Cool article in Newsweek about the emerging field of cultural neuroscience. Researchers are using brainscans to identify the ways people from different cultures process information. Some commonly recognized cultural values are directly reflected in the brain areas people from those cultures use to process different types of information -- recognizing people, concepts of self and group, even doing math.

Hyperlocal Urban Development

Very cool blog post from Allison Arieff in the NYTimes.com site. Describes urban planners using GIS to identify abandoned, publicly-owned spaces in San Francisco and plan for their re-development.

"Looking through this lens also enables us to think about infrastructure in a new way. The era of massive, expensive, centralized projects like the Big Dig in Boston has passed. “Now, with the ability to model dynamic systems, we can show a much more decentralized collection of resources could provide greater benefit,” de Monchaux says. “If, in the 19th century, it was a biological metaphor that fueled the creation of Central and Golden Gate parks, the idea that a city needs hearts and lungs to grow, there’s now a networked metaphor. The city is a dense network of relationships. The best way to provide infrastructure is to not go in with a meat ax but to practice urban acupuncture, finding thousands of different spots to go into.”"