By Jonah Lehrer I’ve got a short essay this weekend in the Wall Street Journal on the dismal psychology of power: When CEO Mark Hurd resigned from Hewlett-Packard last week in light of ethics violations, many people expressed surprise. Mr. Hurd, after all, was known as an unusually effective and straight-laced executive. But the public shouldn’t [...]
Religious leaders should be held accountable when their irrational ideas turn harmful Every two years the National Science Foundation produces a report, Science and Engineering Indicators, designed to probe the public’s understanding of science concepts. And every two years we relearn the sad fact that U.S. adults are less willing to accept evolution and the [...]
Your online traces are helping fuel a revolution in the understanding of human behaviour – one that's revealing the mathematical laws of our lives A data revolution that can help us understand social connections (Image: Glow Images/Getty) 1 more image EVERY move you make, every twitter feed you update, somebody is watching you. You may [...]
Without Mark Zuckerberg, will Facebook be the same? (Image: Justin Sullivan / Getty) Jim Giles Here's one of the scariest passages from The Facebook Effect: "In five years there won't be a distinction between being on and off Facebook," says a former Facebook employee who claims still to be "deeply involved" with the company. "It [...]
The children of lesbian parents outscore their peers on academic and social tests, according to results from the longest-running study of same-sex families. Kid lucked out (Image: David Ellis/Getty) The researchers behind the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study say the results should change attitudes to adoption of children by gay and lesbian couples, which is [...]
LANGUAGES are wonderfully idiosyncratic. English puts its subject before its verb. Finnish has lots of cases. Mandarin is highly tonal. Following inbuilt rules (Image: Charles Gullung/Getty) 1 more image Yet despite these differences, one of the most influential ideas in the study of language is that of universal grammar. Put forward by Noam Chomsky in [...]
Studying animal conflicts could help shed light on human wars – that is the hope from a study of the choices that monkeys make when deciding to fight or remain at peace. Maintaining my status (Image: Fletcher & Baylis/SPL) Competition for resources is often assumed to be a main cause of conflict in both humans [...]
WHEN Indian sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar and his ensemble played at Madison Square Garden, New York, in 1971, the audience broke into rapturous applause at the first short pause. "Thank you," said Shankar. "If you appreciate the tuning so much, I hope you will enjoy the playing more." Music from unfamiliar cultures can often sound [...]
BONDING TOUCH: Many babies do not get as much physical contact or emotional engagement with care givers as they crave. An expert in the field explains how these behaviors can influence child development. ISTOCKPHOTO/AREKMALANG Touch and emotional engagement boost early childhood development, but can children recover from neglectful environments? The stark institutional isolation prevalent in [...]
ScienceDaily (May 3, 2010) — It can be difficult for parents of teenagers to come to terms with the fact their kids may have sex, particularly given widespread concerns about the consequences of teen sexual activity. In fact, a new study from North Carolina State University shows that many parents think that their children aren’t [...]
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