If you ever have come across Chris Gethard, through the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, his “Beautiful Stories from Anonymous People” podcast, or his self-titled television show, you know that he embraces the unconventional, unexpected, and unplanned in his comedy. [ … ]
In “Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict,” psychology professor Ara Norenzayan explores how the great monotheistic and polytheistic faiths established themselves, and consequently how they’ve affected human behavior in societies throughout the world [ … ]
In his dorky, ridiculously comical, and downright nerdy book, “Fooling Houdini: Magicians, Mentalists, Math Geeks, and the Hidden Powers of the Mind,” Stone unravels not only his personal, and at times embarrassing, relationship with magic but also the history of magic itself. Covering everything from its roots and progression [ … ]
A child is born with about 100 billion neurons, the same amount that an adult brain has. What’s different is the amount of connections between the neurons. That’s what the developing brain is all about — firing and wiring and making connections. And that’s what our relatively young internet, or “global brain” — is all about, too. [ … ]
It’s one of those questions that probably spawned some of humanity’s greatest achievements — one that we’ve pursued for centuries and still don’t quite know how to word the answer to: What is happiness and where do we find it? Storytellers, philosophers, and psychologists have all tried to understand it, to find [ … ]
Cordelia Fine’s book, “Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference,” just may upend everything you’ve come to believe about males, females, and hardwiring. What if men aren’t naturally good at math and fixing things, and women aren’t [ … ]
It’s true that movies — and all art — is about what the artist intends and what the mind interprets. But films about the mind — the tricks it plays, the depths it sinks to and the feats it’s capable of — are guides to the zeitgeist of their era, as well as a window into the future. [ … ]
When making that big decision, do you go with your gut, or do you map out how your judgment will affect those around you? This has been an endless source of fascination for Joshua D. Greene. Greene has been busy bridging the gap between psychology and philosophy at Harvard University [ … ]
Some things have changed since Dr. Karen E. Dill-Shackleford published her first edition of “How Fantasy Becomes Reality” in 2009 — but not too many. Superhero movies still dominate the box office, Internet fans may have gotten a bit more belligerent — threatening film critics who would dare give their beloved franchise [ … ]
When I was 12 years old, I developed superpowers. I went to bed a normal middle-schooler and awoke to find my senses heightened. My alarm clock sounded like a siren, the sun burned my eyes, and my cereal milk tasted like a cereal milkshake. I could smell the furnace in the basement. Like many [ … ]
The world was supposed to end in 2012 … prognostication is a rife, global passion and pundits provide inexhaustible commentary on the future — whether on the economy, climate change or anything in between. Journalist Dan Gardner peers through the lens of cognitive science to expose the predictions industry and show us [ … ]
If you’re a parent, you’ve no doubt grumbled something about losing your mind. According to clinical psychologist Jonathan Baylin, who, along with Daniel A. Hughes, wrote “Brain-Based Parenting: The Neuroscience of Caregiving for Healthy Attachment,” maybe that’s not so far-fetched. [ … ]
Alzheimer’s disease afflicts an estimated 33.9 million people worldwide — 5.3 million in the United States alone. Most cases begin after age 65. But the condition is not inevitable. In his new book, “The Alzheimer’s Prevention Program: Keep Your Brain Healthy for the Rest of Your Life,” [ … ]
Cramming the night before seems to be the inevitable culmination of reviewing for any kind of exam — regardless of how old you are, its significance, or the complexity of the material. Some swear that it’s an acquired skill that can be picked up by making notecards of important terms, or spacing out reading sessions with a small reward. [ … ]
Based on Michael Crichton’s 1973 science fiction cult classic, the original film took place in a futuristic Western-themed amusement park, where the android entertainers malfunction and have many of the park’s human visitors running for their lives. In the television series [ … ]
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