Mindset and expectations, not just the external environment, shape the “table of contents” into which our brains organize the day. The moment a person steps off the street and into a restaurant—to take just one example—the brain mentally starts a new “chapter” of the day, a change that causes a big shift in brain activity....
Delinquent activities almost always occur outside of the home and away from adult supervision, so it is only natural for parents to blame peers for their child’s bad behavior. Not surprisingly, many parents also assume that they can prevent future problems by limiting contact with suspicious peers. However, a new study cautions parents – especially...
A recent study finds that hope appears to be more beneficial than mindfulness at helping people manage stress and stay professionally engaged during periods of prolonged stress at work. The study underscores the importance of looking ahead, rather than living “in the moment,” during hard times. Mindfulness refers to the ability of an individual to...
For decades, winning an Olympic medal has been described as the Holy Grail of sports. Athletes aren’t the only ones in search of a Holy Grail. For example, in 2012, when physicists discovered the Higgs boson, a particle viewed as one of the fundamental building blocks of the universe, it was described as “a true...
A review of Steve Coll, “The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the CIA and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq” (Penguin Random House, 2024) Steve Coll’s latest work, “The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the CIA and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq,” seeks to explain why Saddam Hussein would put his regime at risk...
New research from the University of Ottawa (uOttawa) has provided a complicated glance into young women’s responses to interpersonal conflict, with retaliation often the answer to rejection and perceived social exclusion by other females. The study, published in Nature’s Scientific Reports, highlights the complicated nature of women’s interpersonal relationships by examining the stress arising from rejection, and...
The debate has raged for decades: Was it humans or climate change that led to the extinction of many species of large mammals, birds, and reptiles that have disappeared from Earth over the past 50,000 years? By “large,” we mean animals that weighed at least 45 kilograms – known as megafauna. At least 161 species...
A review of Ian Johnson, “Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and Their Battle for Their Future” (Oxford University Press, 2023) “To destroy a country’s people, start with destroying their history,” Gong Zizhen (1792-1841), a famous Chinese poet and intellectual from the Qing dynasty, wrote over a hundred years before the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rose to...
The platitude that failure leads to success may be both inaccurate and damaging to society, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. Researchers conducted 11 experiments with more than 1,800 participants across many domains and compared national statistics to the participants’ responses. In one experiment, participants vastly overestimated the percentage of prospective nurses,...
A review of research to-date reveals the complex nature of revealing a diagnosis of a sexually transmitted infection (STI) to a partner ahead of engaging in sexual activity. With individuals experiencing a variety of feelings and emotions related to the prospect of disclosure, the research shows that only around half or fewer individuals felt able...
