This holiday season doesn’t have to be full of brainless activities and presents, no matter how much Nerf is involved. Here are 12 ways to give the gift of knowledge this year.

For Kids:

Discovery Deluxe Touch Screen ATM Machine
This touch-screen toy ATM machine recognizes money denominations, calculates balances and uses both a PIN code and an ATM card, just like a real machine.
Pro: Teaches kids about the value of money.
Con: Doesn’t teach them about bank fees.

Spark Talking Globe
This touch-sensitive globe provides audio facts about the people, animals and geography of the different parts of the world.
Pro: Teaches kids about the continents.
Con: Makes kids think that Europe is purple.

Young Architect Kit
The Young Architect Kit includes all a child needs — paper, pencils, templates, blocks, stickers — to draw building floor plans and create a 3-D replica structure that matches the plan.
Pro: Teaches kids about architecture.
Con: Your kids will bill you $300 an hour to play with it.

Moon in My Room
This (not life-sized) replica of the moon mounts on a wall and lights up at night, rotating through 12 lunar cycles as a child follows along with a moon phase calendar and a CD narrates various lunar details.
Pro: Teaches kids about the lunar cycles.
Con: Might turn your child into a werewolf.

Discovery Tornado Lab
Pour water into the clear container, turn it on and watch a tornado form as sound effects make you feel like you’re in the midst of the action. Variable speeds allow for experiments regarding the damage potential of different categories of tornadoes.
Pro: Teaches kids about the science of tornadoes.
Con: Will invariably destroy your child’s toy trailer park.

Build Your Own Hot Air Balloon
This large, do-it-yourself balloon, made of tissue paper and propelled by cooking oil funneled through a stove pipe, can fly up to 200 feet high. For children over 15 years old — like the tykes in this picture…?
Pro: Teaches kids about the science of ballooning.
Con: Do you need to ask?

For Adults:

InfoScan 2 Elite Scanning Pen
This “pen” can scan 500 pages of text, which you can import into your computer. Or, use the pen’s dictionary to help understand the text, use the translator if the text is in another language, or use the audio function to hear it read aloud.
Pro: Makes for more efficient studying.
Con: You might forget how to read.

Kindle
Like an iPod for the literarily inclined, Amazon.com’s Kindle stores e-books (plus newspapers and blogs) on a small hand-held electronic device for easy access anywhere.
Pro: Lets you keep 200 books at your fingertips at one time.
Con: Lets 200 books slip through your fingertips at one time.

Life Size Skeleton
This full-sized plastic replica of a human skeleton is highly accurate and includes a movable jaw, removable arms and legs, and a removable calvarium (that’s the top of the skull).
Pro: Teaches you about anatomy and bone structure.
Con: You can never bring a date home.

Personal Library Kit
This kit of library items — date stamp, insert cards, pockets, “For Reference Only”" stickers, pencils — lets you become a librarian of your own stock of books, in case freeloaders want to borrow them.
Pro: Helps you keep track of books you lend to your friends.
Con: You will lose all of your friends.

Teach Yourself Icelandic
This set includes two 60-minute CDs and a that book teach Icelandic to beginners in a graduated process that includes self-tests, vocabulary, pronunciation guides and a glossary.
Pro: Teaches you a new language.
Con: You might have to move to Iceland.

Shower Genius Waterproof Notepad
Special all-weather, waterproof paper allows you to write on this notepad in the shower, meaning that your genius ideas will never be lost.
Pro: Increases productivity by letting you write as you scrub your nether regions.
Con: Not enough hot water to finish your novel.

They might need to come out with a new version of that “This is your brain on drugs” ad if a group of scientists get their way. In a paper titled “Towards Responsible Use of Cognitive-Enhancing Drugs by the Healthy” published in Nature, seven scientists from the US and UK advocate the use of brain-enhancing prescription drugs like Adderall and Ritalin as study and work aids in a manner similar to caffeine. Their Peter Tosh-like solution to “legalize it” aims to make these drugs legal, stopping an illicit trade that, according to the article, is sweeping through college campuses around the world.

