Why are some people more willing to put in hard work now for a larger payoff in the future? Neuroscientists believe the effect of dopamine contributes to how we tolerate the tedium of work.
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A new study has found parallels between bomb blast injuries sustained by soldiers and a degenerative brain disorder known to occur in athletes who box and play football.
Andy Warhol looked for fame any place he could find it, so news that a crater on the surface of the planet Mercury has been named in his honor comes […]
As I’ve written before, I’m a skeptical of claims, like Jonathan Gottschall’s, about the power of stories to make us better people. Adam Gopnik of The New Yorkeris skeptical too. […]
If you asked me how being a single parent has affected my economic prospects I would have to say for the worse…and for the best. You see, while parenting young […]
Researchers have a clearer picture on how a gene contributes to Alzheimer’s disease. It establishes a new objective in the fight against the disease.
Doctors lack the education to help cancer survivors plagued with treatment-related side effects. Cancer survivors are coping with long-term issues that they didn’t know existed.
I love this new song, “Satellite“, by the folk singer Anna Dagmar, from her upcoming album of the same name. It’s a (I assume) autobiographical account of growing up in […]
The ultrasensitive biosensor is the latest in the fight against cancer. The sensor catches cancer earlier than imaging and other monitor devices.
It is gratifying when people see you just as you want to be seen. But don’t count on it. If you like to think of yourself as a gentle person […]
Facebook acquired mobile commerce startup, Karma. This acquisition didn’t get nearly the attention it deserved. As Chris Dixon wrote about Facebook’s Business Model: The key question when trying to value […]
Research reveals a relationship between intellectual and cultural hobbies and weight control. Activities such as reading and going to see an art exhibit can help to keep off excess pounds.
High-tech fashion can be the game changer in medicine by turning health-detector devices into wearable accessories. These devices could make health care more popular in people’s daily lives.
What is the Big Idea? While Congress dukes it out over the federal interest rates on student loans, venture capitalist Peter Thiel has a solution for college students who don’t […]
Psychology is rich in findings that emerge from complex statistics done on the behavior of college students behaving for money or course credit. It’s fair to wonder, then, how well […]
In some ways, the brilliant Thiel might be our instructive Cartesian today, because he has no democratic illusions about the Cartesian “I.”
Like many college students, I took a semester abroad. I spent the first half of my junior year in London taking classes at UCL, exploring the museums, and learning the […]
Due to rising tuition costs, even students attending state universities are taking on sizable debt. Until what point does digging a financial hole now allow you to scale a golden mountain later?
What is the Big Idea? Step into a classroom in North Korea and you will find very little that differs from a classroom in New York City – chalkboard, rows […]
Yale philosophy professor Shelly Kagan unravels the reasons why death is considered bad for someone and finds them wanting. To be sure, he feels that death is bad for those who pass on.
The dating site for married people, Ashley Madison, has now been around for over a decade. What can we now learn about marriage and monogamy from this “sociological experiment on steroids”?
A friend recently asked me: why has public opinion on same-sex marriage “evolved,” in Obama’s coinage, while public opinion on abortion grinds itself deeper into a rut? It’s an interesting […]
One consistent theme I’ve found of investigating outrage is how often those who are outraged demand that legality align itself to their morality. Consider for example New York State’s non-criminal […]
New technology platforms and lingering job shortages mean volunteering will be increasingly motivated by self-interest. So is it still volunteering? Or should we not worry about defining it?
Compromise may be important to stable relationships but it can make the bedroom a very boring place. Sex psychologist David Schnarch suggests alternating between preferences.
As fathers play larger roles in their children’s lives, families are reevaluating old gender roles. But when two working adults are also committed parents, what energy is left for marriage?
The latest incarnation of the CEO as a unique corporate asset is the saga unfolding at JP Morgan Chase, where Jamie Dimon is supposedly under the gun for being at […]
Conor Friedersdorf doesn’t understand why Andrew Sullivan gushes so much about President Obama given the heavy importance Sullivan seems to place on a number of issues on which Obama has […]
In 1923, during an exhibition of his art collection that would become the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania, two years later, Dr. Albert C. Barnes told an interviewer, “I am […]