Is Your Mind Controlled by Parasites?
You're having a bad day. You snap at your spouse, act short with your colleagues, and cut off other drivers on your commute home. Are you the victim of a bad mood? Or is your problem that your brain is...
View ArticleThe Ecology of Misinformation
It's the paradox of the internet age: never before has so much information been available so effortlessly, so quickly -- and never before has so much of it been completely erroneous. How do we decide...
View ArticleHow Dogs Read Our Minds
Humans and dogs have a way of intuiting one another’s emotions – of feeling like we know what the other is feeling -- that is unique among all the species on earth. But how they can achieve it is...
View ArticleThe Mystery of Clutch Performance
Athletes like Chris Drury and David Ortiz have earned a reputation for pulling off amazing feats under high pressure. Here's how they do it.read more
View ArticleHow Fear Destroyed a Career
Up until three weeks ago, Tom Durkin was hard at work, studying for the upcoming running of the Kentucky Derby. Then he called up his employers and tendered his resignation.read more
View ArticleRight Wingers and the Reptile Brain
A researcher finds that right wingers have more in the amygdala and less in the frontal cortex. But what, exactly, does that mean?read more
View ArticleApocalypse Today: The Allure of Bad Theory
Erroneous theories aren't just the province of the lunatic fringe. They're part of everyone's basic cognitive legacy.read more
View ArticleIs Storm Chasing Immoral?
Storm chasers enjoying immersing themselves in a weather phenomenon as brutal and violent as a battlefield. Indeed, their activities may actively contribute to the death toll. Twelve years ago, I went...
View ArticleIt's Not the Scary Things That Kill You
Some things seem innately healthful and good, even though they can kill you. Others seem inherently dangerous and unwholesome, even though they actually improve our quality of life. How do our...
View ArticleThe Thing Inside You That's Holding You Back
Coaches are forever asking us to give "110 percent." But scientists have discovered that we always have more to give, no matter what form of exertion we're undertaking. We can't consciously choose to...
View ArticleHow GPS Makes Clueless Drivers
As we hand over more of our mental functions to our machines, we're lulled into dangerous complacency, losing track of where we are and what we're doing.read more
View ArticleHow Congress Is Like an Addict's Brain
If one addiction researcher's groundbreaking ideas are correct, then governments' plans tend to fall apart for the very same reason that our individual attempts at self-control do.read more
View ArticleForging a Soul of Iron
Gerry Duffy, a rangy, chiseled 43-year-old from Ireland, ranks one of the most formidible endurance athletes in the world. But perhaps the most remarkable thing about him is that he used to be just...
View ArticleSurviving Fear under the Ice
"Here I am, under the ice, struggling upside down, and all but blind."read more
View ArticleThe Truth About Lies
The truth about how professional interrogators can unmask liars is even more fascinating than the misconceptions spread by the popular media.read more
View ArticleHow Panic Doomed an Airliner
What doomed the 228 men, women and children aboard Air France 447 was neither weather nor technological failure, but simple human error. Under pressure, human beings can lose their ability to think...
View ArticleWhat Passengers Experienced During AF447's Final Moments
We will never know for sure what it would have been like to experience the last few minutes of the doomed flight, but the retrieved data allows us to make a pretty good guess.read more
View ArticleWhy Your Brain’s Wrong About Danger
The world is full of potential hazards. Unfortunately, the things that we're afraid of oftentimes aren't the things that are actually mostly likely to hurt us.read more
View ArticleWhy Facebook Is Failing
The company has striven to bind together every aspect of the internet experience, to achieve immortality through intrusiveness. And this, I think, will be their undoing.read more
View ArticleWhat's Your Favorite Mistake?
I've never felt so flat-out dumb as I did that day. I'll never forget that horrible feeling of shame, seeping over me like hot acid, as I realized that I'd done something that could not easily be...
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