Category: ideas

“In her work, [social psychologist Katie] Liljenquist has found that being in a clean environment makes people more likely to behave ethically and generously. Her studies also show that using an antiseptic wipe absolves people of some moral guilt and that the simple act of cleaning gives people a sense of control, liberation and clarity of mind.”

“An Israeli company called eXaudios has developed a computer program, known as Magnify, that decodes the human voice to identify a person’s emotional state. … eXaudios is even testing the software’s use in diagnosing medical conditions like autism, schizophrenia, heart disease and even prostate cancer.”

“There’s reason to hope that any extraterrestrials who find their way to Earth might treat us with respect.”

A study based on more than 40 years of data indicates “that religious adherents in the United States – especially fundamentalist Christians – are more inclined than agnostics to harbor racist attitudes toward blacks and other minorities.” This paradox may arise because “organized religion …, by its very nature, encourages people to accept one fundamental belief system as superior to all others.”

“Fortified by an army of 600 volunteers and a politburo of adroit English speakers,” the Shanghai Commission for the Management of Language Use “has fixed more than 10,000 public signs (farewell ‘Teliot’ and ‘urine district’), rewritten English-language historical placards and helped hundreds of restaurants recast offerings” such as “monolithic tree mushroom stem squid.”

“Coaxing any computer into behaving like a brain is tough. Both real neurons and computer circuits communicate using electrical signals, but in biology the “wires” carrying them do not have fixed roles as in electronics.”

“If you look very carefully at those who end up being the best, you discover – by doing intensive tracking of them – that they do practise more, and better, than those in the class below them. That is a theme that extends to all achievements.”

Vlashki. Garifuna. Mamuju. “These are not just some of the languages that make New York the most linguistically diverse city in the world. They are part of a remarkable trove of endangered tongues that have taken root in New York – languages born in every corner of the globe and now more commonly heard in various corners of New York than anywhere else.” Including, often, the places where those languages originated.

“When your mind wanders, you’re not paying attention to what’s going in front of you. A new study suggests that it’s not just the mind, it’s the body, too; when subjects’ minds wandered, they blinked more, setting up a tiny physical barrier between themselves and the outside world.”

“In a test conducted by researchers from the University of Cologne, participants on a putting green who were told they were playing with a ‘lucky ball’ sank 6.4 putts out of 10, nearly two more putts, on average, than those who weren’t told the ball was lucky. That is a 35% improvement. The results suggest new thinking in how to view luck and are intriguing to [behavioral] psychologists.”