As urban populations continue to grow, we increasingly lead our anonymous lives in public. That results in people employing some interesting strategies to avoid interacting with strangers.
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The passing of America’s man of letters, quintessential as he was combative, has left the nation morally emptier. He once recommended Americans read two books above all others.
First lady Michele Obama has written a new gardening book. Called “American Grown,” the book extols the virtues of sustainable local agriculture, school gardens and childhood nutrition.
NASA engineer Adam Steltzner is driving his team to attempt the seemingly impossible.
If you want to adopt a new lifestyle that pays big returns, work less. Our idea that dogged labor produces the best results is relatively new and at odds with our knowledge of human performance.
If the Olympics are all about bringing the world together in one place to play, then William Shakespeare could be credited with holding the first London Olympics all the way […]
In some ways, it’s quite practical.
Last month, AlterNet published a column by James Rohrer, a history professor and self-identified progressive religious believer who had some unkind words for the New Atheists. I’d like to take […]
Writer Alain De Botton believes that status anxiety is more pernicious and destructive than most of us can imagine, and recommends getting out of the status-as-self-worth game altogether.
“Are You Married?” is supposed to be a YES/NO question, and not a short essay format. Still, in the exam blue book of life, some might prefer to give a […]
Sex symbol. Lethal weapon. Superstar. Chuck Norris dominator. Whatever epic descriptions we use to remember Bruce Lee, it’s hard to imagine this legendary martial artist once struggled in his career. […]
For a long time people thought that the self was unified and eternal. It’s easy to see why.
Women want to have the career, husband and the kids, but to have it all is very difficult—and it isn’t because women are incapable of doing it all.
We tend to think of the brain as a giant lump of gray matter, as a marvelously complex structure that controls consciousness and intelligence. But what if the human brain is […]
When I heard the news of Jonah Lehrer’s fabrications on Monday — indiscretions that led to an apology and his resignation from the New Yorker on Tuesday — my jaw fell. Like […]
New wearable devices like Google’s Project Glass and forthcoming smart watches will open community businesses by advertising directly to people who already like their products.
A team of University of Michigan researchers are experimenting with 145 differently shaped nanoparticles in an attempt to create new materials that can be engineered on the smallest level.
The military’s experimental research and development department and the National Institutes of Health will fund a project that mimics human organs on a single computer chip.
A new method for extracting energy from solar panels will allow expensive silicon semiconductors to be replaced by much cheaper metals, making the energy source more cost effective.
By analyzing tweets tagged with GPS location data, researchers were able to track the spread of flu symptoms across space and time, accurately predicting when people would fall ill.
There may be evidence of super-advanced civilizations in other galaxies who have learned to control the entire energy output of their parent star. And we could start looking for them.
Maybe it’s because the country’s shape tends towards a square, but Poland’s borders give it a solid, anchored appearance on the map of Europe. And yet those borders are relatively […]
I’m generally not so big in thinking in terms of decades or generations or centuries or hunks of time in general. Consider the Sixties. Is that decade really characterized by […]
In some crucial areas of human cognition, we don’t know and we can’t fully trust ourselves. On the bright side, Daniel Kahneman’s work shows that the kinds of errors we tend to make are extremely predictable.
The redoubtable fashion critic Simon Doonan, author of Gay Men Don’t Get Fat,observes that a unique appearance is a political liability in the United States. Mitt Romney, he observes, is “so handsome that he runs the risk of looking too “plastic…like a TV anchor.”
So you want to be Henry Rollins, kid? Bad news. The job’s already taken. The good news is that following Henry’s three golden rules gives you strong odds of success on your own, unique path as an artist/entrepreneur – the one that only you can carve out.
Here’s how not to put yourself on an exercise regimen: by making a firm resolution, gritting your teeth each day through a 45 minute workout, then grimly enduring a salad.
Fracking is yet another example of the subjective, instinctive, affective way human cognition deals with risks.
The team behind the 2008 Beijing Bird’s Nest Olympic stadium are at it again. Herzog & de Meuron joined forces with Ai Weiwei to create this summer’s commissioned installation at the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in […]
The London-based School of Life’s Bibliotherapy program has a growing fan-base among Londoners who appreciate its relatively low-cost, non-medicalized approach to the anxieties that are characteristic of modern life.