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Quick Studies

Learn, Stanford style, without going back to class. Presenting Quick Studies, a monthly collection of articles, videos and podcasts curated exclusively for you.

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They're, Like, Way Ahead of the Curve?
Ever wonder what's behind so many women's use of "uptalk" (pronouncing statements as if they were questions)? As Paris is to fashion, the thinking goes, so are young women to linguistic innovation, according to Stanford linguistics professor Penny Eckert and others.
Read the New York Times story »

Life Beyond Earth?
Our Milky Way galaxy may be teeming with rogue planets rambling through space, say researchers at Stanford's Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC). Such "nomad planets" could raise tantalizing questions in the search for life beyond Earth.
Read the Huffington Post story  »

Longevity Is for the Young, Too
Longer life spans are triggering reassessments of how people should be using their "extra" years. Should those gains be front-loaded to expand and enrich earlier stages of life? Professor Laura Carstensen, direct of the Center for Longevity, thinks so.
Read the U.S. News article  »

Watch

Donald Knuth on the Art of Computer Programming video
Professor Emeritus Donald Knuth, the author of the seminal multivolume The Art of Computer Programming and developer of countless computer programs, is also a creative writer, musician and artist. Here he talks about his passion for creativity
Watch the Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts video  » (6 and a half min.)

The Love Competition video
Can one person experience love more deeply than another? That question inspired filmmaker Brent Hoff and the Stanford Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging to host the first annual love competition—inside an fMRI machine.
Watch the competition on Vimeo » (15 min.))

Is Marriage for White People? video
In a discussion based on his book, Is Marriage for White People?, Professor Ralph Banks, '87, MA '87, discusses how the decline in African American marriages affects everyone, and explores the benefits of interracial marriage.
Watch the Classes Without Quizzes video on Stanford University YouTube » (1 hr.)

Listen

How an Oil Boom Creates Wealth—and Chaos audio
John McChesney, director of the Rural West Initiative at Stanford, reports on the major oil boom in western North Dakota from fracking--the controversial process of injecting fluid deep into underground rock formations to force the oil out.
Listen to the NPR Morning Edition report » (7 min.)

Ann Patchett on the Art of Writing audio
Ann Patchett, author of two nonfiction works and six novels, including Bel Canto and the recent novel State of Wonder, gave a talk at Stanford about the role of research and the importance of learning—and forgetting.
Tune in for the Lane Lecture podcast » (1 hr., 16 min.)

Why You Need Your Zzzzs audio
Did you ever realize that dreaming is a highly aerobic activity? Sleep specialist Rafael Pelayo, MD, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, talks about this and other sleep-related surprises
Tune in to the School of Medicine's 1:2:1 podcast  » (37 min.)