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Kate Winslet and Ryan Gosling have the stuff of heroes. How about the rest of us?
Los Angeles Times: It's the stuff movies are made of, but this time it was real life: Actress Kate Winslet reportedly rescued billionaire Richard Branson's elderly mother from a burning home on Branson's private island in the Caribbean. And actor Ryan Gosling allegedly put himself in the middle of a heated New York City street fight, breaking it up. Should we consider these two celebrities heroes? And are most other people capable of the same -- of putting themselves in harm's way to help someone else?
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Anger Gives You a Creative Boost
Scientific American: We all know anger is bad… right? Generally, it’s unpleasant to feel and it often leads to undesirable outcomes. After all, when was the last time you lost your temper with your boss and was pleased with the outcome? However, perhaps you can also think of times when anger wasn’t so bad. Perhaps, in some contexts, feeling angry was actually beneficial. This counterintuitive idea was pursued by researchers Matthijs Baas, Carsten De Dreu, and Bernard Nijstad in a series of studies recently published in The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
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Be all you can be
St. Albert Gazette: It is estimated that, each week, three billion hours are spent worldwide playing video games. It’s a $30-billion industry with appeal that crosses international boundaries. World of Warcraft alone has logged almost six million years worth of gamers’ time globally. But why? What is it about the electronic arts that satiate the gamers’ thirst? Until now, most research has been dedicated towards investigating the effects of gaming, both beneficial and detrimental. We know, for instance, that video games can increase reaction time, visual acuity and the body’s dopamine levels.
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Most students drink not for the taste, but to get drunk: Study
Straits Times: The majority of people, particularly college students, drink alcohol not because of its taste, but to get drunk, a study found. 'They intend to get intoxicated,' Scott Geller, a psychologist and professor from the University of Virginia, was quoted as saying by USA Today. Although the individual may be well aware that drinking too much alcohol can have bad consequences, it is hard to stop them if they want to get intoxicated, he said. Read the full story: Straits Times
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How Do I Remember That I Know You Know That I Know?
“I’ll meet you at the place near the thing where we went that time,” says the character Aaron in the 1987 movie Broadcast News. He and the woman he’s talking to have a lot of common ground, the shared territory that makes conversations work.
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‘Shrimp On A Treadmill’: The Politics Of ‘Silly’ Studies
NPR: Biologist Lou Burnett was in his car when his cellphone rang recently. It was a CNN reporter, asking about the fact that his research had been featured in a new report about wasteful government spending. That was news to Burnett, who works at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. "I was pretty irritated," he recalls. The report, put out by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), blasted the National Science Foundation, a major government funder of research, saying it squandered taxpayer money on questionable science projects, including one pursued by Burnett and his colleagues that involved putting shrimp on a tiny treadmill.
