Category: ideas

“Observing someone blame another for their lack of success ‘increased the likelihood that people would make subsequent blame attributions for their own, unrelated failures,’ according to a paper just published … Deflecting responsibility, in other words, is infectious – but there appears to be an effective inoculation.”

“Good intentions and police action may be no match for the encroachments of gadgetry and wirelessness. Life is and always has been full of distractions, yes; it may be that life itself is a distraction–from death. But our attention flits and wanders as never before. The consequences, outside the cockpit and the driver’s seat, are as yet unclear.”

“The researchers found that most people in countries widely described as collectivist have a specific mutation within a gene regulating the transport of serotonin, a neurochemical known to profoundly affect mood.”

“The idea that grief is work that we must do began with Freud. … [But grief] is not work, and it doesn’t occur in stages. It can be short-lived for some people and never-ending for others. Like breathing and consciousness and almost everything else about us, grief fluctuates.”

“If Kierkegaard were on Facebook or could post a You Tube video, he would certainly complain that we, who have listened to Prozac, have become deaf to the ancient distinction between psychological and spiritual disorders, between depression and despair.”

According to a study published in the journal Cerebral Cortex, people “with a gene variant limiting the availability of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) performed more than 20 percent worse on a driving test than people without it.”

“What are you thinking about? Which memory are you reliving right now? You may think that only you can answer, but by combining brain scans with pattern-detection software, neuroscientists are prying open a window into the human mind.”

If France can fine the Church of Scientology for “cult abuses,” how does the government there distinguish between cults and legitimate religions? Well, the French, being French, have a taxonomy …

“[D]o some languages contain an intrinsic bias towards pulling happy faces? In other words, do some languages predispose — in a subtle way — their speakers to be merrier than the speakers of other languages?”

“The folks at Zillow.com have created their first Trick or Treat Housing Index, which draws on the site’s real estate data to determine the top-five neighborhoods in Seattle and Los Angeles to maximize candy intake this Saturday.”