?

Today’s cult of convenience fails to acknowledge that difficulty is a constitutive feature of human experience. Convenience is all destination and no journey. But climbing a mountain is different from taking the tram to the top, even if you end up at the same place. We are becoming people who care mainly or only about outcomes. We are at risk of making most of our life experiences a series of trolley rides.

Tim Wu writing in The New York Times

Articles of Interest - Feb 12

***SOCIAL MEDIA

STUDY: We’re Not Addicted To Smartphones, We’re Addicted To Social Interaction  Daily Wire

Jon Gabriel: How to keep social media from rewiring your brain  AZcentral

Teens Are Losing It Over Snapchat's Unpopular App Redesign  BuzzFeed

***INSTAGRAM

Instagram Is Telling People If You Screenshot Their Story In A Test  BuzzFeed

Instagram is testing screenshot alerts for stories  TechCrunch

***FACEBOOK

Inside the Two Years that Shook Facebook—and the World  Wired

Facebook hired a full time pollster to monitor Zuckerberg’s approval ratings  The Verge

Facebook Messenger’s ‘Your Emoji’ status tells friends what’s up  TechCrunch

Facebook losing young users even faster to Snapchat  USA Today

***TWITTER

Twitter just had its first profitable quarter  CNN

Twitter failed to remove hundreds of Russian propaganda videos aimed at Americans  CNN

***MOBILE

Your Mobile Phone Can Give Away Your Location, Even If You Tell It Not To Scientific American

Behold, the 157 new emoji for 2018  Ars Technica

***PRODUCING MEDIA

Podcasting Is the New Soft Diplomacy  The Ringer

***INTERNET

You Can Now Mute Websites Forever in Chrome  LifeHacker

What to Do If Your Favorite Website Won't Load  LifeHacker

***TECHNOLOGY

Chinese police are wearing sunglasses that can recognize faces  Quartz

***JOURNALISM

Newspaper movie trailer 

How cleaning off your desk can help you figure out what to say no to  Poynter

 Proposed Journalist Protection Act Would Make Assault Of Reporter A Federal Crime  Forbes

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

Theresa May announces review into future of newspapers  BBC

Newsonomics: Inside Tronc’s sale of the L.A. Times (and all the new questions to come)  Nieman Journalism Lab

New York Times Co. Subscription Revenue Surpassed $1 Billion in 2017  New York Times

Can Independent Web Journalism Survive?  PBS Media Shift

***FAKE NEWS

He Predicted The 2016 Fake News Crisis. Now He's Worried About An Information Apocalypse  BuzzFeed 

Overseas Fake News Publishers Use Facebook’s Instant Articles To Bring In More Cash  BuzzFeed

Let’s focus on real journalism, not so called ‘fake news’ (opinion)  Grand Rapids Herald Review

A Field Guide to Fake News and Other Information Disorders: A Free Manual to Download, Share & Re-Use  Open Culture 

The far-right sharing fake news — or conservatives sharing conservative journalism?  NiemanLab

***BIG DATA & AI

The Argument Against Quantum Computers  Quantam Magazine

Behind Artificial Intelligence Lurk Oddball Low-Paid Tasks  Wired

New report reveals a growing 'trust gap' in data, analytics, and AI and uncertainties about who's accountable for errors and misuse  ZD Net

China's military "is funding the development of new AI-driven capabilities" in battlefield decision-making and autonomous weaponry  Science Mag

3 steps to get clean, structured data you trust  IOT for All

Are the Digits of Pi Truly Random?  Here’s one for the data geeks among us  Data Science Central

Bayesian model selection shows extremely polarized behavior when the models are wrong  Phys org

Cloudera looks to be an Apache Hadoop/Spark alternative to making meaning out of the Data Deluge   Federal News Radio

***PERSONAL GROWTH

The Moment You Feel  Becoming (my blog)

***GRAMMAR

Oxford comma dispute is settled as Maine drivers get $5 million  Boston

How periods and scare quotes can create emphasis far beyond the squiggles on the page  Chronicle of Higher Ed

***LANGUAGE

A Language's Popularity Could Influence Its Grammar and Vocabulary  The Atlantic

An unsung term that has the magical power of deflecting anger and resentment  Chronicle of Higher Ed

How Americans preserved British English  BBC

Talking Killer Whales? Gullible Science Journalists More Likely  Chronicle of Higher Ed 

