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Sleeping Like a Baby, Learning at Warp Speed
The Wall Street Journal: Babies and children sleep a lot—12 hours a day or so to our eight. But why would children spend half their lives in a state of blind, deaf paralysis punctuated by insane hallucinations? Why, in fact, do all higher animals surrender their hard-won survival abilities for part of each day? Children themselves can be baffled and indignant about the way that sleep robs them of consciousness. We weary grown-ups may welcome a little oblivion, but at nap time, toddlers will rage and rage against the dying of the light. Read the whole story: The Wall Street Journal
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How Cultural Stereotypes Lure Women Away From Careers in Science
TIME: Women may be underrepresented in science and technology not because they are less skilled in those areas or because they face specific gender barriers to entering these fields, but because they may find better opportunities elsewhere. That’s the conclusion from a new study by Ming-Te Wang and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh. According to the researchers, women have broader intellectual talents, which provide them with more occupational options. Read the whole story: TIME
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Can Meditation Make You a More Compassionate Person?
Scientists have mostly focused on the benefits of meditation for the brain and the body, but research suggests that meditation may also have impacts on interpersonal harmony and compassion.
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The Destructive Influence of Imaginary Peers
The New York Times: We humans irrationally think we’re rational. We think that we decide how to behave by weighing the pros and cons. In reality, the strongest influence on our decisions is the example of the people around us — even, oddly enough, when they are imaginary. Like most universities, Northern Illinois University in DeKalb has a problem with heavy drinking. In the 1980s, the school was trying to cut down on student use of alcohol with the usual strategies. One campaign warned teenagers of the consequences of heavy drinking.
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The Teenage Brain: How Do We Measure Maturity?
Holden Caulfield is the archetypal American teenager. Or at least he was, way back in the 20th century. His misadventures, narrated in J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, may seem quaint by today’s standards, yet the 17-year-old reveals many of the worrisome traits that we still associate with adolescence. He acts and speaks impulsively, then regrets his actions. He is unfocused, a poor student who gets himself expelled from school. He gets into fights, drinks way too much, solicits a prostitute and gets beat up by her pimp in his seedy hotel room. The best life plan he can come up with is moving west to live as a deaf-mute. He ends up narrating his lonely story from a psychiatric bed.
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Your Phone vs. Your Heart
The New York Times: CAN you remember the last time you were in a public space in America and didn’t notice that half the people around you were bent over a digital screen, thumbing a connection to somewhere else? Most of us are well aware of the convenience that instant electronic access provides. Less has been said about the costs. Research that my colleagues and I have just completed, to be published in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science, suggests that one measurable toll may be on our biological capacity to connect with other people. Our ingrained habits change us.
