An article at Wired covers several experiments in brain function and learning. First, we find that there are two distinct reactions in the brain when we make a mistake, and their relative performance determines how well we learn from a mistake. Then we find that people with open minds are more likely to change their behavior after a mistake. And then there's a real world application, tested by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck.

Her most famous study, conducted in twelve different New York City schools along with Claudia Mueller, involved giving more than 400 fifth graders a relatively easy test consisting of nonverbal puzzles. After the children finished the test, the researchers told the students their score, and provided them with a single line of praise. Half of the kids were praised for their intelligence. “You must be smart at this,” the researcher said. The other students were praised for their effort: “You must have worked really hard.”

The students were then allowed to choose between two different subsequent tests. The first choice was described as a more difficult set of puzzles, but the kids were told that they’d learn a lot from attempting it. The other option was an easy test, similar to the test they’d just taken.

When Dweck was designing the experiment, she expected the different forms of praise to have a rather modest effect. After all, it was just one sentence. But it soon became clear that the type of compliment given to the fifth graders dramatically affected their choice of tests. When kids were praised for their effort, nearly 90 percent chose the harder set of puzzles. However, when kids were praised for their intelligence, most of them went for the easier test. What explains this difference? According to Dweck, praising kids for intelligence encourages them to “look” smart, which means that they shouldn’t risk making a mistake.

A further experiment showed how fear of failure can inhibit learning. Read about all of them at The Frontal Cortex. Link

(Image credit: Flickr user mujalifah)

You are probably familiar with Tillman, the famous skateboarding bulldog, but there are plenty of other animals who have taken to the activity as well. In this gallery from Environmental Graffiti, you'll meet guinea pigs, cats, turtles, birds, rabbits, and even a rat on a skateboard! Some are shown in action on video, too. Link

(Image credit: Flickr user kthypryn)

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.

It was August 27, 1965. The greatest summit meeting in show business history was about to take place.

The Beatles had arrived in America in February of 1964. They had already met many singers, celebrities, and movie stars. Basically, all they had to do was request it, snap their fingers, and almost literally, anyone could be brought in for them to meet. But according to John Lennon, the leader of the band, there was only one person they had to meet. It was the King himself, Elvis Presley.

The meeting has been documented by several witnesses present, but as we all know, human memory can be fallible. But the following is, in general, what occurred that incredible evening. The first question, after the meeting was agreed to, was who would come to whom? It was quickly agreed upon that the Beatles -the "new kids on the block"- would go to Elvis' house in Bel Air and pay homage to the King.

After smoking a joint in their limo to calm their nerves, the Beatles pulled up to Perugia Way and were greeted at the door. It was Elvis Presley, their supreme idol, in the flesh! Elvis, dressed and acting super-casual, escorted the boys in. He was watching TV without the sound on (something the Beatles liked doing themselves). The Beatles were amazed -a color TV! And even more incredible, according to Paul, he had one of those weird contraptions, a remote control! They had never seen one before (remember, it was 1965).

The Fab Four sat staring, literally gaping, at their hero. After a few minutes, Elvis broke the quiet ice and said, "Hell, if you're just going to sit around staring at me, I'm going up to bed." Everyone laughed and the remark calmed the tense atmosphere.

This is a triangular letter. During World War II, Russian soldiers folded their letters home in a way that required no envelope -it's actually quite easy. And it was also easy for censors to open and read them before sending them on. Families back home were excited to see this shape arrive in the mail. Read about the letters and the men who wrote them at Poemas del río Wang. Link -via Metafilter

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They made a stick bomb with 1,000 popsicle sticks! As a bonus, we also get to see them "re-assemble" as the video plays in reverse. In case you'd like to try it yourself, Instructables has the directions. Link -via reddit

Atlas Obscura is running a series called the 31 Days of Halloween on their blog. One post tells how made-up ghost stories can lead to frightening real stories of graveyard shenanigans, as happened at London's fashionable Highgate Cemetery in the 1970s.

Though the details are a bit murky, it began with reports of a "creature" in the graveyard. The story was likely generated by one of the two main players in the incident magicians / exorcists / full-on maniacs Seán Manchester and David Farrant. Eventually the story became that it was a vampire (a Transylvanian prince brought to the cemetery in the 1800s) and Manchester and Farrant both vowed to hunt down and kill the beast. (They also pronounced each other charlatans.)

As described in the (not to be fully trusted) book Beyond the Grave, "many claimed to see a particular creature hovering over the graves. Scores of 'vampire hunters' regularly converged on the graveyard in the dead of night. Tombs were broken open and bodies were mutilated with wooden stakes driven into their chests. These stolen corpses, turning up in strange places, continuously startled local residents. One horrified neighbor to the cemetery discovered a headless body propped behind the steering wheel of his car one morning!"