***LITERATURE

Plagiarism Software Unveils a New Source for 11 of Shakespeare’s Plays  New York Times

Bill Gates Names His New Favorite Book of All Time: A Quick Introduction to Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now

***GENDER  

A word in the Nunes memo that has no male counterpart  Chronicle of Higher Ed

***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES

This is what happens when a class called ‘White Racism’ comes to campus death threats and hate mail keep arriving for the professor  Daily Dot 

California police worked with neo-Nazis to pursue 'anti-racist' activists, documents show  The Guardian

Black History Month posters covered up at University of Tennessee with ones referencing Hitler  CBS News

Former Klansman finds Forgiveness and a Friend in a Black Church  Philadelphia Inquirer

***RELIGION

Can LGBT Rights and Religious Rights Coexist?  Washington Post

Died: James W. Sire, Editor Who Brought Us Francis Schaeffer and Os Guinness  Christianity Today

Christian group plans ‘revival’ to protest ‘toxic evangelicalism’  Religious News Service

Ex-CFO stole $100K from Children's Bible Fellowship in Kent: Cops  Lohud 

The Michigan town where only Christians are allowed to buy houses  The Guardian

Christian-only Michigan community faces lawsuit: Buyers must prove they are practicing churchgoers to live in Bay View  The Week

5 facts about blacks and religion in America  Pew Research Center

Racist Bullying? Religious School In Texas Argues Courts Can’t Intervene  Huffington Post  

***RELIGION AND MUSIC

Natalie Grant reclaims voice from cancer  Times FreePress

Trouble No More trailer (video)

***RELIGION AND POLITICS

The complicated history of In God We Trust and other examples Trump gives of American religion  Washington Post

3 new books analyze Trump’s faith and his faithful followers  Religious News Service

Beth Moore, Jen Hatmaker and other evangelical leaders are publishing a letter urging Trump, Congress to act on immigration  The Washington Post

***ART & DESIGN

Compilation of 2017 loops  Philip Lueck

***MUSIC

Bob Dylan Updates "The Times They Are A-Changin'" for 2018 (video)

***STUDENT MEDIA 

Student-run newspaper says hundreds of copies taken from racks due to controversial story  KWCH

***STUDENT LIFE

 Over Time, Humanities Grads Close the Pay Gap With Professional Peers  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Easily accessible porn prevalent among students  Baptist Standard

Preventing suicide: Teen deaths are on the rise, but we know how to fight back  USA Today

Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic nowadays - The youth of today  Economist

University Won’t Expel student who called himself “the most active white nationalist in the Nebraska area”  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Kansas Scrambles To Change Rules After 6 Teens Enter Governor's Race  NPR

Dental students took selfie with severed heads at Yale training workshop  Associated Press

Transgender student: Professor refused to use preferred pronoun  New York Post

***JOBS & INTERNSHIPS

Digital Media is Driving Job Growth in LA region, report Finds  MSNBC

Microsoft releases its LinkedIn resume helper for Word  Engadget

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT

Is There a Smarter Way to Think About Sexual Assault on Campus?  New Yorker

Ten women sign letter accusing Northwestern journalism professor Alec Klein of sexual harassment and assault  Chicago Reader

Air Force Academy mismanaged sexual assault program, Pentagon says  CNN

UNC claims right to shield names of students disciplined for on-campus sex misconduct  Herald Sun

UT investigates vandalism connected to professor’s domestic abuse case  Statesman

Being Aware Of Abuse May Make People Uncomfortable — And That's OK (by a writing professor)  WBUR

***ACADEMIC LIFE

Former William & Mary professor files discrimination lawsuit against college  WY Daily

Princeton students leave class after professor allegedly uses N-word  Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Northwestern journalism professor accused of misconduct takes leave of absence  Chicago Tribune

ICE Detains Chemistry Professor Before He Can Goodbye To His Family  Newsweek

How Much Do Professors Work? One Researcher Is Trying to Find Out  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Northeastern University professor walks back ‘stupid’ comment on Donald Trump  Boston Herald

***SOCIOLOGY

5 facts about crime in the U.S.  Pew Research

Talk is cheap: the myth of the focus group  The Guardian

***HEALTH

Don't Tell Terminal Cancer Patients It's All Going To Be OK  NPR

Many people take dangerously high amounts of ibuprofen  Reuters

Are Hand Dryers Actually Full of Bacteria? A Viral Photo Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story  The New York Times

