The super-human abilities of sports superstars like Roger Federer and Tiger Woods are self-fulfilling prophecies, says Jonah Lehrer. Because of their status, their opponents choke.
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Have you ever made a mistake while trying to execute the most rudimentary of tasks? Scientists have begun to understand why the brain sometimes loses its concentration for no good reason.
Since 2007, legislative concessions won by the National Rifle Association have made it easier for the mentally ill to reclaim their right to bear arms, sometimes with terrible consequences.
Quick note for this evening – Twitter follower @ikmar made me aware of an eruption at Soputan in Indonesia. The little news I’ve found about the eruption (Indonesian) have been […]
Washington was scandalized recently when MSNBC analyst Mark Halperin called President Obama “a dick” on Morning Joe. Halperin quickly apologized and was suspended for the remark, which he admitted was […]
When I dropped my daughter and her friends off at their senior prom last week I thought it would be fun to take a walk into the foyer of the […]
The words in every story I read about the Dominique Strauss-Kahn rape case seem to trill at the thought that he may go free. I am seriously convinced that we […]
In numerous health surveys around the world many smokers report that graphic images motivate them to quit. Non-smokers say they feel deterred from ever picking up a pack.
In recent years H.I.V. has begun to take a disproportionate toll on the southern U.S., including rural areas. What explains the disturbing numbers, and what can be done about them?
The secret to “mending broken hearts” has been discovered by scientists examining ways of repairing damaged tissue after heart attacks by using proteins similar to insulin.
Cancer research has found that injecting mice with tiny magnets and turning up their body heat eliminated tumors from the animals’ bodies with no apparent side effects.
Pounding away on a machine is so boring—unless you’ve got Keith Richards with you. Author Julia Sweeney explains how she got hooked on audiobooks and learned to love exercising.
Poor regulatory standards make it nearly impossible for consumers to get the truth about the presence of the cancer-causing preservatives nitrate and nitrite in their hot dogs.
Comparing Chicago’s healthcare system to Toronto’s, columnist Margaret Wente sees an American medical industry run amok with too much money and too much business influence.
Right now, mother nature seems to be assaulting 3 nuclear sites in the United States, one at Los Alamos and two in the state of Nebraska, all within the same […]
Plato’s vision of a harmonious state would scandalize liberals and conservatives alike. But some of his advice might be worth taking.
Comedian Stephen Colbert is satirizing the impact of money in politics by applying to form his very own Super PAC. The comedian submitted a real application and testified before the […]
We’ve been getting bits and pieces of the lava flow from Nabro for the past few weeks, but some images from earlier this week reveal the full reach of the […]
Sheena Lindahl and Michael Simmons met their third day of college and started dating on their fourth. Today their start up, Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour, takes business lessons on the road.
Just after ascending to the head of the nation’s largest school system amid a leadership crisis, Mr. Walcott worked to improve the system with school visits and contact with unions.
When President Obama asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to stay at his post, Gates made clear he would do so out of a sense of public duty, not an affinity for Washington D.C.
The satirist has successfully petitioned the Federal Election Commission to create a Super Political Action Committee, allowing him to spend unlimited funds to influence political elections.
Artist and recluse Terrence Malick is this year’s winner of the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. But it has been left to Brad Pitt to explain the film director’s unique working style.
My friend Tom Wayne, co-owner of Prospero’s Books in Kansas City, recently mentioned that he had come across the phrase “old school” in Charles Dickens’s Bleak House, written and published […]
Right now, we are in an unprecedented situation where three of our nuclear sites are simultaneously in danger of floods and fire. So far, there is no immediate concern for […]
As the August 2 deadline approaches, Congress continues to fight over whether and under what conditions to raise the federal debt ceiling. Both Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s have warned […]
Now the stuff of history books, the iconic photographs of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States were once front-page news: snarling dogs, baton-wielding police, high-pressure fire hoses, and […]
While we consider the Internet to be fundamental to the flowering of democracy abroad, what about here in America? The Founding Fathers could never have imagined an Internet “Kill Switch” bill passing through the Congress, or the government-mandated seizure of domain names, or the decision of the government to selectively shut down certain parts of the Internet. They also could never have imagined Wiki-Leaks or Anonymous or LulzSec, and the limits to what type of information governments should have to divulge.
How does someone decide whether or not to offer a bribe? While there is a general consensus that bribery is not exactly the most moral act in the world, the […]
Self-control: we could all use more of it. Even those of us who are best at exercising self-control on a daily basis have so-called hot triggers, the special circumstances that would make us, too, lose our cool and start to behave less than rationally.