New neuroscience confirms what we have longed believed to be true: A warm and engaging handshake activates pleasure centers in the brain, overcoming awkward social interactions.
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As anyone who’s been watching the presidential debate series knows, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid comprise some of today’s pivotal political talking points, even if it’s not always clear what […]
As the nation’s middle classes loses the financial security it could once take for granted, the psychological state of many families may be falling into constant worry about making ends meet.
A team of neurologists have begun mapping how individual neurons communicate with each other to perform basic biological functions. Their work may yield new insights on mental health.
Researches who studied children from low-income neighborhoods from infancy to adolescence have found that educational tools correlate to a specific brain biology.
When voters are asked to explain the policy positions they claim to support, the complexity of the issues naturally makes them soften of their positions, improving political discourse.
Some links from the last week: • As you may have heard, my good friend and awesome secular activist Greta Christina was diagnosed with endometrial cancer. It’s fully treatable, but […]
Dear England, The British press has had its knickers in a twist over Americans appropriating Britishisms for some time, whingeing about it in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The […]
An article published in The Telegraph over a month ago remains on The Telegraph website with a headline that is so spectacularly incorrect that the BBC has reported that the article […]
When the nation’s manual on disorders and diseases is updated next May for the first time in 13 years, a new class of people may be diagnosed with having hypersexual disorder, or HD.
A new class of pharmacy, in which drugs are mixed for individual patients, lacks regulation, says the FDA. The practice is a result of higher drug prices and the allure of “personalized medicine.”
Two of nation’s highest authorities on genetics say they now plan to search for and sequence DNA from the surface of Mars. Others doubt whether we have the technology.
Summary: The compelling true story of the Renaissance humanists who rescued Greek and Roman philosophy from oblivion and wrenched the Western world out of the Dark Ages. After the collapse […]
The past four human generations have seen their lifespans extended more than the preceding 8,000 generations, but what are the implications of living so much longer?
While the experience of boredom may be unavoidable, we still go to great lengths to eradicate it. But the more we try, the more we become enslaved to mindless entertainment.
It’s 2012. Technology suffuses everything around us. The Internet and Internet browsers have been pretty mainstream for at least a decade. And yet, I continually run into significant numbers of […]
Have you ever sliced up a human brain? I’ll be honest: I’ve only done it once. I don’t remember much about it–it was a long time ago. But I recall […]
Today’s business climate calls for decisions to be made faster than ever. Big data can help managers achieve that while creating a positive culture of transparency and innovation.
Are Christian notions of evil so outmoded as to be irrelevant? Or does anger at injustice imply belief and faith in a universal goodness? What do we really mean by the world “evil”?
People who think a risk will actually affect them and their families and communities, as opposed to somebody else, worry about that risk more. People who think a risk is […]
Electronic word-of-mouth is essential for spreading today’s most important ideas. Using Darwin’s theory of evolution, we can better understand how ideas become popular.
From Fortune 500 companies to Presidential campaigns, it seems everyone has bought into the power of memes to move a message. And nobody bought in earlier than Ben Lashes, the […]
In his post at The Stone on Wednesday, Gary Gutting urges us to recalibrate our assessments of presidential candidates in two ways: (1) by putting less stock in candidates’ successes […]
A comprehensive study out of Sweden suggests that creative people are more likely to have bipolar disorder, particularly writers. The implication is that art can be used as therapy.
Lean thinking is not only good for a company’s bottom line. It can also be applied to the challenges of sustainability and conserving natural resources, which also makes good business sense.
Nobody disputes the rising wealth inequality in the US. So with the nation’s political agenda centered squarely on the economy, should it be a policy goal to reduce income inequality?
Although the initial riots and flare-ups of violence over the “Innocence of Muslims” video were over a month ago, the global battle over blasphemy laws is still raging. In London […]
So I’ve gotten a lot (meaning several) emails complaining that I haven’t gotten around to keeping my promise of talking about Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind. Well, sorry. […]
Marc Tucker, President and CEO of the National Center on Education and the Economy, had a blog post back in August titled Instructional Technology: Villain of the Piece – or Savior? In […]
The amygdala is a part of the brain that plays a key role in processing emotions. How does the amygdala function differently in a psychopath’s brain from that of a normal person?