The Daily brief: July 19, 2011

July 19, 2011, 6:10 p.m.

Voting matters | Stanford psychologists conducted research which found that voters are more likely to show up at the polls if they see voting as an expression of their identity. People are 13 percent more likely to vote if the wording of some questions focuses on the voters as individuals, the research found. Christopher Bryan, a postdoctoral psychology researcher co-authored the paper with Stanford psychologists Greg Walton and Carol Dweck and Harvard behavioral scientist Todd Rogers.  

Topping the charts | US News and World Report ranked Stanford Hospital & Clinics 17th on its Best Hospitals Honor Roll. Hospitals on the list demonstrated “unusually high expertise across multiple specialties.” Stanford also ranked high on US News rankings of hospitals adopting electronic records.

Car-dwelling | The City of Palo Alto plans to consider a new ordinance on July 25 that would make car-dwelling illegal. Violations of the policy could result in a $1,000 fine and up to six months in prison. Palo Alto’s homeless population has spoken out against the ordinance, claiming that it would criminalize migrant communities and make their lives more difficult. Advocates are also asking the city to consider alternatives to the policy.

Alphabet Soup | The New York Times Word of the Day cites Stanford linguist Arnold Zwicky and his coining of the term “the Colbert suffix,” which refers to Stephen Colbert’s proclivity for the word truthiness and “iness” in general. The word of the day is “neologism,” a newly invented word or phrase, or the act of inventing one.

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