Humans have been fighting our internal clocks ever since we invented sitting around a campfire. We have powerful natural rhythms that keep us on a 24-hour cycle; if you’ve ever been steamrollered by jet lag after an intercontinental flight, you know how powerful those rhythms are. But we muffle them with caffeine, alarm clocks, and electric lights. It’s easy to undo the damage, though. One weekend of camping can do the trick—and it’ll even cure y ...read more
Which microbes could be helping this mountain gorilla digest its food? (Image: Jeffrey Marlow)
Over the last few years, the range of known organisms living in the human gut – that complex milieu of microbes known as the microbiome – has expanded dramatically. They influence your health, your appearance, and your behavior in largely unknown ways, and yet, despite the thousands of studies that have been published on the subject, the microbiome census may be woefully incomplete.
Most ...read more
Who are you more likely to find striking a sexy pose on the cover of a magazine: Gus or Tanner? Sophia or Bertha?
It’s a silly question given all we’re working with is names, but names are powerful social tags that influence how people interact with and perceive each other—for good or for bad. A name reflects race, age, religion and nationality. A name affects the number of callbacks jobseekers receive from employers. A name can influence expectations set by a child&rsquo ...read more
(Credit: pathdoc/Shutterstock)
Chased fanatically but realized rarely, a truly viral story seems to happen purely by chance — a fortuitous alignment of trending topic, clever headline, compelling copy and maybe a witty GIF.
Now, a team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania has built a model for “virality” by identifying neural mechanisms at work when people decide to share an article or not. In two studies, of 41 and 39 people each, they used fMRI to monitor ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
