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Study Suggests Environment May Impact Apes’ Ability to Understand Declarative Communication
When we notice somebody pointing at something, we automatically look in the direction of the gesture. In humans, the ability to understand this type of gesturing (known as declarative communication) may seem to be an automatic response, but it is actually a sign of sophisticated communication behavior. Numerous studies have tried to determine if great apes (for example, chimpanzees and bonobos) are able to understand declarative communication, but results have been mixed.
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A tool for predicting suicide?
Suicide is both disturbing and perplexing to survivors, in part because it is so unpredictable. People who are intent on killing themselves often conceal their thoughts or outright deny them, so family and friends are left puzzling over warning signs they might have missed. Even experienced clinical judgment often misses the mark. As a result, suicide experts have long hoped and searched for a clear behavioral marker of suicide risk. Now they may have found one.
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A willingness to wonder
Willingness is a core concept of addiction recovery programs, and a paradoxical one. Twelve-step programs emphasize that individual addicts cannot will themselves into recovery and healthy sobriety, indeed that the ego and self-reliance are often a root cause of their problem. Yet recovering addicts must be willing. That is, they must be open to the possibility that the group and principles are powerful enough to trump a compulsive disease. It’s a tricky concept for many, and must be taken on faith. But now there may be a little bit of science to back it up, too.
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The paradox of green cred
My office shares a floor with the Sierra Club. So oftentimes the shared men’s room on the floor is dark when I enter it. The lights have been turned off, either as an act of energy conservation or as a gentle reminder to the rest of us, or both. I don’t mind this. I simply turn the lights on. And I usually remember to turn them off again as I leave. So if darkening the men’s room is meant to prime green thinking, it works. And not just green thinking—communal behavior as well. I feel better when I’m reminded to turn out the lights, like I’m doing my part. But how far does such persuasion go? After all, switching the lights off costs me nothing.
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Vieux, en bonne sante . . . et bilingue
In French, that means old, healthy . . . and bilingual. I could just as well have used Google Translate to put that phrase into Finnish or Spanish or Chinese. The fact is, I don’t speak any of those languages fluently—any language except English really. Which puts me in good company: When Senator Barack Obama was campaigning for the presidency back in 2008, he told a crowd in Dayton, Ohio: “I don’t speak a foreign language. It’s embarrassing.” It is embarrassing. But worse than that, it may be unhealthy. New research suggests that bilingualism may convey previously unrecognized cognitive benefits—benefits that appear early and last a lifetime.
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Casting light on cheating and greed
Louis Brandeis was already one of America’s most famous lawyers when Woodrow Wilson appointed him to the Supreme Court in 1916. He was a tireless and prescient critic of big investment banks—including bankers’ excessive bonuses—an argument he spelled out in his influential book of essays, Other People’s Money and How Bankers Use It. His solution for the problem of concentrated financial power was unfettered public scrutiny, a belief he summarized in his famous statement: “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.” Justice Brandeis was an intuitive psychologist.
