Streams of Consciousness Author(S): Ferris Jabr Source: Scientific American , Vol

Streams of Consciousness Author(s): Ferris Jabr Source: Scientific American , Vol. 309, No. 1 (JULY 2013), p. 24 Published by: Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26017815

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This content downloaded from 143.107.3.152 on Mon, 28 Oct 2019 13:49:35 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms ADVANCES

Best of the Blogs

ENTOMOLOGY Don’t Pince Me, Please Two remarkable insects—one with giant genital forceps— join a list of new finds

Researchers working in Brazil have discovered a new species Happily, nana happens to be of forcepfly with enormous genital pincers right( ), bringing the total derived from nanos, the Greek word number of known species in this family to three. And in Costa Rica for “dwarf.” Huber and Noyes described the a new fairyfly has been found: at 250 microns long, it is invisible to species’ light coloring, which includes yellows, browns and white, the naked eye and one of the smallest insects in the world. and spectacular wings, covered in delicate, long bristles called Entomologist Renato Machado of Texas A&M University and macrochaeta, in April in the Journal of Hymenoptera Research. his colleagues described the new forcepfly, a pale, golden-colored The team suggests that this type of wing could help the fairyfly insect, in February in the journal ZooKeys. The team named it reduce drag and turbulence while in the air—fairyflies flap their Austromerope brasiliensis, after its home near the Atlantic Forest tiny wings hundreds of times per second to keep aloft. of southe astern Brazil. Almost nothing is known about the biology Though distinct in enough ways to earn itself a place in a of the nocturnal and secretive forcepfly. Scientists are not really sure new genus, T. nana is closely related to the world’s smallest known how it lives, what it eats, how it mates or what its larvae look like. winged insect, Kikiki huna, which is 158 microns long—about as Most researchers assume that the males use their extraordinarily small as a winged insect can be. Huber remarks, “If we have large terminal forceps to grip the females during copulation or to not already found them, we must surely be close to discovering fight male rivals. the smallest insects and other arthropods.” —Becky Crew John Huber of Natural Resources Canada and John S. Noyes of the Natural History Museum in London named the new species Adapted from Running Ponies at blogs.ScientificAmerican.com/ of fairyfly Tinkerbella nana, after the fairy and the dog from Peter Pan. running-ponies

ANTHROPOLOGY

Streams of recently recorded the inner dialogues of In one video, a young woman named people walking in New York City. He Meredith walks along Prince Street in Consciousness approached strangers, asked them to downtown Manhattan. She briefly won A researcher documents wear a microphone headset attached ders if there is a Staples store nearby

people’s internal monologues to a digital recorder and speak their before reminiscing about a recent visit to thoughts aloud as he followed closely her friend Joan, whom, we learn, has behind with a camera. cancer. Meredith contemplates her On any given day, millions of conver “I was surprised by how many said friend’s situation for the next two min

sations reverberate through New ‘yes,’” Irving says—about 100 in all. By utes, tearing up at the thought of “New 2013 15, FEBRUARY 269; VOL. York City. All these conversations are overlaying the recorded audio onto the York without Joan.” Abruptly, she notic ZOOKEYS, matched in number and complexity by videos, he has created portraits of indi es a café where she used to sit and peo much more elusive discourses. Even vidual consciousnesses on a particular ple watch, laments how it has changed when speaking with others—and espe day in New York. and resumes her search for a Staples. cially when alone—we continually talk Of course, people sometimes speak Meredith’s meandering thoughts

to ourselves in our heads. into the microphone as though trying to recall Clarissa Dalloway’s roaming mind BRAZIL,” FROM MEROPEIDAE) (MECOPTERA, AUSTROMEROPE Psychologists have attempted to cap entertain someone else. And getting in Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway. ture what they call self-talk or inner people’s inner speech on tape captures Woolf would likely have adored Irving’s speech in the moment, asking people to only linguistic forms of thought, neglect videos. She wanted to write about “an stop what they are doing and write ing the kind of thinking that happens ordinary mind on an ordinary day.” down their thoughts at random times. in images and scenes. Still, Irving’s vid —Ferris Jabr Others have relied on surveys or diaries. eos are permanent records of fleeting Andrew Irving, an anthropologist at the thoughts, of dynamic mental processes Adapted from Brainwaves at blogs. University of Manchester in England, unfurling in real time. ScientificAmerican.com/brainwaves BY RENATO JOSE PIRES MACHADO, RICARDO KAWADA AND JOSÉ ALBERTINO RAFAEL, IN RAFAEL, ALBERTINO JOSÉ AND RICARDO KAWADA MACHADO, PIRES JOSE RENATO BY FROM “NEW CONTINENTAL RECORD AND NEW SPECIES OF OF SPECIES AND NEW RECORD CONTINENTAL “NEW FROM

This content downloaded from 143.107.3.152 on Mon, 28 Oct 2019 13:49:35 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms