Success in running is not just a mental feat, it’s physical, too. And the good news is that science backs up the cliché that age doesn’t matter, or at least doesn’t matter that much.
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Two English professors have created the Action for Happiness movement which, by following a simple list of activities, aims to increase the amount of happiness in the lives of individuals.
For the first time, researchers have shown that a cell-based therapy for HIV/AIDS can reduce the amount of virus in infected people. Never before has the virus been eliminated.
Throughout this spring and summer, while Yemen’s protesters have continued their call for President Salih to step down, myself and several other Yemen observers have repeatedly warned the US not […]
This blog was published in 2011 at www.pamelahaag.com Few institutions invite—perhaps require?–cognitive dissonance like marriage. It’s remarkable, a marriage’s capacity to say one thing and do another, while all the […]
This was originally posted at www.pamelahaag.com One of the more important facets of our post-romantic age is that for perhaps the first time in history, you stand a good chance […]
As you have probably noticed, BigThink.com has undergone several cosmetic changes today, all intended to enhance your reading and viewing experience. We hope you like it, but we’re not done […]
This was originally published in 2010 at www.pamelahaag.com I was browsing through Amazon’s directory of book reviewers to find someone, and I ended up lost in the weeds for hours. […]
I confess that I’m a marriage rubbernecker. I was a fiendish eavesdropper even as a young girl, much to my mother’s embarrassment, and the dubious habit has finally been put to good use.
Americans are growing more interested in and perhaps enamored of matchmaking and arranged marriage, which used to call to mind Fiddler on the Roof or an expose on “primitive” custom. This tentative interest in arranged marriage in Western cultures co-exists with an international, thoroughly romantic, “love before marriage” trend, which suggests an amusing and fascinating cross-pollination.
Recently, while working on a piece about memory and smell, I came upon a concept that I’d never before heard about: blind smell. I’d read often enough about blindsight, the […]
Quick update for late on Friday – much more to say on Monday. I promise. Really. Anyway, some brief news: Alaska: The dome is continuing to grow at Cleveland in […]
It’s hard to normalize the celebrity marriage and divorce for the rest of us. After all, we’re highly unlikely to end up married to an immigrant ex-bodybuilder, mega-Hollywood action star turned Governor who impregnates a member of our full-time housekeeping staff. These divorces should be consigned to the marriage equivalent of a Special Victims Unit.
THIS BLOG WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT THE HUFFINGTON POST ON FEBRUARY 9, 2011 Romance fades. Everyone knows this. The first flush of true love in marriage mellows into something less […]
Kris Broughton, a classy and eloquent BIG THINKER, is a particularly fervent defender of our president. Nonetheless, he’s warming up to MITT ROMNEY. He even believes that his anti-Obama rhetoric […]
Like a biblical parable, the typical human-behavior experiment is easily told and easily reduced to a message: People who pay with credit cards were more likely to have potato chips […]
Economist Daniel Altman predicts that “deep factors,” including endemic corruption and a Confucian business culture, will limit China’s growth, causing it to surrender the top spot shortly after becoming the world’s biggest economy.
The fact that the rabies virus can spread from an infected neuron to other neurons connected to it makes it an almost perfect vector for tracing connections in the brain.
If 19th century relationships were about forming alliances, and 20th century relationships about passion, how will the relationships of the 21st century be defined?
What is wrong with Mitt Romney? Why is the Republican Party wasting its time looking under every rock in Creation (pun intended) for someone who is just about guaranteed to […]
After controversy over its hiring of C.E.O.s from outside the company, Hewlett-Packard has hastily named Meg Whitman its newest chief executive. She joined the board eight months ago.
As a film critic, it was unlikely that Roger Ebert’s life would read like a movie script. But it has. Surviving and overcoming personal obstacles has showed him the value of life beyond the cinema.
Remember back in June when President Salih narrowly escaped an assassination attempt and flew to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment? A number of people predicted that was the end. Analysts […]
Sean Parker rocked the music world when he created Napster; his vision and paranoia helped to shape Facebook. Now 31 with $2.1 billion, he says he is just getting started.
What makes Russell Simmons so successful in business and philanthropy? The serial entrepreneur shares his strategy on turning an idea into a successful enterprise.
Big businesses are (once again) learning the lesson that bigger doesn’t always mean better. When aggressive mergers put a company in financial trouble, arrogance may be the motive.
I’ve spent much of today traveling, but there is still a lot going on in Yemen. Hopefully in the next couple of days Waq al-waq will have more of a […]
–Guest post by Paula Orlando, American University doctoral student. Should it take a public intellectual to decide what a public intellectual actually should be? The literature on public intellectuals presents […]
Would you choose the state of equality and justice envisioned by John Rawls or the state of radical individual liberty envisioned by Robert Nozick? This question is posed by Yale professor Tamar Gendler in this week’s Floating University lecture.
Steven Pinker is a cognitive psychologist interested in language as a window into the human mind. In this excerpt from his linguistics lecture for the Floating University, he illuminates some of the mysteries surrounding children’s hardwired ability to learn language.