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Celebrating a Death: Ugly, Maybe, but Only Human
The New York Times: Some Americans celebrated the killing of Osama bin Laden loudly, with chanting and frat-party revelry in the streets. Others were appalled — not by the killing, but by the celebrations. It was appropriate to go after Bin Laden, just to try to cut the head off that serpent, but I don’t think it’s decent to celebrate a killing like that,” said George Horwitz, a retired meat cutter and Army veteran in Bynum, N.C. Read the whole story: The New York Times
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Dating Duo Illuminates Modern Humans’ Journey
Science: WOLLONGONG, AUSTRALIA—When University of Pennsylvania archaeologist Harold Dibble was reopening excavations at the Grotte des Contrebandiers (Smuggler's Cave) in Morocco a few years ago, he looked for experts to help him figure out when prehistoric humans had occupied the cave, which is a key site for understanding the spread of Homo sapiens. Dibble knew our species had been there more than 50,000 years ago—beyond the practical limit of radiocarbon dating. So he recruited two dating aces from the University of Wollongong in Australia, Zenobia Jacobs and Richard Roberts, experts in the technique of optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating.
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Why Extroverts Are Happier Than Introverts
MSNBC: Extroverts are the cheeriest personality type, and a new study finds that the root of their happiness may be in their memories. People who are extroverted remember the past in a more positive light than other personality types, researchers report in the June issue of the journal Personality and Individual Differences. This rose-tinged viewpoint explains much of the happiness gap between extroverts and people who are neurotic, a personality trait marked by anxiety and irritability. Read the whole story: MSNBC
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Mind Reading: How to Use Quirks of the Mind to Change Behavior
TIME Healthland: How can we motivate ourselves to do what we really want to do? By better understanding the brain's unconscious tendencies and tactics, argues journalist Wray Herbert — or, in other words, tricking ourselves into doing it. In his new book, On Second Thought: Outsmarting Your Brain's Hard-Wired Habits, Herbert, who has been writing about psychology for more than three decades, offers insight into how to use the quirks of the mind to change behavior. Read the whole story: TIME Healthland
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Macho Men
“I’ve Got to Be a Macho, Macho Man.” Village People said it, but research has the science to back it up. An article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science explains that when men feel threatened, they use aggression to assert their machismo. In a series of studies, some men were asked to do “feminine” tasks such as braiding hair while others were asked to do gender-neutral tasks such as braiding a rope. When given the option to punch a bag or do a puzzle, those whose manhood had been threatened were exceedingly more likely to choose the former. When all volunteers got to punch the bag, those who had braided hair punched it harder.
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Hearts Beat as One in a Daring Ritual
The New York Times: For as long as anyone in the tiny Spanish village of San Pedro Manrique can remember, people there have been walking on fire. They do it every June 23, at midnight, celebrating the summer solstice by crossing a 23-foot-long carpet of oak embers that have burned for hours before sizzling down to a glowing red. The event is full of pageantry and symbolism: processions with religious statues, trumpets sounding before each fire-walk, and three virgins (or, these days, three women who are unmarried). Read the whole story: The New York Times