Scientists create functioning kidney tissue  Manchester

***BUSINESS

When You’re a ‘Digital Nomad,’ the World Is Your Office  The New York Times

WeWork: The Perfect Manifestation of the Millennial Id  The Atlantic

***PSYCHOLOGY

Why Don't Babies Smile from Birth?  Scientific American

The 4 Great Challenges of Christian Counseling  Christianity Today

The mental health and loneliness paradox  Salon

Major Psychiatric Disorders Have More In Common Than We Thought, Study Finds : The Two-Way  NPR

Why You Get Hooked on Candy Crush and Snapchat  Bloomberg

People with depression use language differently – here's how to spot it  The Conversation 

***PHILOSOPHY

Meet the Philosophers Who Give ‘The Good Place’ Its Scholarly Bona Fides  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Self-driving cars' Trolley Problem: Philosophers are building ethical algorithms to solve the problem  Quartz

***PRODUCTIVITY

After it stopped posting to Facebook, a Danish broadcaster saw its traffic stability improve  Digiday

***HIGHER ED

A library without books? Universities purging dusty volumes  Yahoo

Judge blocks UW from billing student Republicans for campus rally  Seattle Times

A Crash Course in Crisis Communication for Colleges (opinion)  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Sexual assault less likely, gender discrimination more likely on Christian campuses  Baptist Standard

***TEACHING

Our Students Aren’t In Our Heads With Us: Teach Writing In Your Field With Good Assignment Sheets  Chronicle of Higher Ed

This Student Failed Her Assignment Because Her Professor Said "Australia Isn't A Country"  BuzzFeed

How One University Connects Students and Mentors With Surprising Success  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Why I Stopped Writing on My Students’ Papers  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Would College Students Retain More If Professors Dialed Back The Pace?  NPR 

How to Help Students of Differing Abilities  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Shame cuts you down to size

Shame is universal, but the messages and expectations that drive shame are organized by gender. These feminine and masculine norms are the foundation of shame triggers, and here's why: If women want to play by the rules, they need to be sweet, thin, and pretty, stay quiet, be perfect moms and wives, and not own their power. One move outside of these expectations and BAM! The shame web closes in. Men, on the other hand, need to stop feeling, start earning, put everything in their place, and climb their way to the top or die trying. Push open the lid of your box to grab a breath of air, or slide that curtain back a bit to see what's going on, and BAM! Shame cuts you down to size.

Brené Brown, Daring Greatly

Articles of Interest - Feb 5

***SOCIAL MEDIA 

Here's How Much Instagram Likes Influence Millennials' Choice Of Travel Destinations  Forbes

NY State Attorney General On Why He's Going After Fake Social Media Accounts  NPR

Newsrooms welcome Facebook's new local news emphasis, but remain wary of its effect  Poynter

Public Enemies: Social Media Is Fueling Gang Wars in Chicago  Wired

Facebook looking for an 'extra-terrestrial product manager' as it plans to deliver internet from the sky  CNBC

These Social Media Trends Are On The Rise In 2018  Daily Infographic

***JOURNALISM

Would you care if this feature had been written by a robot?  BBC

Eddie Adams' iconic Vietnam War photo: What happened next  BBC

Know your Journalism Rights: Social media   RTNDA

California Congressman introduces Journalism Protection Act to counteract Trump era  KTVU-TV

Journalists are fleeing for their lives in Mexico. There are few havens  LA Times

***FAKE NEWS

In An Era Of Fake News, Advancing Face-Swap Apps Blur More Lines  NPR

'Fake news factories' date back to the 1800s  Business Insider 

'Fiction is outperforming reality': how YouTube's algorithm distorts truth  The Guardian

***PRODUCING MEDIA

5 Types of Videos That Will Make Your Brand Stand Out  Video Strategist

***INTERNET

Google Has Quietly Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking  Propublica

***BIG DATA & AI

How deep learning came to power Alexa, Amazon Web Services, and nearly every other division of the company  Wired

Artificial intelligence is rewiring the news and information ecosystem in novel and unexpected  Policy Options

What is the latest (and arguably greatest) use for deep machine learning? Answer: dropping Nicolas Cage’s face into classic movies, of course!  Gov Tech

A key benchmark in the development of advanced computing devices designed to mimic biological systems could open the door to more natural machine-learning software  Nature

***PERSONAL GROWTH

Self-Control Is Just Empathy With Your Future Self  Becoming (my blog)

***LANGUAGE

Oxford English Dictionary adds new words for mansplainers and snowflakes alike  LA Times

The Backward Index — A Clever Pre-Digital Dictionary Hack  Scholarly Kitchen

Fascinating Etymology Charts Show How Very Unexpected Sets Of Words Are Related  Digg

The 36 Letters of the English Alphabet  Scholarly Kitchen

***LITERATURE

George Orwell Creates a List of the Four Essential Reasons Writers Write  Open Culture

How Alexander Pushkin Was Inspired By His African Heritage  Jstor

A Peek at Famous Readers’ Borrowing Records From a Private New York Library  Atlas Obscura

***GENDER  

Elizabeth Blackwell: Google honors the first female doctor in the US  Quartz

***FREE SPEECH

President of Nebraska professors group resigns amid UNL free speech fracas  Omaha

Texas Lawmakers Weigh the Limits of Free Speech on Campus: backlash to a controversial “whiteness” column in the campus newspaper  The Chronicle of Higher Education

***LEGAL ISSUES

Dr. Phil Prepares for What Could Be the Strangest Copyright Trial Ever  Hollywood Reporter

***REALLY?

Swiss university to offer yodeling degree  BBC

***RELIGION

A 'Passion of the Christ' Sequel Is in the Works  Hollywood

Kenneth Copeland's appearances at a South Carolina Army Base sparks protests  WIS-TV

Nick Foles plans to become a pastor after football career  WTXF

This Pastor Is Putting His Faith in a Virtual Reality Church  Wired

Televangelist Gloria Copeland Tells viewers not to get a flu shot  YouTube

In a tough sports town, baptisms and Bible studies fuel many of the Eagles’ stars  Washington Post

New study of Millennials and GenZ points to a “massive religious realignment” in America (opinion)  Religious News Service

***ART & DESIGN

What my color-blindness taught me about design  UX Design Collective

***MUSIC

Hip-hop’s influence and the growth of music streaming mean genres are being broken down  Economist 

Surfin' Bird History: A Novelty Hit With Wings  Tedium

The science behind sound reproduction and the man whose gift he made to the world will continue that mission for the foreseeable future (podcast)  Twenty Thousand Hertz

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT

Students With Disabilities Are Largely Ignored by Colleges’ Assault Prevention, Study Finds  The Chronicle of Higher Education 

Should Churches Handle Sexual Abuse Allegations Internally?  Christianity Today

Women in Congress address sexual misconduct on Facebook more than men  Pew Research Center

Univ of Arizona faces 2nd lawsuit, violating Title IX even as they knew its athletes were abusing women  Tucson.com

I lost my church because we were advocating for victims of sexual assault within the evangelical community: Written by the First Victim to Report Larry Nassar  Christianity Today

Student sues UT to stop sexual misconduct disciplinary hearing  Statesman

***ACADEMIC LIFE

Academics should be collaborating, not competing for pseudoscientific rankings  Ummid

Kansas chemistry instructor arrested by ICE while taking his daughter to school Kansas City

***HEALTH

Apple and Amazon’s moves in health could mean empowered patients, better diagnosis of disease and sharply lower costs  Economist

How Math (and Vaccines) Keep You Safe From the Flu  Quanta Magazine

***FAMILY

Genes play a role in the likelihood of divorce  Economist

***ETHICS

Test how moral (or immoral) you are with this utilitarian philosophy quiz  Quatz

***CRITICAL THINKING

The Cognitive Biases That Convince You the World Is Falling Apart  LifeHacker

***PSYCHOLOGY

Your friends’ brains process the world the same way as you  Quartz

***ETHICS

There's a morality test that evaluates utilitarianism better than the Trolley Problem  Quartz

***RESEARCH

Eighty-two cases of offspring named as co-authors  University World News 

‘Decolonizing’ a Journal  Inside Higher Ed

Online forums give investors an early warning of shady scientific findings  Stat News

A partial solution to the problem of predatory journals, and a new index of journal quality  Alex Holcombe

The future for academic publishers lies in navigating research, not distributing it The London School of Economic and Political Science

It’s time to open the black box of peer review  ASAPbio

Paper authorship goes hyper: A single field is behind the rise of thousand-author papers  Nature Index

