Phenomenon #1: Digits vs. the Visual Expanse they Occupy

In brief: The legibility of digits in a crossed out or highlighted series appears to block quick location of the next digit in the series to cross out.

Description: Today I was helping a friend do a manual tally of her teaching evaluations. To do this I set up a Word document with a table. In the table there was a row for each question we were to tally, with blank boxes in the row for each score on the rating scale (Excellent, Very good, etc.--lots of excellents in fact!). The plan was to record, in each box, the number of evaluations with a given score, as she read the scores aloud. Specifically, the plan was to use the tallying strategy where you make a vertical stroke for each item, up to four strokes, and then make a horizontal stroke through the group, to count five. I thought this would make for easier totalling at the end.

But it turns out that when you're doing multiple counts in different boxes, and looking from box to box, it's hard to quickly see whether there are four strokes in the group, i.e., whether a horizontal stroke is called for. (It's very different if you're doing just one count, in which case the four vertical strokes, then one horizontal, system works well.)

Animal #1: In the Sway of Light: Animal Machines and Activity-Passivity

"Bad Memories Written With Lasers" (BBC News) describes a technique wherein memories are written into fly brains with lasers. An article in the most recent Wired, "Powered By Photons" (not online yet) describes what I presume is some of the background to this sort of manipulation. Genes from an algae are introduced into the brain via viral vector, in anatomically selective regions, with selective uptake by various kinds of neurons. This allows fine targeting of the neurons that will take up the gene. The gene produces proteins that open channels in cells walls when photons hit them; another variety of such a gene-protein, responsive to a different light wavelength, closes channels. The upshot is neural firings can be controlled by light. (This area of exploration now has its own name: optogenetics.)