The Link Between Teaching and Research – Does it Exist?

“There is no logical reason to expect productivity in research and effectiveness in teaching to be closely related, since research and teaching have different goals and require different skills and personal attributes. The goal of research is to advance knowledge, while that of teaching is to develop and enhance abilities. Excellent researchers must be observant, objective, skilled at drawing inferences, and tolerant of ambiguity; excellent teachers must be skilled at communication, familiar with the conditions that promote learning and expert at establishing them, approachable, and empathetic. Having both sets of traits is clearly desirable but not at all necessary to succeed in one domain or the other. Moreover, first-class teaching and first-class research can each consume well over 40 hours a week, so that time spent on one activity is inevitably time taken from the other. It should therefore come as no surprise if studies reveal no significant correlations between research productivity and teaching effectiveness.”
in Tomorrow’s Professor Blog

Why Talking to Yourself Might be The Highest Form of Intelligence

“Have you ever found yourself asking someone a question you’ve been puzzling over for a long time, only to come up with the answer half way through asking the question?”
in JUSTSEVENTHINGS

First replicating creature spawned in life simulator

When Wade posted his self-replicating mathematical organism on a Life community website on 18 May, it sparked a wave of excitement. “This is truly ground-breaking work,” wrote a fellow Life enthusiast, Adam Goucher, on the website Game of Life News. “In fact, this is arguably the single most impressive and important pattern ever devised.”
in New Scientist

Ernâni Lopes sobre Portugal

Este segunda ida do professor Ernâni Lopes ao programa Plano Inclinado deveria ser de audição obrigatória. “Absolutamente a não perder”!
http://sic.sapo.pt/online/video/informacao/plano-inclinado/2010/6/plano-inclinado-convidado-prof-ernani-lopes-em-debate-a-sustentabilidade-do-nosso-fundo-de-pensoes14.htm

Interview with Fred Brooks on the Publication of The Design of Design

“Eoin Woods talks with Fred Brooks, author of The Mythical Man-Month, on what motivated him to write his new book, examples of good and bad programming languages, how to recruit great designers, and the three most important pieces of advice for managing design projects.”
in informIT