Interesting: The Internet makes us smarter, futurist says

Who would have thought watching Keyboard Cat 100 times could make you a brighter person?
Not me. But hey, I'm not arguing.
Check out this interesting article posted in The Atlantic by futurist Jamais Cascio.
The premise is basically this: For centuries we've relied on Mother Nature to make us smarter, but now thanks to cool new information sharing tools like the Internet we've got more data at our fingertips than ever before. Many scientists are using this to jumpstart new scientific disciplines, develop new medicines and basically make us more awesome. And as Artificial Intelligence continues to develop, many believe it will eventually pair off with the hive mind of the Internet and usher in a new age of human illumination.
That's the theory, anyway.
I still don't understand how things like this are making me any smarter.

RELATED: Is Google Making Us Stupid?

INTERESTING: Music that makes you dumberer

Here's an interesting, albeit unscientific study, on the correlation between the music kids listen to and how they score on their SATs.

Beatcrave's article/chart makes for an interesting little read, but do we really need researchers to tell us that folks listening to Lil' Wayne probably aren't destined to become the next great intellectual giant of American civilization?

INTERESTING: LOST Book Club

Get your thick-rimmed specs, now you can read just like Sawyer does!

With the LOST book club, fans of the show can now read all the stories enjoyed by some of their favorite island castaways.

Go check out the listing on ABC.com and browse titles by season, dialogue reference, and show theme.

The site also offers a store to purchase the books.

INTERESTING: GUERRILLA GARDENERS

They've got pots, plants and a car load of pointed trowels ... no unattended plot of squalid land is safe ... it's the GUERRILLA GARDENERS!

"(Richard) Reynolds defines guerrilla gardening as “the cultivation of someone else’s land without permission.” He didn’t invent the term or the tactic but has become, as he puts it, “a self-appointed publicist for the movement” and the breadth of impulses and ideologies behind it.
Last week he published a book, “On Guerrilla Gardening.” It’s a political history of people growing things where they shouldn’t — from Honduran squatters to the artists and students he credits with originating the term “guerrilla gardening” in New York City in the early ’70s. During the city’s financial crisis, the self-styled Green Guerillas began cultivating derelict lots around the Lower East Side, either by clipping barbed wire fences or chucking “seed bombs” over them — Christmas ornaments or condoms filled with tomato seeds, water and fertilizer. After early confrontations, the city ultimately gave in and legitimized many of their plots into one of the country’s first community-garden programs, staking a claim for green space before gentrification vaulted the value of all that abandoned land."

An interesting idea to be sure, and anyone who's lived in a city can attest to the aesthetic charm a civic-minded greenthumb can bring to problem spots in town that understaffed DPW departments simply just can't get to.

Still, I'm not surprised the London police are having some run-ins with this guy. Mooallem puts it nicely:

"He is fundamentally an aesthete. And at first glance, there’s a confounding innocence to it all. Yet Reynolds has managed to stir controversy and, very recently, found himself surrounded by the police. He is quickly becoming both a subculture celebrity (Adidas sent him a treatment for a guerrilla-gardening-themed ad campaign) and a public intellectual, challenging ideas about what it means to live in a city — simply by decorating one."

"'There’s this feeling that someone’s going to be doing it for us,' he told me. We respect public space by not degrading it: not littering, not vandalizing. But we rarely consider what we might contribute to it. Consequently, the common areas of our cities wind up belonging to none of us rather than to all of us equally. As Andy Brown, a guerrilla gardener in Toronto, puts it: 'If it makes sense to put a fresh coat of paint on the walls of your living room, it makes sense to put a fresh coat of flowers on your neighborhood, because they’re both places you live in.'"

Check out the full New York Times article here.

INTERESTING: Five superpowers science will give us

Exo-skeletons, telekinesis, WOLVERINE!

From super-quick healing to really dorky looking "Iron Man" suits (see left), here's just a taste of some of the superpowers science could make a reality in the coming decades!

Cracked.com gives some funny commentary, but a few of the ideas are actually kinda cool. I was particularly interested in the carbon nanotube technology suit, which could potentially allow the user to stick to any surface, even under water.

Combine that Spider-man ability with the Iron-Man exoskeleton, the "invisible" camera cloak and the Jean Grey telekinesis implant and you have the John J. Rambo of the 21st century!

INTERESTING: Cobain's ashes stolen, Love "suicidal"

Call me a callous jerk, but I wouldn't be a bit surprised if this was just another publicity stunt orchestrated by Love in some sort of misguided attempt to remain relevant.

Check out the story of the urn thieves here.

Love is quoted by the paper as saying: "I can't believe anyone would take Kurt's ashes from me. I find it disgusting and right now I'm suicidal. If I don't get them back I don't know what I'll do."

INTERESTING: Cluster ballooning takes world by storm

This looks brilliant...

Have you ever dreamed of being carried into the sky by a giant bouquet of colorful toy balloons?

That's the idea behind cluster ballooning. The pilot wears a harness, to which a cluster of large, helium-filled balloons are attached. Control is achieved by releasing ballast to ascend, or by bursting balloons to descend.

The most famous cluster balloon flight took place in 1982. Larry Walters, with no prior ballooning experience, attached 42 helium weather balloons to a lawnchair, intending to go up a few hundred feet, but instead soaring to 16,000. Surprisingly, Walters survived his flight. However, both before and since Walters' adventure, experienced balloonists have experimented with helium balloon clusters, some rising to even greater heights.

ROBOTS: Scientists study long term human relationships with A.I.

Here's an interesting study on the long term effects of human interaction with a new generation of interactive, emotionally intelligent, companion robots.

"Professor Peter McOwan, from Queen Mary’s Department of Computer Science, explained: 'We’re interested in how people can develop a long-term relationship with artificial creatures, in everyday settings. You may not be able to find a robot that can help you do the dishes anytime soon, but we’re hoping to explore how such friendly future technology could be developed, and start to predict what the intelligent machines of tomorrow might look like, and how we should treat them.'"