Items to Share: 8 July

Education focus

• Levitt_et al. Short-Term_Incentives  (pdf) The Impact of Short-term Incentives on Student Performance

Other Business

• "Flame Challenge," a science communications contest for young people (video) (Boing Boing) Explain a flame to an 11-year-old

• The Little-Known History of How the Modern Olympics Got Their Start (Smithsonian Magazine)  The writing is pretentious and affected, but it's a good story 

• n+1: The Stupidity of Computers --particularly their inability to understand natural language.

• The Good News About British Dyspepsia  (Andrew Sullivan)  At last! Noel Coward's own version of  There are Bad Times Just Around the Corner online; no longer any need to put up with that awful Robbie Williams version. 

• Does infinity exist? (plus.maths.org) John Barrow explains. 

• One more flash mob (Copenhagen Metro)  Delightful! What a way to start a day! 

• The Higgs Boson Explained on Vimeo  from PHD comics