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What Makes a Child an Art Prodigy?
The Atlantic: Stand before any abstract painting—try a Jackson Pollock or a Cy Twombly— and it’s inevitable someone will say: My child could have done that. For many, the dripping splatters or scribbles seem haphazard and simplistic, not unlike something an average toddler might do with a set of finger paints. And as contemporary art becomes more conceptual, it’s harder to know what makes a piece of art great: the object itself, the story behind it, or both?
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It Literally Pays to Have a Reliable Spouse
New York Magazine: Conscientiousness is not really up there among the sexiest qualities a person can have, but maybe it should be. New research in Psychological Science found that people who have careful, reliable partners tend to do better at work; they make more money, get more promotions, and are happier at their jobs. Marry a put-together person, in other words, and their put-together-ness will spill over into your own life, even into your workplace. Suddenly, put-together-ness seems very sexy. The researchers gathered their data via an annual survey in Australia that collects economic and social information.
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The Case Against Sharing Your Epic Vacation Photos on Social Media
Entrepreneur: We all have at least one of those friends (some of us are those friends), the kind whose Facebook/Instagram/Twitter feed is used exclusively to post photos and captions documenting how insanely epic life is: Here I am waltzing on a beach in St. Tropez! Here I am eating truffle shavings at a five-star restaurant in Tuscany! Wait, here I am right after getting a major promotion! Psychologically, it makes sense that many of us use social media to broadcast all the awesome stuff going on in our lives.
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Not Everyone Wants to Be Happy
Scientific American: Everyone wants to be happy. It's a fundamental human right. It's associated with all sorts of benefits. We, as a society, spend millions trying to figure out what the key to personal happiness is. There are now even apps to help us turn our frowns upside down. So everyone wants to be happy—right? Well, maybe not. A new research paper by Mohsen Joshanloo and Dan Weijers from Victoria University of Wellington, argues that the desire for personal happiness, though knitted into the fabric of American history and culture, is held in less esteem by other cultures.
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Why Don’t More People Want to Donate Their Organs?
The Atlantic: In 1998, Adam Vasser, a 13-year-old teenager who loved playing baseball, was vacationing in Montana with his family when he suddenly came down with what felt like the flu. When he had trouble breathing and his ankles became swollen, his parents took him to a nearby clinic where the doctor on duty checked his vitals and sent him directly to the hospital across the street. By the time the family arrived at the hospital a few minutes later, Adam was in complete heart failure. For months, Adam waited in a hospital for a heart transplant, during which time his heart was only able to pump with the assistance of a left-ventricular assist device (LVAD).
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Humans have innate grasp of probability
Nature: People overrate the chances of dying in a plane crash and guess incorrectly at the odds that a coin toss will yield 'heads' after a string of several 'tails'. Yet humans have an innate sense of chance, a study of indigenous Maya people suggests. Adults in Guatemala who have never learned a formal number system or a written language did as well as formally educated adults and children at estimating the probability of chance events1, the researchers found. Children are born with a sense of number, and the roots of our mathematical abilities seem to exist in monkeys, chickens and even salamanders.
