Life in a Northern Town

Oh my God, they've discovered real-life Kryptonite!

Sort of. Apparently they found a mineral that happens, coincidentally, to match the purely fictitious "pulled it out of our asses" composition of Kryptonite.

But still! This made my inner geek very happy.

Interesting link from klostes -- The Power (And Peril) of Praising Your Kids

The gist of it: contrary to conventional wisdom, studies show -- with fairly convincing results, IMHO -- that telling kids they're smart not only doesn't help them perform well in school, but makes them do worse due to performance anxiety and fear of failure. Praising kids for working hard and praising specific areas of performance, however, makes them do better. It's fairly common-sensical, actually, but as the article writer (speaking as a parent) points out, quite difficult to put into practice!

On top of that, the mammalian brain appears to have a delayed-gratification circuit that actually can be trained to function better -- an "if at first you don't succeed, try again" circuit that atrophies if it's not used. Kids who learn to try harder will find it easier to keep trying harder -- and the way to get them to do that is by telling them that intelligence is not innate and has to be exercised in order to remain functional.