We have a general bias to read intentionality into things, to see things as happening for a reason, to believe that objects around us have been designed for some purpose.
Search Results
You searched for: D
I can’t really influence you most effectively if I don’t know where your mind is at now.
Coca-Cola is by no means the first company to ignore inconvenient animal behavior facts, so we shouldn’t be too hard on them. To Coke’s credit, they do support polar bear research and conservation efforts.
A UK study is one of a very few to address this commonly-held belief from a scientific perspective. It also suggests that multitasking should be considered when evaluating worker performance.
We need to learn to train our attention because, as with anything, attention is like a muscle.
How a “New Star” appearing in 1572 paved the way for us to truly begin understanding our Universe. “I conclude, therefore, that this star is not some kind of comet […]
Conservative NYT columnist Ross Douthat explores the next stage of creeping—and sometimes creepy—American libertarianism. We Americans are still becoming less Puritanical, if by Puritanical we remain a combination of religious […]
Have you heard about the Echinacea that was actually ground-up Parthenium hysterophorus, an invasive exotic weed in Asia and Africa which doesn’t do much for a cold but causes […]
When it comes to making predictions, thinkers who are hedgehogs barely beat “dart-throwing chimps.” Despite that, hedgehogs hog the spotlight.
Physicists trying to develop a quantum theory of gravity have found that they needed to dust off the “many worlds interpretation” and apply it to their theories in order to make them work out.
It’s much safer to be able to be a child and to be a mom.
Washed out by the full Moon on any other night, the lunar eclipse makes this one visible tonight! “All is well, provided the light returns and the eclipse does not become […]
William McDonough’s most profound concept is “Harvest of Value,” the basic notion that everything is a resource for something else. Simply put, waste equals food – the waste of one system becomes food for another.
In September I covered a paper that described the massive amount of bias created in the legal system in parts of the US where forensic laboratories are paid in return […]
What’s become clear is that, like romantic love, pregnancy is something that changes the risk and the reward processing circuit of the brain.
Lucha Libro is a literary version of the popular Mexican wrestling event. In this case, the luchadores are aspiring writers who have five minutes to come up with a short story in front of a live audience.
Is running up an inclined treadmill the same, physically, as running up an actual mountain? Here’s what science has to say. “Nothing worth having was ever achieved without effort.” -Teddy Roosevelt […]
Forget about gift shop miniatures: A San Diego man is taking pictures of the world’s great sculptures and converting them into files that he is offering for free to anyone with a 3D printer.
University of Tokyo researcher Huai-Chien Chang says that a missile outfitted with supplies and programmed to land softly could provide help within an hour.
As teachers begin using new and questionable methods, will students suffer and get left behind? “Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children.”–Dan Quayle As the first full […]
The power and agility of our brain was by no means necessary to hunt and kill animals, so why did the thinking organ become such an overachiever?
Someone is always getting killed. Someone is always getting assassinated. But there are also good things that happen in Afghanistan.
Rather than the six or seven you may have learned, your eye is capable of delineating a tremendous number more. But just how many, and what’s the explanation? “The colors […]
The race to build the world’s first 3D-printed house is on. Italian civil engineer Enrico Dini (the subject of an upcoming documentary called “The Man Who Prints Houses”) has plans to print […]
Having worked in fitness clubs for over a decade (and having worked out in them for two), I know this cycle well: the gym will be packed until mid-February. Attendance […]
Like the rest of the country, feminism has undergone one percent-ification. The most discussed books on women’s lives speak to privileged women while usually assuming, if only by default, to […]
It’s the most fantastic idea ever bandied about: that there are an infinite number of Universes identical to our own out there, and that everything that could have possibly happened […]
How the second most common element in the Universe is being lost from Earth, most of it for good. “I have this one little saying, when things get too heavy just […]
A few weeks ago I found myself engaged in an all-too-familiar debate. She was frustrated that I was not subscribing to her idea that ‘everything happens for a reason,’ and […]
Sickweather uses social media posts that mention sickness to create a geographical “illness map” so that users can navigate their way around potential “storm activity.”