Neuroscience and networks, two topics I can’t resist.

And here they are all wrapped together in an article about how your brain constantly walks on the edge of chaos . Apparently, the chaotic cascades inside your head are what drives intelligence and people who let chaos take over more often (though not too much) are smarter (at least from an IQ perspective).

The neuronal avalanches that Beggs investigated, for example, are perfect for transmitting information across the brain. If the brain was in a more stable state, these avalanches would die out before the message had been transmitted. If it was chaotic, each avalanche could swamp the brain.

Oh, and apparently your brain has 13 degrees of separation. Who knew?

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Oh hey. The Netflix prize got beaten. Or won. Or completed. Or whatever. Cool.

Winning Teams Join to Qualify for $1 Million Netflix Prize | Epicenter | Wired.com

A few weeks ago I pointed out a study that explained, “groups tend to spend most of their time discussing the information shared by members, which is therefore redundant, rather than discussing information known only to one or a minority of members.”

Today I ran across some research on how celebrities stay popular for so long that sheds further light on the subject. Essentially people talk about more famous people more because it’s a social lubricant to have a shared topic, therefore making the famous more famous.

I’ve been spending some time thinking about how you break this cycle. Especially at work, it’s important to share ideas that everyone doesn’t know about yet as they may hold information that could push things forward in new ways. No answers yet, but it’s interesting to think about.

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