The stigma of using “drugs” is hard to overcome, but the scientists want us to realize the benefits of medications like Adderall and Ritalin, prescribed primarily to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Positive side effects include increased focus and attention span, enhanced memory, heightened reflexes and the ability to start fires with your mind. (I’ll have to double-check that last one.)

The report argues that these drugs should be no more controversial than brain-boosting activities like reading, sleeping, going to school, using the computer, eating and exercising:

The drugs just reviewed, along with newer technologies such as brain stimulation and prosthetic brain chips, should be viewed in the same general category as education, good health habits, and information technology — ways that our uniquely innovative species tries to improve itself.

However, the scientists do realize the need for further study of the drugs’ effects and, if legalized, the need for their regulation:

We call for enforceable policies concerning the use of cognitive-enhancing drugs to support fairness, protect individuals from coercion and minimize enhancement-related socioeconomic disparities.

The scientists stop short of mandating brain-altering drugs in schools and workplaces (gee, thanks, Big Brother), declaring:

Employers, schools or governments should not generally require the use of cognitive enhancements.

However, they add:

If particular enhancements are shown to be sufficiently safe and effective, this position might be revisited for those interventions.

Could we someday see kids lining up for their shots of Ritalin alongside their mumps and measles vaccines? If so, the sugar cereal industry could go bankrupt.

USA Today has a nice profile on the educational potential of YouTube, something we highlighted a few weeks ago. In particular, it mentions a great non-profit, one-man organization called the Khan Academy, which has published almost 700 videos on YouTube dealing primarily with math but also touching upon finance and banking — including compound interest, home equity loans and the mortgage crisis. The Khan videos have become popular with high school and college students looking to supplement their schoolwork — and no doubt adults hoping to make sense of why their house is now worth less than their car.

Of course, YouTube videos shouldn’t be used as a replacement for formal education; they’re more of a study aide. Think of them as video CliffsNotes, which we all know shouldn’t be read in place of the actual book (ahem). While these videos have the benefits of convenience and replayability, viewers should be wary of both the picture and content quality. If a video claims that Harriet Tubman was Harry Truman’s post-op stage name, for instance, think twice about its reliability.

The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) has released its annual State New Economy Index, a ranking of “the extent to which the 50 state economies are structured according to the tenets of the New Economy.” Part of this ranking is what the ITIF calls “the digital economy,” a series of measurements of the states’ online conversion and readiness. The components of the rankings include:

• Percentage of the population online (#1: Alaska)
• Internet domain names registered (#1: Nevada)
• Use of Internet and computers in schools (#1: South Dakota)
• Use of Internet in delivering government services (#1: Michigan)
• Use of Internet by farmers (#1: Washington)
• Availability and adoption of broadband Internet access (#1: New Jersey)
• Percentage of prescriptions routed electronically (#1: Massachusetts)

Overall, the top 10 states in the “digital economy” rankings were:

1. Massachusetts
2. Nevada
3. New Jersey
4. Rhode Island
5. Virginia
6. Delaware
7. Washington
8. Maryland
9. Connecticut
10. Florida

Among other interesting findings, the study notes that the percentage of Americans online has increased from 46% in 2000 to 72% in 2007, meaning if you’re not online…how the heck are you reading this?

Can college drive you crazy? No more so than everyday life, according to a new survey conducted by Columbia University researchers and published in the American Medical Association’s Archives of General Psychiatry. The survey suggests that nearly 46% of college students aged 19 to 25 and 48% of of non-college adolescents the same age suffer from at least one psychiatric disorder. These shocking results are blunted somewhat when you take into account that alcohol abuse is considered a psychiatric disorder.

According to the study, 20.7% of the 2,100 college students polled suffer from alcohol abuse, while another 17.7% have personality disorders. Those of the same age group who don’t attend college are most likely to suffer from personality disorders (21.6%) and nicotine dependence (20.7%). Not surprisingly, college students were found more likely to abuse alcohol than their non-college peers, who were determined to have a higher risk of drug and nicotine addiction, as well as bipolar disorder. However, college students are much less likely to get treatment for their disorders.