Concious Thought vs. Unconcious Thought: Sleep On It!

We may out-think ourselves if we try to use concious thought in matters we have expertise in along with greater amounts of pondering, rather than going with the first answer we come up with.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20091027/sc_livescience/whysleepingonithelps

They do raise some caveats about the research later in the article. One caveat I don't think they mention that I would raise is that some sorts of complex tasks require not just a single decision, but a series of them to reach a solution or endpoint. I'm not convinced that these sorts of complex problems (such as in engineering or medicine) would not defy this simplistic analysis. But for a lot of less involved matters, just letting the idea percolate underneath the concious level might be advantageous.

I know I myself have had a number of epiphanies about work at times not related to work and likely for this sort of reason. Take a problem home, get something to eat, watch some TV, and when you wake up (or just before you finally fall asleep), an answer you missed in the heat of the days activities makes itself readily apparent.

Genetically Modified Beer!

Scientists have mapped the genome of 70 strains of yeast. Improvements in beer, wine, and bread are expected, perhaps in flavour, perhaps in longevity.

There's also a theory these simpler maps will provide models to build the software to help further map human genes. That has all sorts of possible long term benefits (possible I say, as we're still some distance from having genetic therapy or treatment for various diseases).

Still, even if all it gets is better beer....

GOOD WORK, SCIENTISTS!