***HIGHER ED

Higher Ed is Headed for a Supply and Demand Crisis  Washington Post

Three million Americans are disconnected from higher education  Urban Institute

Professor Claims Moody Bible Institute Fired Her For Helping a female student file a Title IX gender discrimination complaint against the school  Patheos

Woman accuses San Diego pastor of 'sexual healing' therapy scheme  LA Times

***TEACHING

Can the Large Lecture Be Saved?  The Chronicle of Higher Education

***STUDENT MEDIA 

Student Journalists Launch Website After They Say School Censored Their Paper  NPR

***STUDENT LIFE

Why Students Are Still Spending So Much for College Textbooks  The Atlantic

Undocumented and Disillusioned, I Decided to Leave America  Washington Post

Screen Addiction Among Teens: Is There Such A Thing?  NPR

  

To be ourselves

To be ourselves we must have ourselves — possess, if need be re-possess, our life-stories. We must “recollect” ourselves, recollect the inner drama, the narrative, of ourselves. A man needs such a narrative, a continuous inner narrative, to maintain his identity, his self.

Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales

Within Arms Reach

Nothing has transformed my life more than realizing that it's a waste of time to evaluate my worthiness by weighing the reaction of the people in the stands.

The people who love me and will be there regardless of the outcome are within arms reach.

This realization changed everything. That's the wife and mother and friend that I now strive to be. I want our home to be a place where we can be our bravest selves are most fearful selves. Where we practice difficult conversations and share our shaming moments from school and work. I want to look at Steve and my kids and say, “I'm with you I'm in the arena. And when we fail, we’ll fail together, while daring greatly.”

We simply can't learn to be more vulnerable and courageous on our own. Sometimes our first and greatest dare is asking for support.

Brené Brown, Daring Greatly

Articles of Interest - Jan 29

***SOCIAL MEDIA

Here's What Facebook's Local News And Events Section Looks Like, Live In Action  BuzzFeed News

‘Never get high on your own supply’ – why social media bosses don’t use social media  The Guardian

Twitter is reportedly working on a new video tool that sounds a lot like Snapchat

Online group members may end up secretly recruited by intel agencies: How and when intel agencies can exploit your social media accounts  MuckRock

The Follower Factory: Buying Fake Twitter Followers  New York Times

Which Publishers Benefit Most from Facebook’s News Feed Change?  Media Shift

Instagram won’t comment on rumored video calling feature  Tech Crunch

***SOCIAL MEDIA: SNAPCHAT

Snapchat Stories Can Now Live Outside the App  Wired

Snap is making it easier for people to watch Snapchat videos, even if they don’t have an account  Recode

Snapchat will now allow you to share and watch videos outside its app  LA Times

***MOBILE

Keep Your Head Up: How Smartphone Addiction Kills Manners and Moods  New York Times

***INTERNET

Here's Why Your Gmail Icon Might Be Blue Now  BuzzFeed News

***TECHNOLOGY

Every study we could find on what automation will do to jobs, in one chart  MIT Technology Review

You Can't Fool YouTube's Copyright Bots  Life Hacker

Google began selling its Clips camera today  The Verge

***JOURNALISM

Man arrested, accused of threatening to kill CNN employees  The Hill

Tech Is Starting to Lose Its War on Journalism (opinion)  Bloomberg

Investigation by 'Indianapolis Star' hailed as proof of local journalism's impact  USA Today

Freelance writers win new $100,000 journalism prize  News Observer

Google tests Bulletin app for crowdsourced, hyperlocal news  Money Mag

'Video journalism forces you to go the extra mile'  The Guardian

Prosecutor praises newspaper that exposed doctor’s abuse  Associated Press

The Untold Story of the Pentagon Papers Co-Conspirators  The New Yorker

Trust In Media, Social Platforms Dips, Traditional Journalism Rises  Media Post

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

The Libraries Bringing Small-Town News Back to Life  The Atlantic

As Local Media Dies, Google Pilots A Program For Unpaid Citizen Journalists  Fast Company

Turmoil at the Los Angeles Times is getting ugly and frightening  LA Observed  

Over 75% of NPR's staff is white, same as the last six years  NPR

Why Social Media Editors Should be Better Integrated into Newsrooms   PBS Media Shift

***FAKE NEWS

Pope warns against 'fake news' and likens it to 'crafty serpent' in Genesis  CNN

What the Pope Gets Wrong About Fake News  Politico  

The era of “truth decay”: 12 things we still don’t know about our weird time  Harvard’s Nieman Lab