Read the whole story at Atlas Obscura. Link

(Image credit: Flickr user Leo Reynolds)

For the first time ever, Pinckney Community High School in Michigan crowned a homecoming queen they had to summon from the locker room. Brianna Amat received the title while wearing her football uniform, complete with shoulder pads. But that wasn't the end of the 18-year-old field goal kicker's big night last Friday. She also won the game.

A short while later, with five minutes to play in the third quarter, Amat was called to the same field to attempt a 31-yard field goal. She split the uprights.

The kick proved decisive as Pinckney held on for a 9-7 victory against a Grand Blanc team that had come into the game ranked seventh in the state in its division. It also earned Amat the nickname the Kicking Queen.

The twin accomplishments were still sinking in Monday, said Amat, a senior who has played soccer since she was 3 but who tried out for the football team only last spring, at her soccer coach’s suggestion.

“It’s just starting to hit me today,” she said in a telephone interview. “The guys were congratulating me, but without them, I wouldn’t even have gotten close” to making the kick.

Amat, who maintains a 4.0 GPA and is active in student government, is the first female to make the school's varsity football squad. Link -via Breakfast Links

(Image credit: Stephen McGee for The New York Times)

It may not be anatomically correct, but you have to admit it's perfectly descriptive! This illustration is from UK artist Jim Lockey. Link -via Nag on the Lake

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Emergency crews responded to a report of a driverless car running amok in Wildwood, New Jersey on Sunday. Wildwood Fire Captain Chris D’Amico eventually stopped the vehicle.

"I've never corralled a car before," D'Amico said.

D’Amico said that he found an opportunity to jump into the passenger-side window while he was standing inside the circle the car was making.

The empty older model Ford Thunderbird took to the road on its own when the driver got out of the car in order to switch seats with his passenger, officials said

The car's passenger suffered minor injuries when he tried to jump back in the car earlier.

Comments at the story recalled Ford having recalls of vehicles from that era that would slip out of park into reverse gear. Link -via Smart Stop

Zac Gorman figured out what Mario is really all about. Link -via Laughing Squid

Aspiring writers know how it is -those rejection slips just keep piling up. It can be discouraging. But that doesn't necessarily mean your book is bad. Some of the biggest selling books ever were published only after a string of rejections. Even Anne Frank's diary was rejected -sixteen times!

These days, Anne Frank has one of the best-known holocaust stories and the book has sold 30 million copies around the world. Surprisingly, the tale wasn’t too popular with publishers though, and was rejected sixteen times. One publisher even noted the story was barely worth reading because, “The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the ‘curiosity’ level.”

Read about other bestselling books that overcame initial publisher's rejection at Flavorwire. Link

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If you can dance while wearing a marching band uniform with a drum strapped to your belly, then the world is pretty much your oyster. In this video, the Ohio University Marching 110 perform "Party Rock Anthem” by LMFAO. -via The Daily What

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If you didn't see the strings, you'd just think this was a skinny dog. This talented puppeteer was spotted on the streets of Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Bonus: "Stormy Weather." -via Arbroath

Minnesotastan found this painting from 1617 and was intrigued by the swaddling clothes and by the difference in color of the two children. A little research turned up the theory that these twins suffered from Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS). From Wikipedia:

As a result of sharing a single placenta, the blood supplies of monochorionic twin fetuses can become connected, so that they share blood circulation: although each fetus uses its own portion of the placenta, the connecting blood vessels within the placenta allow blood to pass from one twin to the other. Depending on the number, type and direction of the interconnecting blood vessels (anastomoses), blood can be transferred disproportionately from one twin (the "donor") to the other (the "recipient"). The transfusion causes the donor twin to have decreased blood volume, retarding the donor's development and growth, and also decreased urinary output, leading to a lower than normal level of amniotic fluid (becoming oligohydramnios). The blood volume of the recipient twin is increased, which can strain the fetus's heart and eventually lead to heart failure, and also higher than normal urinary output, which can lead to excess amniotic fluid (becoming polyhydramnios).

Whether such twins survive usually depends on how early in the pregnancy the syndrome is diagnosed. Minnesotastan also found out who the children in the painting were. Link

All I know about the 2004 time travel film Primer is that it's very confusing. That was made clear in an xkcd plot graph that we linked (Primer is at the bottom right). Although the movie covers only five days, there are nine timelines, according to this graph at Unreality magazine (which you can enlarge at the link). Does this clear things up? Link