Human Behaviour
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
There is a language on a small Spanish island in the Canary archipelago that is made entirely of whistles, can carry a full sentence across six miles of mountain ravine, and is still taught to every child in school
Human Behaviour
Demographers estimate that about 117 billion members of our species have ever been born, which means the roughly 8 billion of us alive today are about 7% of everyone who has ever lived
Human Behaviour
Quote by Walter Cronkite: “Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.”
Psychology
When a human and a dog gaze into each other's eyes, both of them release oxytocin — the same hormone released between a human mother and her infant during nursing — and Japanese researchers reported in 2015 that this cross-species chemical feedback loop appears to be unique to dogs and their humans and does not occur in wolves
Human Behaviour
When FIFA gave the 1994 World Cup to the United States, it did so on one condition: America had to build a professional soccer league from scratch — Major League Soccer launched two years later, and the tournament itself set a total-attendance record that stood for thirty-two years until the current 2026 World Cup
Human Behaviour
Mitophagy is the cellular housekeeping that dismantles broken mitochondria — it changes with age, and researchers now see that faltering maintenance as one of aging’s deeper biological engines
Human Behaviour
Elite freedivers can hold their breath for more than eleven minutes on a single breath of air — and one oxygen-assisted record stands at nearly thirty. Most untrained people tap out well before ninety seconds
Human Behaviour
KPMG ran an internal exam to certify staff on the ethical use of artificial intelligence — 28 employees were caught using artificial intelligence to cheat on it, including a partner who was fined $10,000
Human Behaviour
The longest-running study of human happiness ever conducted has been tracking the same group of Harvard students since 1938, when they were teenagers — and after nearly nine decades of interviews and medical records, the single factor most closely tied to a good life is one almost nobody would guess
Human Behaviour
Researchers studied 3,599 adults in four European cities and found that those who commuted through green or waterside surroundings tended to report better mental health, especially if they walked or cycled
Human Behaviour
Until June 2023, South Koreans counted age differently: a newborn was 1 at birth and everyone aged up each New Year's Day, so a baby born December 31 turned 'two' the next morning, until the country standardized to international age
Human Behaviour
Nearly 90 percent of homes in the United States have air conditioning, and in Europe, where summers are now warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, that number is closer to 20 percent
Human Behaviour
A nationwide study of people with chronic illness found that those who prayed daily were 48% more likely to survive over the following 6 years, after controlling for depression, social support, and health behaviors
Human Behaviour
Post-it Notes were invented in 1968 by a chemist named Spencer Silver trying to develop a super-strong aerospace adhesive — and the weak glue he accidentally produced instead sat unused for six years until a colleague named Art Fry needed something to anchor the bookmarks in his church hymnal
Psychology