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Family size is a much larger determinate of personality than the order of one’s birth. 

A pair of French researchers have discovered a virus of record-breaking size and mysterious genetic make up. Only seven percent of its genetic code matches that in existing databases.

We don’t think or exist in empty space; we need nourishment from the earth, literally, to live and create.

The challenge for companies and for people is to get focused, ruthlessly focused.  And part of doing that is the pruning and deselecting moldy ideas. 

Scientists have located the specific brain region involved in the spread of ideas. Called the temporoparietal junction, it could help clarify why some ideas fall flat while others go viral.

Many successful networks (biological or non-biological) experience breakpoints—instances in which more growth is impossible. Consider the story of 29 reindeer on St. Matthew Island, a narrow piece of land located […]

Keeping a secret is quite bad for you because it causes a lot of stress. 

China wants to challenge Anglo-Saxon monopoly on cultural soft-power? Don’t do it all in English! Why Zhongguo Meng, and not “Chinese Dream?” This we learn from history: Great powers (almost) […]

It probably won’t be as fun, but you may gamble less, say researchers at the University of Waterloo, who found that slot machines’ sound effects help trick players into thinking they’ve won even when they’ve lost.

There are multiple levels of “we” and multiple groups that can constitute this idea of who we are. We need to be aware of who we are including and excluding.

While Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley busy themselves making every aspect of our lives more efficient (except, perhaps, for the process of discovering these new technologies, learning them, and integrating […]

I always like to drink something that hydrates me at the same time because I usually forget to drink water.

Executives for the country’s only major coffee chain says the multinational company’s planned entry into their market should help entice more Colombians to try coffee drinks.

Estimates are that a third of the prison population has mental illness. 

Judas was often portrayed as a redhead. But now the gingers are fighting back

I find it fascinating that based on what we now know, we can’t yet say that it’s impossible to travel in time. 

Gardiner’s life-long immersion in Bach’s music—as performer and conductor, rather than as academic analyst—qualifies him perhaps better than anyone else alive today to recreate what it was to be the living, breathing, human Bach.

“We’re seeing an unprecedented epidemic of depression in our society,” says Dr. Andrew Weil, “More people are being diagnosed with depression than ever, including millions of children.  The latest statistics […]

As people in different countries are able to tell their own stories they are responding to the idea of Africa as a place of permanent suffering.

Leibniz complained in the seventeenth century about the horrible mass of books that was overwhelming Europe and he said threatened a return to barbarism. 

What if Conservative ideology is more Kafka than Orwell? Are the people who say they fear an imminent dystopia actually just really annoyed?

Behavioral scientists, neuroscientists, and psychologists have identified attitudes, beliefs, and other factors that contribute to risky behavior.

There’s a million apps out there, and if you look through all of them they’re doing remarkable things. 

The easiest way to get Americans, in particular, onboard programming is by frightening the bejesus out of them. 

We often want something to be illegal that we don’t actually want punished in a lot of circumstances. 

Online data fed directly into the brains of human beings via a “software/wetware” interface? We’re closer than you think. But the impact on humanity may be devastating. 

The tools that philosophers use are also tools for everyday life. 

            As extreme weather events seem to be increasing around the world, changes consistent with the kinds of things climate change is predicted to cause, many people are realizing something […]

Your assessment of how long something took has a lot to do with how much energy your brain has to burn during the event. 

For many of us, adult life is an extension of middle school awkwardness, mitigated only by a cultivated apathy. Sir Ken Robinson says it doesn’t have to be that way.