Archives
To sleep, perchance to dream
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/11/Dreaming.mp3[/podcast] Why do we dream? You’d think we’d know by now. Everyone dreams, and people have been fascinated by dreams throughout recorded history. But scientifically, their origin and importance remain uncertain. Do they serve some vital psychological or physiological function? Or are they just meaningless accidents of our brain’s wiring? A few years ago, Finnish psychologist Antti Revonsuo theorized that dreams evolved as a way to rehearse threatening situations. Silvio Scarone of the Universita degli Studi de Milano in Milan, Italy, explains it this way: “The environment in which the human brain evolved included frequent dangerous events that posed threats to human reproduction. These would have been a serious selection pressure on ancestral human populations and would have fully activated ...Do you suffer from gelatophobia?
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/10/Gelotophobia.mp3[/podcast] It’s getting on toward Christmas, which means A Charlie Brown Christmas will soon be on TV...and we’ll once again get to watch Lucy give her nickel’s worth of psychiatric advice to Charlie Brown, listing all the phobias he could be subject to. One she won’t list is gelotophobia, which, though it sounds like it means a fear of Italian ice cream (and, yes, everyone who writes about it makes that same joke), actually means a fear of being laughed at. More: those with gelotophobia find it difficult or impossible to distinguish between playful teasing and ridicule. To them, all laughter is aggressive. Not surprisingly, this can cause enormous problems in their social relationships. Lots of other people don’t have a phobia, but ...The silent majority
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/10/The-Silent-Majority.mp3[/podcast] It’s probably happened to you. It’s certainly happened to me. You’re at some social gathering or public event when someone says something so outrageously extreme that you can’t believe it. The thrower of this verbal bombshell seems to assume everyone agrees with him...and since no one speaks up, except for a couple of people who express approval, you come to the conclusion that he’s right, that you’re the odd person out, and that, therefore, “This group is more left-wing/right-wing/certifiably insane than I thought!” Take heart: you probably aren’t as out of step with the beliefs of others in the group as you think. The person making the extreme statements may think his views are in the majority...but he’s very likely wrong. That’s the indication ...The benefits of chatspeak
When it comes to the brave new world of interpersonal communications via electronic networks, I believe I do quite well for a man who is...how can I put this delicately...no longer teenaged. Or twenty-something. Or thirty-something. Or, as of this summer, even forty-something. Despite my advancing years, however, I am still a with-it and happening dude. Not only do I, as you can see, have a firm grasp on the very latest hip-hop jive talk the young folks use, but I do all of the following, dear reader: Tweet, blog, podcast, Facebook, LiveJournal, and Flickr. (I used to MySpace, but I gave it up.) I do not, however, chat, IM, or text. It will come as no shock to anyone who has spent any ...The thrill of the chase
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/09/The-Thrill-of-the-Chase.mp3[/podcast] I had a hard time getting started on this column. See, as I was calling up the items I’d starred in Google Reader as possible topics, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to do a quick search for new reviews of my latest novel. And then I thought, well, as long as I’m online, maybe I’ll just skim through some blogs...and maybe check Facebook...and... Well, you get the idea. Fact is, you’re lucky to be getting this column at all. Which is ironic, because my jumping-off point is an article from Slate, written by Emily Yoffe, titled “Seeking: How the brain hard-wires us to love Google, Twitter, and texting. And why that’s dangerous.” There’s no doubt that the seeking out of information ...Arachnophobia
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/09/Arachnophobia.mp3[/podcast] “The itsy-bitsy spider went up the waterspout. Down came the rain, and washed the spider out...” At which point a large percentage of us screamed and ran the other way, because surveys show that one fifth of men and a third of women are frightened of arachnids. It makes sense, right? Spiders can be poisonous. But so are stinging insects such as bees and wasps, and yet we seem to hate spiders more. At the University of Wurzburg, Germany, psychologist Georg Alpers asked 76 students to rate photos of spiders, wasps, bees, beetles, butterflies and moths on how much fear and disgust they inspired and how dangerous they were. Spiders topped the list in all three categories—even though all bees can ...Guilt trip
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/08/Guilt.mp3[/podcast] Guilt has gotten a bad reputation in recent years. People talk about being “plagued by guilt” as if guilt were some kind of mental illness. But in fact, guilt is a very useful emotion. People who are entirely guilt-free have no constraints on their behavior. They can cheerfully commit all kinds of mayhem, from bullying to petty vandalism all the way up to rape, robbery and murder, and never feel a qualm: we call them sociopaths. Guilt, then, plays an important role in keeping civilization civil. But where does it come from? And how does it interact with that other important civilizing mechanism that scientists call “effortful self-control”—the ability to suppress impulsive behavior that might hurt yourself or others? New York Times science ...Insight into the theory of mind
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/07/Theory-of-Mind.mp3[/podcast] This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention, but in addition to writing nonfiction, I also write fiction—specifically, science fiction and fantasy. Now, the writing of fiction is a very odd thing, in that it involves the making up of characters: people who don’t really exist, but for whom the illusion of existence is created by the words the author puts on the page. Quite often, these people are very different from the author. I recently interviewed renowned Canadian science fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer for FreeLance, the magazine of the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild. The main character in his latest book, Wake, is a blind teenage girl, Caitlin Decter. Now, although Sawyer can draw on some experience at ...Are cognitive shortcuts making us fat?
