New research suggests, however, that rather than describe how humans perform, the bell curve may actually be constraining how people perform. Minus such constraints, a new paper argues, lots of people are actually outliers.

Human performance, by this account, does not often fit the bell curve or what scientists call a normal distribution. Rather, it is more likely to fit what scientists call a power distribution.

The study examined the performance of 633,263 people involved in four broad areas of human performance: academics writing papers, athletes at the professional and collegiate levels, politicians and entertainers.

“We looked at researchers, we looked at entertainers, we looked at politicians, and we looked at collegiate as well as professional athletes,” Aguinis said in an interview. “In each of these kinds of industries, we found that a small minority of superstar performers contribute a disproportionate amount of the output.”

…

Aguinis said the bell curve may describe human performance in the presence of some external constraint — such as an assembly line that moved at a certain speed.

… successful companies and nations would do well to identify superstars, because such performers were disproportionately likely to register new discoveries and achievements.

Via NPR

This picture shows the size of a sphere that would contain all of Earth’s water in comparison to the size of the Earth. The blue sphere sitting on the United States, reaching from about Salt Lake City, Utah to Topeka, Kansas, has a diameter of about 860 miles (about 1,385 kilometers) , with a volume of about 332,500,000 cubic miles (1,386,000,000 cubic kilometers). The sphere includes all the water in the oceans, seas, ice caps, lakes and rivers as well as groundwater, atmospheric water, and even the water in you, your dog, and your tomato plant.

Via USGS

The Moon's North Pole

This image of the moon’s north polar region was taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC. One of the primary scientific objectives of LROC is to identify regions of permanent shadow and near-permanent illumination. Since the start of the mission, LROC has acquired thousands of Wide Angle Camera images approaching the north pole. From these images, scientists produced this mosaic, which is composed of 983 images taken over a one month period during northern summer. This mosaic shows the pole when it is best illuminated, regions that are in shadow are candidates for permanent shadow.

The left square, labelled “world,” is around the size of Austria. If that area were covered in solar thermal power plants, it could produce enough electricity to meet world demand. The area in the center would be required to meet European demand. The one on the right corresponds to Germany’s energy demand.

I wonder how this theoretical area compares to total oil spill area coverage or areas affected by coal strip-mining.

Via Spiegl

DONA is the robot that interactively solicits donations from passers-by. The robot roams around in a public outdoor space and solicits donations from passers-by by engaging them through pet-like inter-action.

http://www.thisisminsu.com/#!dona

Isaac Asimov Contemplating the Future of the Planet

The other day I came across this great interview from 1988 with Isaac Asimov on Bill Moyers World of Ideas. It’s incredible hearing Asimov talk about the technology and the internet way before it evolved to become the greatest tool of our generation. The parallels Asimov draws in his books aren’t a surprise to those that are familiar with his work, especially the Foundation series. Psychohistory and mathematical sociology are closer to reality than ever before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CwUuU6C4pk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJAIERgWhZQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEHtt5sGbTw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFVlzUAZkHY

Via RoboTimes