get rid of your excess Stuff, and be skeptical of neuroimaging claims
Every once in a while, you see an article that completely jibes with your worldview. As cultural pundits seem to point out on a daily basis, it may be getting easier for us to seek out this kind of self-confirming information, due to the increasing diversity and accessibility of our media. Usually, it's argued that this is an unfortunate trend -- our attitudes can become calcified, unchallenged. I tend to buy that argument (though I'm not sure how much data exist to back it up.) Nevertheless, I still find myself suckered into the behavior of seeking out those articles that reinforce my existing opinions. All of which is a long way of trying to establish some link between the two articles I wanted to post today:
First: How to Live with Just 100 Things.
I saw this in Time magazine last night. Hooray for the American populace (or at least a select minority) for finally choosing to renounce consumerism.
Second: What we can do and what we cannot do with fMRI. This is an article that came out in Nature this week by Nikos Logothetis. I haven't read it yet, but Logothetis is always a worthwhile read, and the topic is always worth reviving.