WhatsApp: Mark Zuckerberg’s other headache: The popular messaging service shows that Facebook’s efforts to fight fake news may fail  Economist

***BIG DATA & AI

Is “Murder by Machine Learning” the New “Death by PowerPoint”?  Harvard Business Review

Twitter is using machine learning to crop photos to the most interesting part  The Verge

Deep learning vs. machine learning: what's the difference between the two?  Digital Trends

Are You Setting Your Data Scientists Up to Fail by not putting them in the right spots?  Harvard Business Review

AI is giving surveillance cameras digital brains—What happens when digital eyes get the brains to match?  The Verge

Reliable access to the GOES satellites (and GPS) are now jeopardized by increasing demands for radio spectrum for terrestrial wireless systems  Space News

Google’s AutoML promises to help you create machine learning models even if you lack programming experience  Extreme Tech

Forget About Siri and Alexa: When It Comes to Voice Identification, the “NSA Reigns Supreme” The Intercept

***PERSONAL GROWTH

Risk aversion kills innovation  Becoming (my blog)

The Dangers Of Thinking Too Much And Thinking Too Little  Digg

3 Timeless Rules for Making Tough Decisions  Harvard Business Review

Retraction Heroes  Magzter

What to Say When You Meet the Angel of Death at a Party: After years of living with stage IV cancer, I have some suggestions  New York Times

***GRAMMAR

One East Village Bar is Banning The Word 'Literally' From Its Venue  NBC New York

***WRITING & READING

I Copied the Routines of Famous Writers and It Sucked  Vice

Bonehead Guidance for Would-Be Novelists  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch is a terrible writer (opinion)  Slate

***LANGUAGE

Misusing “Pretentious”  Chronicle of Higher Ed

How many are in “a couple (of)”  Chronicle of Higher Ed

***LITERATURE

Why Virginia Woolf remains one of literature's most alluring writers  Telegraph

How Mary Shelly's Frankenstein upended 2000 years of literature – by making us the monsters (sign in req’ed)  Telegraph

The second volume of John Ashbery’s collected poems is a tribute  Economist 

How to Spot a Communist Using Literary Criticism: A 1955 Manual from the U.S. Military  Open Culture 

“A Wrinkle in Time” Author Madeleine L’Engle on Self-Consciousness and the Wellspring of Creativity  Brain Pickings

***GENDER  

The Dangers of Keeping Women out of Tech  Magzter

Southern Illinois University Athletics found non-compliant with Title IX regulations  Daily Egyptian (student newspaper)

***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES

To attract more blacks and Hispanics to STEM, universities must address racial issues on campus  Hechinger Report

Key facts about black immigrants in the U.S.  Pew Research Center

When Dreamers and black colleges meet, American success stories are made  The Hill

Should Students Be Expelled for Posting Racist Videos?  Chronicle of Higher Ed

***FREE SPEECH

The End of Academe: Free Speech and the Silencing of Dissent (opinion)  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Court rejects Pierce College’s attempt to dismiss lawsuit against its tiny ‘free speech zone’  The FIRE

It's the (Democracy-Poisoning) Golden Age of Free Speech  Wired

So to Speak podcast: Professor Randall Kennedy on ‘The Forgotten Origins of the Constitution on Campus’   The FIRE

***LEGAL ISSUES

Grumpy Cat wins $710,000 payout in copyright lawsuit  BBC News

Song Publisher Agrees "We Shall Overcome" Is in Public Domain in Legal Settlement  Hollywood Reporter

Even a Divided Congress Can Agree on Copyright  Billboard

James Woods' Use of a Question Mark Helps Him Beat Defamation Lawsuit Over Tweet  Hollywood Reporter

Actors’ union argues First Amendment protection isn't absolute and docudrama filmmakers have an obligation to "exercise caution" when depicting a living individual  Hollywood Reporter

State Supreme Court reverses itself on First Presbyterian lawsuit over baptism announcement: Muslim convert’s baptism nearly got him killed  Tulsa World

***BUSINESS

The problem with the craze for mandatory arbitration: Millions of American employees have no recourse to the courts  Economist 

How bad decision making could undermine good innovation  Tech Crunch

Harassed or discriminated against? You may not be able to take your employer to court because of the fine print in your contract  Economist 

***RELIGION

Southern Baptist Convention added as defendant in Pressler lawsuit  Baptist Press

