Right or left, independent or apathetic, one thing is certain: The Republican Presidential field has been an interesting watch over the last year. Though every candidate has had his or her moment in the limelight, the automatic front-runner has universally been considered to be Mitt Romney. However, new Gallup Polls seem to indicate the opposite, and the Romney camp is reportedly bracing for impact.

According to the numbers, Romney is in fact sinking, while rival Newt Gingrich is rising. The national poll has Romney in front 30-20, but that’s down from a 23-point lead at the start of the week. Polls specific to South Carolina are worse, and the Romney-for-Prez team is preparing the spin:

“Do I think we could lose South Carolina?” says strategist Stuart Stevens. “Sure. Of course.” He continues:

“The very idea that we are sitting where we are two days before South Carolina, having won New Hampshire, having done very well in Iowa, and the question is, ‘Could Romney lose South Carolina,’ is such an absurd question,” he says. “The idea should be does he have a chance in South Carolina.”

The results, based on Gallup Daily tracking from Jan. 15th through the 19th, only partially reflect what has been a dynamic field this week. Two candidates have withdrawn (John Huntsman and Rick Perry), Gingrich’s dirty marital laundry is being dragged out again, Romney’s tax returns keep getting the wrong attention, a confusing announcement that Santorum won Iowa rather than a spirited Romney, and the lively South Carolina debate where Gingrich sank his teeth into the news media and the debate moderator have been some of the highlights in the political sphere just this week.

South Carolina polling shows Gingrich as the favorite, which (personal scandals notwithstanding) could tighten the race in favor of the former speaker.

Here’s a nice piece put together by our pals at Newsy:

Make no mistake, dear readers: this year, things get real, and no matter what is happening now, the game is still pretty much anyone’s, even Mitt Romney’s.

Do you think Romney can still win South Carolina and the nomination?

Mitt Romney v. Newt Gingrich: Former’s Camp Worried He’ll Lose South Carolina is a post from: The Inquisitr

You know when you meet someone and you feel like you’ve known them since time immemorial and you’re total instant BFFs?

According to a limited study at Princeton utilizing MRI scans, it like totally happened. The study used magnetic resonance to monitor brain patterns during conversations and found some evidence to back up conversational “clicking”:

The scans showed that the listeners’ brain patterns tracked those of the storyteller almost exactly, though trailed 1 to 3 seconds behind. But in some listeners, brain patterns even preceded those of the storyteller.

“We found that the participants’ brains became intimately coupled during the course of the ‘conversation’, with the responses in the listener’s brain mirroring those in the speaker’s,” says Uri Hasson of Princeton University.

Hasson’s team measured overlap in the patterns between participants, showing when the overlap in brain patterns was similar, listeners recounted stories more accurately. The “clicking” didn’t occur when the stories were told in Russian, a language unintelligible to the listeners. Concluded Hasson:

“The more similar our brain patterns during a conversation, the better we understand each other.”

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Scientific evidence found for “totally clicking” with someone is a post from: The Inquisitr

Yale, Oxford, and the University of California schools are also testing Kindle for class uses. The UC system already has about 40 percent of its texts available for download. Princeton, though, will be the first school to offer a textbook on Kindle before the hard copy is even out: The university will offer a new economics book electronically two weeks prior to the regular edition’s release.

Surprisingly, though, the Kindle editions don’t come much cheaper than the always expensive standard college texts. Most of the electronic offerings run just a few bucks less than their printed counterparts — and, of course, the Kindle itself costs $359, so it’ll take a lot of downloads to pay off financially.

Universities Taking Kindly To Kindle is a post from: The Inquisitr