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Science Friday: Big Thinks Help Beat the Blues, and the Hollywood Bombshell who Patented WWII Tech

The gift of gab
What kind of a conversationalist are you?  Do you shoot the breeze, or blow people's minds?  It turns out that you're bound to be happier if your pub conversation is deep:
It may sound counterintuitive, but people who spend more of their day having deep discussions and less time engaging in small talk seem to be happier, said Matthias Mehl, a psychologist at the University of Arizona who published a study on the subject.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/talk-deeply-be-happy/ 
via http://scienceblogs.com/collectiveimagination/2010/03/talking_your_way_to_happiness.php
Spark up a conversation then!
An interesting way to share projects and ideas… Caise (the Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education) have set up Caise Sparks in the follow up to the Informal Science Summit 2010.  What are 'sparks'? 
"A Spark is an observation that provides insight and evidence about how your project has made a difference in people's lives. This could be a project you're working on now, or one from the past."
http://caise.insci.org/sparks/
And via the wondrously-named Grasping Reality withTractor Beams:
Summies are much smarter than they used to be.
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/03/dummies-are-much-smarter-than-they-used-to-be.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BradDelongsSemi-dailyJournal+%28Brad+DeLong%27s+Semi-Daily+Journal%29
Math music, beauty
If you're getting excited about Biorhythm (open call is still open till March 30th) or you loved the natural geometry of Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef, you'll love this video 
(via @patomahony1 https://twitter.com/patomahony1 )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkGeOWYOFoA&feature=player_embedded#
Finding Ada
Didjya miss Ida Lovelace Day? http://findingada.com/about/
Then have a holy S*%& moment and read the story of Hedy Lamarr:
http://www.hedylamarr.org/hedystory1.html
In 1936 Hedy Lamarr became the first woman to grace the silver screen in a feature film wearing nothing but her birthday suit. Five years later, at a Hollywood dinner party, she engaged in a passionate discussion with an avant-garde composer about protecting U.S. radio-guided torpedoes from enemy interference.
She scrawled her phone number in lipstick on the windshield of his car so they could develop their ideas further.
In 1942, unbeknownst to her adoring public, the unlikely duo secured a patent and gave it to the United States government for a "Secret Communications System" expressly constructed to assist in the defeat of Hitler.
The science presented in this patent serves as the basis for the technology we use today in cell phones, pagers, wireless Internet, defense satellites, and a plethora of other spread-spectrum devices.

The gift of gab

 What kind of a conversationalist are you?  Do you shoot the breeze, or blow people's minds?  

It turns out that you're bound to be happier if your pub conversation is deep:

"It may sound counterintuitive, but people who spend more of their day having deep discussions and less time engaging in small talk seem to be happier, said Matthias Mehl, a psychologist at the University of Arizona who published a study on the subject." From the NYTimes Well Blog. (Via).

 

Spark up a conversation then!

An interesting way to share projects and ideas during follow-up to a coference from Caise (the Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education).  They've set up Caise Sparks in the follow up to the Informal Science Summit 2010.  What are 'sparks'? "A Spark is an observation that provides insight and evidence about how your project has made a difference in people's lives. This could be a project you're working on now, or one from the past."

Do you use any online tool to do the same here in Ireland?

 

And from the wondrously-named blog Grasping Reality with Tractor Beams:

Dummies are much smarter than they used to be.

 

Math music, beauty

If you're getting excited about Biorhythm (open call is still open till March 30th) or you loved the natural geometry of Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef, you'll love this video (via @patomahony1)

As an aside, the dragonfly wings in that video really remind me of the Weaire-Phelan structure...

  


Finding Ada

Lastly, Didjya miss Ada Lovelace Day? 

Then have a 'janie mac' moment reading the story of Hedy Lamarr:

In 1936 Hedy Lamarr became the first woman to grace the silver screen in a feature film wearing nothing but her birthday suit.

Five years later, at a Hollywood dinner party, she engaged in a passionate discussion with an avant-garde composer about protecting U.S. radio-guided torpedoes from enemy interference.She scrawled her phone number in lipstick on the windshield of his car so they could develop their ideas further.

In 1942, unbeknownst to her adoring public, the unlikely duo secured a patent and gave it to the United States government for a "Secret Communications System" expressly constructed to assist in the defeat of Hitler.

The science presented in this patent serves as the basis for the technology we use today in cell phones, pagers, wireless Internet, defense satellites, and a plethora of other spread-spectrum devices.