intelligence

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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...

Military Can't Keep Up With Drone Intel

Predators produce too much video for analysts to digest

(Newser) - The military is rushing to get more spy drones into Afghanistan’s sky, but they’ve already got more video streaming in than they can handle. All of the footage is watched live for any potential threat troops should be aware of—roughly 24 years' worth of footage was recorded...

US Drones Back Up Pakistani Offensive

Predators offer intel on militant positions in South Waziristan

(Newser) - The US military is supporting the Pakistani offensive against Taliban militants in South Waziristan with intelligence and imaging collected by unmanned Predator drones. The support is separate from the CIA program using the drones inside Pakistan to kill terrorist leaders. “We are coordinating with the Pakistanis,” a military...

Iraq WMD Mistakes Haunt Debate Over Iran Nukes

(Newser) - As the US confronts Iran over its nuclear program, many Americans can’t help but flash back to 2003, when Colin Powell made a compelling case before the UN that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Is the uproar over Iran’s Qom facility the same kind of smoke and...

US Spies Are Voice of Caution in Iran Debate

Israelis, Europeans believe Tehran is developing warheads

(Newser) - The global intelligence community is at odds over whether Iran is developing nuclear warheads, with US spies insisting it isn’t, and European and Israeli spies begging to differ. In what the New York Times calls a “mirror image” of the Iraq debate, the US say documents found by...

Dropping Missile Shield Is Jab at Bush—Not US Allies

Obama & Co. see Russia, Iran threats differently

(Newser) - President Obama’s decision to shelve the missile shield for Eastern Europe is appeasement only to those obsessed with “legacy threats” like Russia, Marc Ambinder writes for the Atlantic. Obama believes the threat from Iran was overstated by President Bush, and that the shield technology wasn’t a sure...

Taliban Blast Kills Afghan Spy Chief, 22 Others

Insurgents target intelligence official during mosque visit

(Newser) - A Taliban suicide bomber at a mosque near Kabul killed 23 people today, including Afghanistan's deputy chief of intelligence. The explosion ripped through a crowd in Laghman province just as officials were leaving the mosque. Two top provincial officials from Laghman were also among the dead, and the blast destroyed...

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