-
The Joy of a Sun Bath, a Snuggle, a Bite of Pâté
The New York Times: Two ring-tailed lemurs, perhaps a pair, perhaps just two guys out to catch a few rays, sit side by side tilted back as if in beach chairs, their white bellies exposed, knees apart, feet splayed to catch every last drop of the Madagascar sun. All they need are cigars to complete the picture. There’s a perfectly good evolutionary explanation for this posture. Scientists use the term “behavioral thermoregulation” to describe how an animal maintains a core body temperature. But as the animal behaviorist Jonathan Balcombe points out in his exuberant look at animal pleasure, “The Exultant Ark,” they are also clearly enjoying themselves. A scientist through and through, Dr.
-
The Willful Blindness of Rupert Murdoch
The Huffington Post: After every institutional debacle, the arguments are the same: it was just a few bad apples. Nobody at the top is to blame. A few rogue, or over-zealous employees just went off piste. Then the full scale of the debacle emerges and another face-saving fiction emerges: no one could possibly have seen this coming. Both arguments were wrong in Abu Ghraib, at Enron, WorldCom, BP, Countrywide and Lehman Brothers and both are wrong today at News International. The phone hacking scandal, and the enormous price paid for it by News Corporation, isn't the unfortunate byproduct of a few naughty freelancers. Nor was it an unpredictable, unforeseeable event.
-
Soccer: le secret des tirs de barrage
Metro Montreal: Au lendemain de la défaite des États-Unis contre le Japon en tirs de barrage dimanche en finale de la Coupe du monde de soccer féminin, il est de bon ton de se pencher sur une étude qui affirme que les gardiens de but ont tendance à plonger à droite plus souvent quand leur équipe tire de l’arrière durant une fusillade. Pendant les tirs au but, les Américaines n’ont fait mouche qu’une fois en quatre tentatives, tandis que les Japonaises ont marqué trois fois sur quatre frappes. Or, à chacun des quatre tirs nippons, la gardienne américaine s’est lancée vers la droite… Intéressant. Lire plus: Metro Montreal
-
Work Engagement, Job Satisfaction, and Productivity—They’re a Virtuous Cycle
Engaged workers—those who approach their work with energy, dedication, and focus—are more open to new information, more productive, and more willing to go the extra mile. Moreover, engaged workers take the initiative to change their work environments in order to stay engaged. What do we know about the inner workings of work engagement, and how can employers enhance it to improve job performance? In a new article to be published in the August issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science , a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, Arnold B. Bakker creates a model of work engagement based on the best current research.
-
Internet search engines cause poor memory, scientists claim
The Telegraph: Researchers found increasing number of users relied on their computers as a form of “external memory” as frequent use of online information libraries "wired" human brains. The study, examining the so-called "Google effect", found people had poor recall of knowledge if they knew where answers to questions were easily found. The scientists from Columbia University, in New York, found people were increasingly bypassing discussions with friends to use the internet as their main source of information. Read more: The Telegraph
-
Does Virginity Really Protect Against Risky Sex Later On?
The Huffington Post: True Love Waits is a virginity pledge program, probably the largest of its kind. Started by the Southern Baptist Convention in 1993, it now claims more than 2.5 million members, teenagers and young adults who have promised to remain sexually "pure" until marriage. Many other virginity pledge programs have sprouted up since the '90s, and what's more, state lawmakers have jumped on the abstinence bandwagon. Thirty four states now require that abstinence be taught or emphasized in the school curricula, while only 15 mandate instruction in contraception. Read more: The Huffington Post
