Category: ideas

“It brings on something of an identity crisis to see Gen X’s formative years become part of the cycle of retro revivalism. How does an anti-nostalgic generation deal with the human reflex to sentimentalize its youth?”

“Perhaps boredom is designed to encourage people to adapt their behavior and to protect them from social toxins, just as its first cousin disgust is designed, biologically speaking, to cause people to adapt their behavior to real physical toxins.”

“Despite eons of mingling inside our cells, gene networks we’ve inherited from primitive, singled-celled ancestors have stayed separate. Our cells remain chimeras, a hybrid fusion of unrelated creatures.”

“A Billion Wicked Thoughts is just the latest non-fiction example of a growing obsession with science and neurology that has infected our contemporary narrative art forms.”

“To change the beliefs of an entire community, only 10 percent of the population needs to become convinced of a new or different opinion, suggests a new study. At that tipping point, the idea can spread through social networks and alter behaviors on a large scale.”

“Some measures of intelligence — such as performance on Raven’s Progressive Matrices in Des Moines and Scotland — have been increasing for at least 100 years. What’s most peculiar is how scores have increased.”

“If most people are mortified at the thought of being humiliated personally, why are they also so titillated by watching others embarrass themselves?”

“The growing body of research on happiness shows that as we pass middle age, our sense of well-being improves. Take the 2010 study that looked at more than 340,000 Americans and found that self-reported levels of anger, stress, and worry plummet at 50 and that a few years later, happiness rises.”

“The City Safety system was found to prevent about a quarter common low-speed commuter traffic crashes compared with cars that didn’t have the technology. We’ve been in this business for quite a while and you seldom see as dramatic a difference as these things appear to be making.”

“Fourteen years after Deep Blue stole Garry Kasparov’s crown — and in the wake of Watson’s triumph on the classic game show — some of the world’s top computer scientists are still struggling to best top-level players in the simple board game called Go.”