This month, as the surest route to public embarassment, I decided to write about scientific heroes. Today’s world is full of talk of mentoring. Graduate students are told to find supervisors who will intellectually nourish them, emotionally support them, and teach them networking and grantspersonship. As I tap away, I can almost hear Uncle Syd muttering that the world is going to the dogs. In h...

Although there is evidence that praise of different types (i.e., generic vs. nongeneric) influences motivation, it is unclear how this occurs. Generic praise (e.g., "You are smart") conveys that a child possesses a trait responsible for their performance, whereas nongeneric praise (e.g., "You worked hard") conveys that performance is effort-based. Because praise conveys the basis for success, p...

The use of space teaches people who use it. This is especially true for the Christian church in employing sanctuaries and buildings for worship. James White argues that a reconsideration of our use of space is necessary to accommodate the adage “to move people spiritually we need to move them physically.” He does so by delineating six liturgical spaces and three-to-four liturgical centers that ...

Studies of ancient Egyptian religion have examined texts for evidence of cattle worship, but the picture given by the texts is incomplete. Mortuary patterns, ceremonial buildings, grave goods, ceramics and other remains also contain evidence of cattle worship and underline its importance to early Egypt. The recently discovered cattle tumuli at Nabta Playa in the Western Desert are identified he...

Motor imagery-based brain–computer interfaces (MI-BCIs) rely on interactions between humans and machines. The (learning) characteristics of both components are key to understand improve performances. Data-driven methods often used select/extract features with very little neurophysiological prior. Should they include prior knowledge which one? We study the relationship MI-BCI performances a comm...