Robert Sapolsky discusses the alleged uniqueness of humans

Excellent lecture by Robert Sapolsky. Scientists used to think that humans were unique in many ways when compared to other animals. The number of ways in which we are truly unique is dwindling, however, and that dwindling number is the focus of Sapolsky's talk. There is at least one way in which we are unique, and that is our ability to entertain a contradiction. Sapolsky, speaking to a graduating class, challenges them to take on this contradiction: They are highly educated and thus privileged human animals who are educated to such an extent that they realize that it is virtually impossible for one person to make a difference in the world. The more clear this becomes that it is impossible to make the world better, "the more you must."

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Deep paint: Making a one-shot expressionist painting

Question: How do you create a large exquisite expressionist painting in one session? My friend Paul LaFlam is an artist in St. Louis, and he would give an answer something like this: Pour several gallons of hardware store house paint onto a big horizontal wooden canvass and then "brush" the paint with torn pieces of cardboard, making sure to let your painting dry for at least three days, because it is 1/8" deep. The layers of the paint interact with one another, and "the paint does much of the work itself." Paul offered to let me videotape his unusual process awhile back, and we finished up editing the videotape today. Check it out.

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The cost of buying a seat in Congress

From OpenSecrets.org:

We've already determined that the 2012 elections overall produced in the most expensive election cycle ever, costing an estimated $6.3 billion. Newly updated numbers that we released today in the Historical Elections section of OpenSecrets.org, though, show that the average "price of admission" went up as well. The average winner in a Senate race spent $10.2 million, compared to $8.3 million in 2010 and just $7.5 million in 2008. That's an increase of 19 percent since 2010. Senate Democrats seemed to have to work particular hard to win their seats, spending an average of $11.9 million, compared to the average Republican winner who spent $7.1 million. On the House side, there was a smaller but still quantifiable increase in the cost of winning. On average, a winner in the House spent $1.5 million, compared $1.4 million in 2010 and $1.3 million in 2008. In the House, it was Republicans who had to work a bit harder: The average winning House Republican had to spend $1.59 million to win a seat, a bit more than the $1.53 million spent by the average Democratic victor.

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