-
‘Literally,’ Emojis, and Other Trends That Aren’t Destroying English
The Atlantic: As an experimental psychologist, Steven Pinker thinks about writing. As a linguist, he thinks about writing. In The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century, the author and Harvard professor mines both the science of cognitive psychology—how the brain processes language, how we associate words with meanings, etc.—and the art of language to re-engineer the writing guide.
-
Opting Out of Adulthood Is Becoming More Common
The New York Times: Marriage, children, a paying job and a home are the traditional markers of adulthood. Take an economic collapse that has targeted young people, combine it with a growing culture of individualism and narcissism, and the result is that these markers are fading away. And this, to me, brings up the big question: Is adulthood being delayed or ignored? Certainly, many young people are working hard getting advanced degrees, or living with their parents to save money so they can successfully launch into adulthood. This is a rational response to the challenging economic climate. And it isn’t a radical new development.
-
Why Emotional Learning May Be As Important As The ABCs
NPR: Thomas O'Donnell's kindergarten kids are all hopped up to read about Twiggle the anthropomorphic Turtle. "Who can tell me why Twiggle here is sad," O'Donnell asks his class at Matthew Henson Elementary School in Baltimore. "Because he doesn't have no friends," a student pipes up. And how do people look when they're sad? "They look down!" the whole class screams out. Yeah, Twiggle is lonely. But, eventually, he befriends a hedgehog, a duck and a dog. And along the way, he learns how to play, help and share. These are crucial skills we all need to learn, even in preschool and kindergarten.
-
Blind People Can Echolocate
Smithsonian Magazine: Like bats, some blind people utilize echolocation—bouncing sound waves off objects to locate where they are—as a means of assessing and interacting with their surroundings. To do this, some snap their fingers, while others click their tongues, Health Canal writes. While researchers have known about this skill for years, the degree to which it stands in for vision is poorly understood.
-
Expressing Anger Linked with Better Health in Some Cultures
In the US and many Western countries, people are urged to manage feelings of anger or suffer its ill effects — but new research with participants from the US and Japan suggests that anger may actually be linked with better, not worse, health in certain cultures. The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. “Many of us in Western societies naively believe that anger is bad for health, and beliefs like these appear to be bolstered by recent scientific findings,” says psychological scientist Shinobu Kitayama of the University of Michigan.
-
For the Thrill of It All
The Wall Street Journal: In the late 1940s, the English adventurer Wilfred Thesiger set out on a series of journeys to explore the vast sand desert known as the Empty Quarter of Arabia. Together with a small band of Arab companions, he suffered multiple hardships, from freezing temperatures at night to intense heat by day—made worse by his decision to travel barefoot—and was haunted by the knowledge that the team was being pursued by bandits. One journey lasted seven months, during which the men were forced to live on vile food and two pints of water a day.
