Welcome to the “So cool but no duh” category: Water is on the moon.

From the Wired.com article.

Observations from three spacecraft suggest that water is widely distributed over a thin layer of the lunar surface rather than locked up in icy enclaves predicted to lie at the moon’s poles. The results, detailed in a trio of papers posted online September 24 in Science, suggest that liquid water may be more available to future moon explorers than had been thought. Concentrations in sunlit soil might average about 1,000 parts per million, the equivalent of roughly a quart of water per ton of material. That water doesn’t remain on the moon, but comes and goes each lunar day.

Not being a scientist, it sounds like to me water forms on the surface of the moon when the sun warms the surface.  Is an area of the moon does not have direct sunlight does that then imply there is a lack of water?

It sounds like the water story was in NASA circles for a long time now (10 years) but wanted to confirm findings before really going public.

Aside from being really cool to finally confirm it, I want to point of the first rule of microbial ecologists: Where there is water, there is life.

A research article that is to be published in the Brain Research Bulletin is making the claim four major personality types – novelty seeking, harm avoidance, reward dependence, and persistence – are directly tied to the physical structure of the brain. Researchers say the brain differences can be measured by the size of specific regions of the brain that are associated with the four personality types.

Brain scans that measure differences in volume down to an accuracy of less than one cubic millimetre found, for instance, that people defined as novelty-seeking personalities had a structurally bigger area of the brain above the eye sockets, known as the inferior part of the frontal lobe.

People with smaller volumes of tissue in this region displayed higher levels of timidity, approval-seeking behaviours and a greater tendency to seek gratification from external sources such as food or drugs, said Professor Annalena Venneri of the University of Hull.

While my days of education in the world of Psychology are years behind me, I find this quite interesting as such a finding has the ability to impact the understanding of personal development.  It also has the ability to potentially alter discussions and views on metaphysical discussion (free well and what have you).

If tissue volume plays a role in determining what personality an individual has, what else does it play into?  Does size dictate what individuals will be prone to depression?  Substance abuse?  And how does the years of nurturing, or lack of, determine what kind of an adult a child will develop into?

The problem I have with the concept of Nature being the driving force in personal development is the lack of accountability in ones actions. Say it is fact the a part of the brain with more volume controls how shy someone is, and a person is shown to have this trait via testing, they have the potential to say “I can prove to you why I am this way and why I won’t change.”  It’s almost like a crutch – I don’t want to try to change, I don’t want to put myself in different situations because it won’t work…

So, ultimately, if volume does indicate potential personality types, can the personality be modified via exposure to other personality types and, if so, does the physical structure of the brain also change?

I guess this has the potential to be a case where size does matter.