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For Heartache, Take 2 Aspirin and Call Me in the Morning
New York Magazine: Heartache. A broken heart. A hurtful breakup. Is the language we use to describe the pain of romantic rejection just a metaphor, or could it capture a biological reality? That’s a question scientists are beginning to explore. In a 2011 experiment, people who had recently experienced an unwanted breakup viewed a photograph of their ex-partner and thought about their rejection. As they did this, their brains were being scanned by fMRI. In another condition, the same individuals experienced intense physical pain from thermal stimulation to their forearm.
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Trying to Share Our “Epic” Moments May Leave Us Feeling Left Out
We might love to reminisce and tell others about our extraordinary experiences, but new research suggests that sharing these extraordinary experiences may come at a social cost.
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Just a Job or a ‘Calling’? Passion and Meaning at Work Tied to Life Satisfaction
The number one reason people stay at a job isn’t because of the pay, benefits, or even the chance for a promotion. According to a 2012 survey on workforce retention, the top reason people stay at a job is because they enjoy their work. But some people are so passionate about what they do for a living that they could be said to have a “calling” rather than just a job that’s a good fit. In a new article, psychological scientists Tamara Hagmaier and Andrea E.
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The joys of grazing
The Guardian: “The commonest thing is delightful, if only one hides it,” wrote Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Perhaps this is why illicit fridge grazing – that slice of ham folded swiftly into the mouth and washed down with a glug of juice, straight from the bottle – is such a delightful pastime. “Don’t pick,” my mother used to tell me, shooing me out of the kitchen. But I live for picking – a habit that inspires disgust and irritation in equal measure. When I cook, my chef’s tasting gets out of control because snatched morsels and licked spoons are too tempting. Everything tastes better in a sneaky forkful, consumed when passing the stove, fridge or cupboard.
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Kids And Screen Time: Cutting Through The Static
NPR: The walls are lined with robots and movie posters for Star Wars and Back to the Future. But this is no 1980s nerd den. It's the technology lab at Westside Neighborhood School in Los Angeles, and the domain of its ed-tech coordinator, Don Fitz-Roy. "So we're gonna be talking about digital citizenship today." Fitz-Roy is a mountain of a man, bald with just the hint of a goatee. Of the half-dozen students sitting in small, plastic chairs around him, any three could easily fit inside his shirt. And he's trying to keep them safe — from the Internet. He's talking about the laundry list of athletes and actors these kids have seen, of late, making fools of themselves using social media. ...
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I Tried to Make a Search Engine Write Me a Poem
The New York Times: Before I started writing this, I took a creativity test. Many different such tests exist, but I took one of the best-known ones: Guilford’s Alternative Uses Task, which simply requires that you come up with as many applications for a particular object as possible. I picked a paper coffee cup. After 10 minutes (an amount of time I’d arbitrarily chosen), I had 39 uses, from the prosaic (“hold coffee”) to the probably impractical (“poke holes in the bottom and it could be a shower head for a short amount of time before it collapses”). I did this because I wanted to test the effectiveness of Yossarian, a new search engine that aims to boost creativity.
