Space, science, and the human mind. Since 1995.
Human Element
A Space Daily column

Human Element

Psychology and behaviour

Human Element covers the psychology of discovery. How astronauts hold up under pressure, why people believe what they believe, and what research on the human mind can and cannot tell us.

Human Behaviour

Some of the loneliest people in their fifties aren’t the ones without partners or children, they’re the ones surrounded by people who only know the version of them that shows up when everyone else needs something

Midlife loneliness often hides inside full calendars and long marriages. The people most at risk are the useful ones — reliable, capable, endlessly available — whose relationships have quietly organised themselves around what they provide rather than who they are.

Human Behaviour

Psychology suggests people who suddenly downsize their lives in their 60s — smaller house, fewer clothes, shorter guest lists — aren’t giving up, they’re finally noticing what was costing them without earning its keep

Downsizing in the sixties often gets misread as retreat, but research on voluntary simplicity, aging attitudes, and decision-making suggests something else is happening: a late-arriving audit of what possessions, spaces, and relationships were actually costing.