The Journal of Brief Ideas

One thing slowing down the flow of research information is that the quantum of research, or the smallest publishable amount, is actually quite large, meaning that a lot of good ideas don’t get published (i.e. spread). Ideas stuck in a mind are no... continue reading

Why research reputation trumps teaching reputation in universities

In humans we see lekking behaviour in the general rule that people like being around successful people. This is why social A-lists exist. More generally as animal behaviour, a lek is a gathering of individuals for the purposes of competitive... continue reading

Ecofriendly Management of Plant Diseases by Biosynthesised Secondary Metabolites of Trichoderma spp.

The status of Trichoderma spp. in established research and industry is in view of its twin focal advantages of plant growth promotion and biological control. However, these features are fully expressed in field conditions primarily when an... continue reading

Develop a human-readable formal language for complex scientific models

Much modern research is based on complex models for complex systems. Examples are biological macromolecules, climate models, or systems biology. These models are too complex for publishing in journal articles. They currently exist only in the... continue reading

Phylogenetic tools and myths: reconstructing human prehistory.

Similar myths with a sufficiently complex set of traits that could not be the product of many independent inventions can be found around the world. Moreover, certain myths evolve very slowly and their emergence probably date back to the... continue reading

Is teaching about instruction or selection?

Teaching is commonly associated with instruction, yet in evolution, [immunology] (http://post.queensu.ca/~forsdyke/theorimm0.htm#Introduction), and [neuroscience] (http://www.mindcreators.com/NeuralDarwinism.htm), instructional theories are... continue reading

Religion and Terrorism: how to stop their affinity?

Terror attacks sometimes and suicide terror attacks always direct our attention toward religion. It seems that maybe all religions in some sense have dangerous, lethal potential because they suggest another kind of reality which is always this... continue reading

Explaining and Overcoming Intellectual Segregation

Among the many insights of Nobel prize-winning economist Thomas Schelling is his model of racial segregation. Observing urban dynamics in the United States in the late 1960s, Schelling modeled how individual preferences can lead to collectively... continue reading

The Galactic Astigmatism: Constraining the Milky Way Dark Matter Halo Using Ultra-Weak Lensing

An astigmatism is defined as an asymmetry of the front of the eye, causing light to not focus on a single point. Because the Sun is located ~8kpc off-center in the Milky Way, the integrated mass density of galactic dark matter varies significantly... continue reading

Repurposing antipsychotic and sleep disorder drugs as anti-parasitics

Antipsychotic and sleep disorder drugs represent a rapidly growing, global market (1). Novel drugs targeting melatonin (2), serotonin... continue reading

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This is the Journal of Brief Ideas - citable ideas in fewer than 200 words.

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