-
So You Think You’re Smarter Than A CIA Agent
NPR: The morning I met Elaine Rich, she was sitting at the kitchen table of her small town home in suburban Maryland trying to estimate refugee flows in Syria. It wasn't the only question she was considering; there were others: Will North Korea launch a new multistage missile before May 10, 2014? Will Russian armed forces enter Kharkiv, Ukraine, by May 10? Rich's answers to these questions would eventually be evaluated by the intelligence community, but she didn't feel much pressure because this wasn't her full-time gig. "I'm just a pharmacist," she said. "Nobody cares about me, nobody knows my name, I don't have a professional reputation at stake.
-
Feeling Grateful Makes You A Better Saver And Investor, Study Shows
Forbes: How were you feeling the day you had to turn in the form telling your benefits department what percent of your salary you wanted to set aside for your 401K? Or the time you were deciding to rack up $5,000 in credit card debt so you and your spouse could take a two-week cycling vacation in the south of France? What mood were you in when you got that $10,000 check from your late aunt’s estate and were debating whether to invest it all in your Vanguard index fund or spend$1,500 on that leather jacket you’d been coveting?
-
Taking Notes by Hand Benefits Recall, Researchers Find
The Chronicle of Higher Education: Distractions posed by laptops in the classroom have been a common concern, but new research suggests that even if laptops are used strictly to take notes, typing notes hinders students’ academic performance compared with writing notes on paper with a pen or pencil. Daniel M.
-
Why do humans laugh? (Hint: It’s rarely because something’s funny.)
Slate: On Jan. 30, 1962, three schoolgirls started giggling in a boarding school classroom in the northeastern corner of what is now Tanzania—and touched off a very strange epidemic. The three couldn’t stop laughing—and soon the uncontrollable cackles spread to their classmates. The laughing attacks lasted from a few minutes up to a few hours; one poor girl reportedly experienced symptoms for 16 straight days. Victims couldn’t focus on their schoolwork, and would lash out if others tried to restrain them. When 95 of the school’s 159 pupils had come down with what came to be known as omuneepo, the Swahili word for laughing disease, the school shut down.
-
Preschoolers’ Innate Knowledge Means They Can Probably Do Algebra
TIME: Give a three-year old a smartphone and she’ll likely figure out how to turn it on and operate a few simple functions. But confront her with an algebra problem and ask her to solve for x? Not likely. For decades, child developmental psychologist Jean Piaget convinced us that young, undeveloped minds couldn’t handle complex concepts because they simply weren’t experienced or mature enough yet. Piaget, in fact, believed that toddlers could not understand cause and effect, that they couldn’t think logically, and that they also couldn’t handle abstract ideas. ...
-
Clashing Over Office Clutter
The Wall Street Journal: All nine employees of TheSquareFoot.com in New York City have neat, clean desks—except one. Co-founder Jonathan Wasserstrum's desk and the floor around it are strewed with paper, files, tech gear and old boxes. "I like being near my stuff rather than fishing for it in a cabinet somewhere," he says. Being near Mr. Wasserstrum's stuff is harder for Justin Lee, the company's other co-founder. At times, "some of his crud will spill over onto my desk," Mr. Lee says. Other co-workers at the online commercial real-estate leasing and brokerage company sometimes print new copies of documents to avoid handling food-smeared paperwork from Mr. Wasserstrum's desk. ...
