intelligence

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Rick Perry: 'Like Bush Without the Brains'

Perry is all about competition, not policy, writes Jonathan Martin

(Newser) - Rick Perry attracts a lot of euphemisms—lightweight, incurious, instinctual. "Gov. Goodhair" goes one nickname. "He's like Bush only without the brains," jokes another Texas Republican. So Jonathan Martin, in a lengthy profile of the Texas governor on Politico , just comes out and asks the big...

Whoops: Internet Explorer IQ Story a Hoax

Site was a fly-by-night creation

(Newser) - Well, looks like we better not talk about anyone’s IQ for a while: A story circulated last week about a study showing that Internet Explorer users had lower IQs than users of other browsers (we summarized it here ). But it turns out the study was a hoax, reports...

Northerners Have Bigger Brains
 Northerners 
 Have Bigger 
 Brains 
study says
Jul 27, 2011 6:37 PM CDT

Northerners Have Bigger Brains

But it's not because they're smarter

(Newser) - The great news for people who live in northern climes is that they can now legitimately boast: "We have bigger brains than you southern people." The bad news is that they're not any smarter—they just have crappier weather. Scientists who studied 55 skulls from around the...

N-Back Mental Exercises Improve Fluid Intelligence, Study Says
 Get Smarter in 20 Days 
Jun 4, 2011 1:58 PM CDT

Get Smarter in 20 Days

N-back exercises improve 'fluid intelligence': Study

(Newser) - Some of this week's news was enough to turn your brain to mush , but a university psychologist has a way to get it back in under three weeks. His technique involves something called "n-back exercises," a type of mental training that tests your short-term memory of symbols...

What the CIA Is Doing in Libya
 What the CIA Is Doing in Libya 
Mar 31, 2011 9:18 AM CDT

What the CIA Is Doing in Libya

Obama secretly authorized spies to arm rebels

(Newser) - CIA and British MI6 agents are on the ground in Libya , working covertly to help the rebels defeat Moammar Gadhafi’s forces—and they've been there for weeks, reports the New York Times . Spies from both countries have been scouting the locations of military targets like munitions depots for coalition...

Beautiful People Are Also Smarter
Beautiful People
Are Also Smarter
STUDY SAYS
Jan 17, 2011 4:57 PM CST

Beautiful People Are Also Smarter

LSE researchers find attractiveness, intelligence correlate

(Newser) - Beautiful people really do have it all, a new study suggests: They're also more likely to be intelligent. Researchers at the London School of Economics found that intelligence correlated strongly with physical attractiveness. Men judged by others in the study as handsome had IQs 13.6 points higher than the...

Our Brains Are Shrinking!
Our Brains
Are Shrinking
Jan 3, 2011 4:46 AM CST

Our Brains Are Shrinking

But do smaller brains mean we are getting dumber, or less aggressive?

(Newser) - Today's human brain is 10% smaller than that of our Cro-Magnon ancestors, but scientists are divided on whether that means we are getting smarter or dumber. Some say it does represent a dumbing down, but that our increasingly complex society means individuals don't need as much intelligence to survive and...

Biggest Geniuses of 2010 ... Picked by MacArthur Geniuses

Jon Stewart leads the pack of influential whizzes

(Newser) - The biggest intellectual, cultural, and technological achievements of the year were powered by these brains—some we know well, some we don’t. The Daily Beast got together with 20-plus recent winners of MacArthur “Genius” grant to determine the year’s smartest:
  1. Jon Stewart. Going beyond the biting Daily
...

US Intel Spending Breaks $80B
 US Intel Spending Breaks $80B  
Oct 29, 2010 8:36 AM CDT

US Intel Spending Breaks $80B

Spending revealed for first time this century

(Newser) - American intelligence spending hit $80.1 billion, or some 12% of defense spending, for the just-ended fiscal year—more than what was spent on either the Department of Homeland Security ($53 billion) or the Justice Department ($30 billion). It's triple the $26.7 billion that was budgeted in 1998, the...

Sarah Palin Could Learn Something From Marilyn

Maureen Dowd: We shouldn't aspire to be ignorant

(Newser) - One of Sarah Palin's greatest sins is that she's "made ignorance fashionable," writes Maureen Dowd. Palin, in fact, revels in it. "You struggle to name Supreme Court cases, newspapers you read and even founding fathers you admire? No problem." It just proves you're not some Ivy...

