Even if nothing about our energy infrastructure or transportation system changed—and even if people kept eating chicken and pork and eggs and cheese—this one dietary change could achieve somewhere between 46 and 74 percent of the reductions needed to meet the target.
A research team at Columbia University has made an exciting discovery, finding that a compound currently under development for a rare kidney stone disease can starve pancreatic cancer cells of a key amino acid they depend on, a technique that proved to stop tumor growth in mice.
For decades, the overwhelming majority of psychology research has examined people who live in the United States and other affluent Western countries. By focusing on such a narrow population, psychology researchers have — mostly unwittingly — presented a skewed view of the human mind.
A team of scientists at MIT is building devices meant to monitor people’s sleep and influence their dreams. One device, called Dormio, is an “interactive social robot” designed to detect when the user is falling asleep and affect their dreams with audio cues.
We have fixed the speed of light in a vacuum at exactly 299,792.458 kilometres per second. Why this particular speed and not something else? Or, to put it another way, where does the speed of light come from?
Search engines are powerful tools that can be incredibly helpful, but they also require a bit of understanding to find the information you are actually seeking. Small changes in how you search can go a long way toward finding better answers.
The strongest predictor of men’s happiness and well-being is their job satisfaction, by a large margin—and the strongest predictor of job satisfaction is whether men feel they are making an impact on their companies’ success.
Philosophers and scientists have been at war for decades over the question of what makes human beings more than complex robots. Why aren’t we just brilliant robots, capable of retaining information, of responding to noises and smells and hot saucepans, but dark inside, lacking an inner life?
Psychologists are shying away from the concept, as years of work suggesting that willpower is a finite, essential resource has come under intense scrutiny. In a specific situation, sure, you can muster willpower to save yourself from falling back into a bad habit.
Science has shown that musical training can change brain structure and function for the better. It can also improve long-term memory and lead to better brain development for those who start at a young age. Furthermore, musicians tend to be more mentally alert, according to new research.
This surrealist idyll isn’t too far-fetched, say a team of researchers. They’ve been working to harvest usable electricity from plants by experimenting with the “triboelectric” effect in tree foliage. The phenomenon occurs when certain materials that rub against each are pried apart.
Research shows that absentee leadership is the most common form of incompetent leadership. Absentee leaders were promoted into management, and enjoy the privileges and rewards of a leadership role, but avoid meaningful involvement with their teams.
