Mind Wandering, or Getting your Einstein On
Does your mind tend to wander? Most people believe that their minds wander about 10% of the time. Researchers at UC Santa Barbara put...
Beyond the Punchline: The Real Meaning of Laughter
“What keeps a dyslexic agnostic up at night? Wondering if there really is a dog.” You can debate whether that’s funny or not, but either...
The Happiness Epidemic: Catching a Habit
What do behavioral traits and infectious diseases have in common? According to researchers James Fowler and Nicholas Christakis, quite a...
Six Strategies for Avoiding the Truth
Are you lying to yourself every day? Depends: are you a "Bayesian Updater?" Hopefully you are. The term is named after Reverend Thomas...
How to Run Your Company Like Da Vinci
It's hard to overestimate the power of whole-brain thinking. Sometimes defined as "systems thinking", it occurs when your creative right...
Lance Armstrong, and The Biology of Cheating Your Body
Lance Armstrong is a cheater. For some, it was a shocking revelation. For the French cycling world, it was a classic I-told-you-so...
The mouth: the brain's indispensable third hand
One day, back when my son was in the crawling phase, he honed in my wife's grandmother's antique comb and brush set. I found him...
Why Cinnabon is smarter than you and me combined
So somehow you find yourself stuck in the Mall of America, mannequins staring vacantly at you from all sides, dressed in the latest...
Why Meditation Might be More Important than Intelligence
When was the last time you had a three-foot tamping rod blow through your prefrontal cortex, taking with it about a half teacupful of...
The Most Powerful Four-Letter Word Isn't What You Think It Is
Our brains are programmed not to lose. It's called loss aversion, and it makes sense. If our ancient ancestors lost even a meager food...