Amid #MeToo, Evangelicals Grapple With Misconduct In Their Own Churches  NPR

Rob Bell is the subject of a new documentary titled The Heretic  Christian Today

Behind the microphone, Jay Sekulow, President Trump's lawyer targets his client's tormentors over Christian radio  LA Times

Poll found 0% of Icelanders under 25 believe Bible creation story  Digital Journal

Are White Evangelicals Sacrificing The Future In Search Of The Past?  FiveThirtyEight

American religious groups vary widely in their views of abortion  Pew Research Center

The share of Americans who leave Islam offset by Muslim converts  Pew Research Center

How the Photographer of a Snake-Handling Pastor Handled the Bite That Killed Him  Patheos 

Across U.S., LGBTQ Christians try to change hearts and minds from the pews  NBC News

***RELIGION AND POLITICS

The evangelical muscle of Trump (opinion)  The Week

Editor in chief of Christianity Today: Falwell’s defense of Trump is “twisted” (opinion)  Christianity Today

White House Bible study comes under fire  Miami OK

In the wake of porn-star allegations, most evangelicals stand by Trump  Washington Post

***ART & DESIGN

Watch how kids and pro artists draw differently based on eye tracking  BongBong

Can Art Help People Develop Empathy?   Daily Jstor

How Did Michelangelo Get So Good?  Daily Jstor

***MUSIC

Why Vinyl Matters: Nick Hornby on Records, High  Reverb News

Study: People Listen To Songs From Other Cultures And Guess: Lullaby, Dance Song, Love Song?  NPR

Study: Music permits the communication of simple ideas between people even when they have no language in common  Economist

After The Vinyl Revival, The Vinyl-Playing Jukebox Is Back  NPR

Artificial Intelligence Writes a Piece in the Style of Bach: Can You Tell the Difference Between JS Bach and AI Bach?  Open Culture

***RELATIONSHIPS

The Washington Post sets up two singles for a date and then chronicles the results on its “Data Lab” —an often painful but entertaining glimpses into the dating lives of others  Washington Post

Her son came out. She called a gay bar for advice. The delightful convo went viral  Upworthy

What Kind of Screen Time Parent Are You? Take This Quiz And Find Out  NPR

***STUDENT MEDIA 

This Student Newspaper Let A Nazi Sympathizer Write For Them  BuzzFeed News

Students re-publish article about teacher's firing after school deleted it  The Washington Post

***STUDENT LIFE

Millennials think they're bad at managing money, even when they're not  Quartz

Study shows drop-off in religious interests of new college students  Inside Higher Ed

Teen explorer makes sandwich for sexist trolls – and leaves it at the South Pole  Metro

College student hunger: How access to food can impact grades, mental health  Journalism Resources

China's millennials are triggering a luxury-goods market boom  Quartz

Virginia University of Lynchburg panel draws little student feedback following fall semester protests  News Advance

Temporarily reinstated, Christian University of Iowa student club glad to be back recruiting  Iowa City Press-Citizen

Some 250 Ohio College Students End Sit-In Over Diversity on Campus  US News

Report asserts that bundled textbooks cost students too much; publishers dispute findings  Inside Higher E

Lesbians and bisexual girls are more likely to be suspended, expelled  Journalism Resources

White Supremacist UCSD Student Disrupts Lecture  The Triton

Will millennials kill Costco?  Washington Post

***JOBS & INTERNSHIPS

Facebook is offering scholarships to journalism students  CNET

Apply for NAHJ Facebook Journalism Project scholarship

These tools will save, highlight and share your best work  Poynter

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT

U. of Arizona Provost Steps Down After Suit Claims ‘Demeaning’ Treatment of Female Deans  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Michigan State University fans wear teal in support of sexual abuse victims  CBS News

***ACADEMIC LIFE

Former Feinberg Prof. discusses sexuality, academic freedom  Daily Northwestern

***HEALTH

Livers for transplant can now be kept alive at body temperature  Economist

9 out of 10 Dentists Recommend You Toss the Floss  Study Breaks

An ER visit, a $12,000 bill — and a health insurer that wouldn’t pay  Vox

Most Americans Can’t Afford A Minor Emergency  Huffington Post

***SCIENCE

Sequencing the world: How to map the DNA of all known plants and animal species on Earth  Economist