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/06/Cognitive-Shortcuts-to-Obesity.mp3[/podcast] When we think about how we make decisions, we tend to imagine that we consider the facts of a situation carefully and logically, in a straightforward, step-by-step manner. But that process is, indeed, imaginary. The truth is that our brains prefer to do as little actual thinking as possible. They like shortcuts—and sometimes those shortcuts can get us into trouble. Take, for instance, what psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania call "Unit Bias," which, they say, “causes people to ignore vital, obvious information in their decision-making process, points to a fundamental flaw in the modern, evolved mind, and may also play a role in the American population's 30 years of weight gain.” The researchers conducted several studies with college-age participants. In one, the ...A universal theory of humour
[podcast]http://www.edwardwillett.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/A Universal Theory of Humour.mp3[/podcast] I am a very funny man. I have been told so, so it must be true. You can tell how funny I am by reading my very funny writing. Like this paragraph. This paragraph is very funny. It must be because I am a very funny man. I have been told so, so it must be true. Why we find things funny has long been a matter of contention in the scientific world, probably because humor itself is so subjective. I think the preceding paragraph is funny. You might disagree. But now I can trump your disagreement with science: that paragraph is funny because it’s based on the surprise repetition of patterns. Until recently, theories of humour have ...
Edward Willett is a The Shards of Excalibur, Book 1: Song of the Sword
My new YA fantasy novel, coming in October from Lobster Press
Before the Lady called her, Ariane’s life was a mess. Two years ago, her mother disappeared. She bounced around different foster homes until her aunt finally took her in. The meanest clique at her new high school has decided to make Ariane their prime target. And to top it all off, she is having frightening premonitions, and they are becoming more intense. The moment water touches her skin, she sees visions of a lake, a lady, and a sword. When a staircase opens up in the middle of Wascana Lake and the water begins singing to her, she has no choice but to answer the call….
Marseguro
Winner of the 2009 Prix Aurora Award for Best Long-Form Work in English
Water world Marseguro is home to the Selkies, a water-dwelling race created from human DNA. When an unmodified human seeks revenge on a Selkie by activating a distress beacon taken from the remains of the original colony ship, a strikeforce is sent from Earth to eradicate the genetic abomination. Yet Marseguro will not prove as easy to conquer as the Earth force anticipates…
Terra Insegura
Finalist for the 2010 Prix Aurora Award for Best Novel in English
Marseguro, a water world far from Earth, is home to a colony of humans and the Selkies, a water-dwelling race created from modified human DNA. For seventy years the colony has lived in peace. Then Earth discovers Marseguro, and a strike force is sent to eradicate this “abomination.” But Marseguro has created a genetically tailored plague to use against Earth’s Holy Warriors. With the enemy defeated, the people of Marseguro feel they are safe. But Chris Keating, the traitor who signaled Marseguro’s location to the Holy Warriors, has fled to Earth, unknowingly carrying the deadly plague within him. The people of Marseguro feel they must send a ship to Earth with a life-saving vaccine. Only time will tell what awaits them when they reach their destination.
Lost in Translation
Kathryn was a human empath whose world and life had been destroyed when the alien S’sinn slaughtered her parents before her very eyes. Jarrikk was a young S’sinn, an unproven warrior who’d seen his flight mates slaughtered by the humans who’d sought to colonize his world.
As humans and S’sinn found themselves on the brink of war, these two Translators had to work together to find a common ground and avert catastrophe. But whether their Translators’ oath and training could overcome the enemies leagued against them was very much in doubt…
Archives
Historic Walks of Regina and Moose Jaw
Ten walks to points of historic and architectural interest in the cities of Regina and Moose Jaw (eight walks for Regina, two for Moose Jaw).
Disease-Hunting Scientist
The true stories of six real disease hunters. Epidemiologists travel the world trying to keep us safe from deadly diseases—from high-tech labs in Canada to remote villages in Africa. Learn how these “disease detectives” are coming up with new ways to fight disease, and find out if you have what it takes to become an epidemiologist, too!
The Bounty Mutiny
The Bounty was a British ship visiting Tahiti in 1789 when some of the crew overthrew the captain, William Bligh, and set him adrift in a tiny boat with sailors loyal to him. The mutiny resulted in a number of trials–both of the men who mutinied and of Bligh for losing command of his ship. These fascinating events have been the source for numerous Hollywood movies, most recently The Bounty. The Bounty Mutiny: From the Court Case to the Movie explores the famous case and the movies it inspired.
