Did a thirst for beer spark civilization?:
unkenness, hangovers, and debauchery tend to come to mind when one thinks about alcohol and its effects. But could alcohol also have been a catalyst for human civilization? According to archaeologist Patrick McGovern this may have been the case when early man decided to start farming. Why humans turned from hunting and gathering to agriculture could be the result of our ancestors’ simple urge for alcoholic beverages. “Alcohol provided the initial motivation,” said McGovern, a biomolecular archaeologist at the University…
2 minutes
Why did successful bloggers start blogging and what keeps them blogging?:
the journal New Media and Society, a research team led by Brian Ekdale of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison reports on a survey of 66 top American political bloggers. They were selected from 2006 rankings of most-popular blogs and represent points of view across the political spectrum. Web sites they blog for include Daily Kos, Hullabaloo, Right Wing News and Pajamas Media. The bloggers were presented with a list of 13 motivations…
2 minutes
How would the law punish Siamese twins if one committed murder without the other being involved?:
a slate.com The answer: No one knows. There isn't much case law to work with on this question, since in the United States, at least, conjoined twins represent something like 0.0005 percent of all live births—with an even smaller number surviving into adulthood. The conjoined twins who aren't separated at birth and do manage to grow up have so far tended to be more or less exemplary citizens. That said, there have been a few recorded instances of conjoined criminality.…
3 minutes
Does feeling like a victim make you selfish?:
ree experiments demonstrated that feeling wronged leads to a sense of entitlement and to selfish behavior. In Experiment 1, participants instructed to recall a time when their lives were unfair were more likely to refuse to help the experimenter with a supplementary task than were participants who recalled a time when they were bored. In Experiment 2, the same manipulation increased intentions to engage in a number of selfish behaviors, and this effect was mediated by self-reported entitlement to obtain…
1 min read
TED.com – David Blaine – How I held my breath for 17 min:
a ted.com Join over 320,000 readers. Get a free weekly update via email here. Related posts: New Neuroscience Reveals 4 Rituals That Will Make You Happy New Harvard Research Reveals A Fun Way To Be More Successful How To Get People To Like You: 7 Ways From An FBI Behavior Expert
1 min read
Is a marriage worth more to a man or a woman? By how much?:
at's a marriage worth? To an Australian male, about $32,000. That's the lump sum Paul Frijters says the man would need to receive out of the blue to make him as happy as his marriage will over his lifetime. An Australian woman would need about $16,000. But when it comes to divorce, the Australian male will be so devastated it would be as if he had lost $110,000. An Australian woman would be less traumatised, feeling as if she had…
2 minutes
The Science of Prayer:
it possible that directed prayer might spark forgiveness in those doing the praying—and in the process preserve relationships? This is obviously not a new idea. Indeed it’s ancient, but Lambert and his colleagues decided to test it scientifically in two simple experiments. In the first, they had a group of men and women pray for their romantic partner. It was just a single prayer for their partner’s well-being, spoken privately in a quiet room. Others—the experimental controls—also went into…
2 minutes
Do complex societies have simple languages?
nguages such as English, which spread with complex and expansive political orders, seem to exhibit a tendency toward simplicity. The reason behind this is straightforward: adult language learners have difficulties with morphological complexity. These data and analysis seem to resolve nicely the "paradox" that the most complex languages are generally found in small-scale "primitive" cultures. Since very few outsiders learn these languages there's no need for them to be "dumbed down" or non-fluent adults. via scienceblogs.com Join over 320,000 readers. Get…
1 min read