***PSYCHOLOGY

Staying Awake Is A Surprisingly Effective Way To Treat Depression  Digg

***PHILOSOPHY

The problem with Ayn Rand? She isn't a philosopher  Big Think

***PRODUCTIVITY

Time is a human invention that controls how we work  Quartz  

***RESEARCH

iPS research fraud points up challenges for research ethics (opinion)  The Asahi Shimbun

Robust research needs many lines of evidence  Nature

At Harvard, developing software to spot misused images in science  Elsevier

Academic journals are often filled with complex language because they want to make their writing seem grander and more important than it actually is  The BMJ Opinion

Why are we continuing to allow paper journal formats to mangle our science?  The Grumpy Geophysicist

Read the Shortest Academic Article Ever Written: “The Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of a Case of ‘Writer’s Block'”  Open Culture

***HIGHER ED

Outlook for Higher Ed in 2018 Is Bleak, Ratings Agency Says  Chronicle of Higher Ed

How College May Actually Limit Students’ Exposure to Different Religions  Chronicle of Higher Ed 

Who Has the Most Student Debt? The Wealthiest, a New Analysis Finds  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Mizzou considers phasing out more than two dozen graduate programs  St Louis Post-Dispatch

Closed searches do not produce better college presidents, but they do serve the financial interests of search firms and headhunters (opinion)  The Ithacan

Moody Bible Spokane faculty starting new Christian college  Spokesman

***TEACHING

The Benefits of Having Students Do It Wrong  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Study finds students come up with many ideas in courses that meet midday  Inside Higher Ed

Creating Your Own Attendance “App” with Google Forms  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Risk aversion kills innovation

The secret killer of innovation is shame. You can't measure it, but it is there. Every time someone holds back on a new idea, fails to give their manager must needed feedback, and is afraid to speak up in front of a client you can be sure that shame played a part. That deep fear we all have of being wrong, of being belittled and of feeling less than, is what stops us taking the very risks required to move our companies forward.

If you want a culture of creativity and innovation, where sensible risks are embraced on both a market and individual level, start by developing the ability of managers to cultivate an openness to vulnerability in their teams. And this, paradoxically perhaps, requires first that they are vulnerable themselves.

This notion that the leader needs to be “in charge” and to “know all the answers” is both dated and destructive. Its impact on others I the sense that they know less, and that they are less than. A recipe for risk aversion if ever I have heard it. Shame becomes fear. Fear leads to risk aversion . Risk aversion kills innovation.

Peter Sheaham

Gratitude and Self-Control

Studies from my lab show that gratitude directly increases self-control.

Our research also shows that when we make people feel grateful, they’ll spend more time helping anyone who asks for assistance, they’ll make financial decisions that benefit partners equally (rather than ones that allow profit at a partner’s expense), and they’ll show loyalty to those who have helped them even at costs to themselves.

What these findings show is that pride, gratitude and compassion, whether we consciously realize it or not, reduce the human mind’s tendency to discount the value of the future. In so doing, they push us not only to cooperate with other people but also to help our own future selves. Feeling pride or compassion has been shown to increase perseverance on difficult tasks by over 30 percent. Likewise, gratitude and compassion have been tied to better academic performance, a greater willingness to exercise and eat healthily, and lower levels of consumerism, impulsivity and tobacco and alcohol use.

If using willpower causes stress, using these emotions actually heals: They slow heart rate, lower blood pressure and reduce feelings of anxiety and depression. By making us value the future more, they ease the way to patience and perseverance.

Perhaps most important, while these emotions enhance self-control, they also combat another problem of modern life: loneliness. From 1985 to 2004, the percentage of people who reported having at least one friend on whom they could rely and with whom they could discuss important matters dropped to 57 percent from 80 percent. Today, more than half of all Americans report feeling lonely, especially in their professional lives. But study after study has shown that those who are seen as grateful, warm and justifiably confident draw others to them. Because these emotions automatically make us less selfish, they help ensure we can form relationships with people who will be there to support us when we need it.

Cultivating the social emotions maximizes both our “résumé virtues” (those that underlie professional success) and our “eulogy virtues” (those for which we want to be remembered). In nudging the mind to be more patient and more selfless, they benefit everyone whom our decisions impact, including our own future selves. In short, they give us not only grit but also grace.

So as 2018 commences, take more time to cultivate these emotions. Reflect on what you’re grateful to have been given. Allow your mind to step into the shoes of those in need and feel for them. Take pride in the small achievements on the path to your goals.

David DeSteno writing in the New York Times