Smartest Cities in America
 Smartest Cities 
 in America 
Aug 30, 2010 8:57 AM CDT

Smartest Cities in America

Boulder, Durham, DC trump Ivy stronghold Boston

(Newser) - The number-one brainiest city in America is a university town that major science research centers have made home and whose tech-friendly business culture draws start-ups: Boulder, Colo. Writing in the Daily Beast , Richard Florida ranks the country's 20 brainiest metro areas, as determined by things like number of adults with...

Firstborn Kids Are Smarter, Study Says

...but their brothers and sisters get better grades

(Newser) - Firstborn kids are generally more intelligent than their brothers and sisters, but younger siblings do better in school and are more outgoing, according to a new study. Previous birth-order research looked at children in isolation—e.g., how many presidents are firstborns?—but the new study examined 90 pairs of...

Expect a Lot More Intel Leaks
 Expect a Lot More Intel Leaks 
Analysis
Aug 2, 2010 2:54 PM CDT

Expect a Lot More Intel Leaks

We may be in for an age of whistleblowers

(Newser) - Did you enjoy the WikiLeaks storm ? Well, there could soon be a lot more like it. There are more opportunities for leaks than ever before, observes the Christian Science Monitor , because the government is generating more classified data than ever and is granting security clearances to huge numbers of...

Angry Spy Crew Hits Back at WaPo Probe

Boast they've thwarted attacks

(Newser) - The intel community has struck back fast at a scathing Washington Post investigation that portrayed post-9/11 intelligence gathering as wastefully massive and out of control. "The fact is, the men and women of the intelligence community have improved our operations, thwarted attacks, and are achieving untold successes every day,...

US Intel Gathering Insanely Out of Control

 US Intel Gathering 
 Insanely Out of Control 

wapo Investigation
Jul 19, 2010 7:56 AM CDT

US Intel Gathering Insanely Out of Control

Post 9/11 buildup has left us with more info than we can handle

(Newser) - In the wake of 9/11, the US has built an unspeakably massive top-secret counter-terrorism apparatus that appears to be riddled with waste, according to a major investigative piece that some 20 journalists spent nearly two years working on for the Washington Post . The paper found that 1,271 government organizations,...

Twitter Will Make You Smarter
 Twitter Will Make You Smarter 
opinion
Jun 11, 2010 12:14 PM CDT

Twitter Will Make You Smarter

Like other new media, site beefs up brain if used wisely

(Newser) - It's fashionable to cry about how Twitter and other new forms of electronic media are making us intellectually lazy and downright stupid. In fact, the opposite is true, writes Harvard's Steven Pinker. "Don’t rail at PowerPoint or Google," he writes. "It’s not as if habits...

US Still Depends on Private Spies in Pakistan

Program supposedly disbanded months ago still thriving

(Newser) - When it emerged earlier this year that US intelligence in Pakistan and Afghanistan was standing largely on the shoulders of private contractors hired as spies—including information used to kill insurgents—the feds quickly said the programs were being discontinued and swept the whole matter under the carpet. The New ...

US Strike Didn't Kill Pakistan Taliban Chief

Reports of Hakimullah Mehsud's death greatly exaggerated

(Newser) - Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud is now believed to have survived a US missile strike earlier this year, but has lost clout within the militant network, a senior intelligence official says. The revelation contradicts initial confidence among intelligence officials that the brash militant leader died in a mid-January missile attack...

Google Will Actually Make Us Smarter: Experts

65% of 'Internet experts' say search will improve reading and writing

(Newser) - Though Nicholas Carr may have famously concluded that Google will make us stupid , most Internet experts think he's totally wrong: the easy access to information provided by search engines will actually make us smarter. In a Pew Survey of technology leaders from the academic, government, and corporate sectors, 65% agreed...

Attack Draws Attention to Quiet US Efforts in Pakistan

Taliban may have had intelligence from within the Frontier Corps

(Newser) - The US had an uncomfortable light shined on its training operations in Pakistan yesterday, when three American soldiers were killed in a Taliban suicide bombing in Lower Dir. The soldiers were part of a Special Operations team training Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps, the New York Times reports, a program...

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