Psychology
Human
The universal psychology lane. Stories about how people relate to one another, themselves, and the world — written for readers who are curious about why we behave the way we do. Sister section to Space Psychology.
Human Behaviour
By 2030, Korean women are projected to become the first population in human history with an average life expectancy above 90 years — exceeding even Japan — according to a Lancet study of 35 industrialized nations, in a demographic shift driven by improvements in cardiovascular health and near-universal healthcare access
Human Behaviour
It takes about 50 hours of contact for two adults to feel like casual friends, 90 hours before they cross into actual friendship, and more than 200 before someone earns the title of close friend — according to research by Jeffrey Hall, in numbers that quietly explain why most adults find it so hard to make new friends past a certain age.
Human Behaviour
People who spend more time arranging their task manager than completing tasks aren't procrastinating, for many it's the only place in their life where they get to decide how things are ordered
Human Behaviour
In 2003, an Oxford philosopher named Nick Bostrom published an argument that we are statistically more likely to be inside a computer simulation than in original reality — provided any sufficiently advanced civilization runs simulations of its own ancestors, a conditional that has reshaped serious debate about the nature of existence
Human Behaviour
Smell has a direct neural pathway to the brain's memory centres — and researchers used that to produce a 226% performance gap on a memory test, without drugs or training
Human Behaviour
Sixty years before ChatGPT, a chatbot called ELIZA was already making people pour their secrets into a computer — and its creator considered that a catastrophe, not a success
Psychology
There is a documented psychological shift, first described by astronauts who saw the Earth from space, called the overview effect — in which seeing the planet as a single fragile sphere with no visible borders causes a profound and often permanent change in worldview, leaving many astronauts unable to think about human conflict the same way again.
Human Behaviour
The 1983 made-for-TV film 'The Day After' was watched by an estimated 100 million Americans on a single Sunday night, and Ronald Reagan wrote in his diary that it left him 'greatly depressed', a reaction his biographers later linked directly to his push for the Reykjavik disarmament summit three years later.
Human Behaviour
Scientists have discovered that air filters can capture DNA floating in the atmosphere and it can identify wildlife, viruses, and even plants linked to drugs nearby
Human Behaviour
The kiwifruit was once called the Chinese gooseberry, until New Zealand growers renamed it in 1959 to escape Cold War suspicion, berry tariffs, and a name shoppers did not want
Human Behaviour
Hearing is widely believed to be the last sense to fade, and a 2020 University of British Columbia EEG study on dying hospice patients found their brains still responded to sound in the final hours of unresponsiveness, suggesting the voices of loved ones in the room are genuinely reaching them
Human Behaviour
A 2013 University of Michigan study on rats found that in the 30 seconds after cardiac arrest, the brain produced a surge of high-frequency gamma waves more coherent than during waking life, a neural fireworks display some researchers think could underlie the vivid imagery reported in near-death experiences
Human Behaviour
New Zealand soldiers in the First World War were nicknamed Kiwis by their British counterparts long before the fruit took the name, and by 1919 a giant kiwi bird had been carved into the chalk hillside above Bulford Camp in Wiltshire, where it remains visible today.
Human Behaviour
David Allen's Getting Things Done system became famous for one simple idea: your brain is for having ideas, not holding them, and every uncaptured task quietly taxes the mental space you need to think
Psychology