I don’t drink alcohol. There are several reasons for it. One is that I just never developed the taste for it and find it unpleasant. Another is that Sri Lanka has a real drinking problem with many people drinking far too much too often and I had considerable first-hand awareness of the negative effects on them and their families and careers, which turned me off at an early age. The third is that on the solitary occasion where I had several drinks, I noticed that I was losing control of what I said and did, and it was not a pleasant feeling. As a result, I only drink wine on very rare occasions when offering a toast or something and have a beer once or twice a year at events where there is no alternative. [Read more…]

The global population exploded during the 20th century, aided in part by better public health that reduced infant mortality and increased life expectancy. It now stands at around 7.1 billion. But how many people have lived during the entire time that homo sapiens have been around? [Read more…]

Some of the most interesting elements of science are when it tries to explain everyday phenomena. This article looks at the above question that was researched by scientists at Uppsala University. [Read more…]

Of the ‘Big Five’ dimensions that psychologists use to classify people’s personality traits (Openness v. Closed mindedness; Conscientiousness v. Disorganized; Extroversion v. Introversion; Agreeableness v. Disagreeableness; Neuroticism v. Calmness), the extrovert/introvert dimension probably draws the most attention and interest, perhaps because we think it is the easiest to identify in others and identify with ourselves. [Read more…]

Scientists have been exploring creating meat tissue in the lab for a long time and it was only a matter of time before they were successful on a large enough scale.

The world’s first lab-grown burger has been cooked and eaten at a news conference in London.
Scientists took cells from a cow and, at an institute in the Netherlands, turned them into strips of muscle that they combined to make a patty.

One food expert said it was “close to meat, but not that juicy” and another said it tasted like a real burger. [Read more…]

Carl Zimmer has a nice summary of the increasing amount of fossil evidence for the evolution from dinosaurs to birds, surely one of the most fascinating facts of evolution. Interestingly, as the evidence mounts, the importance of Archaeopteryx, that classic fossil that caused such excitement when it was first discovered because it was the first direct evidence of the transition, has become diminished. [Read more…]

I dream a lot. Not a night goes by when I do not have quite vivid and complicated dreams so I am naturally interested in the phenomenon. Many of the details in my dreams can be clearly related to events that occurred within the previous day or two but some dreams are recurring. One is a dream in which I want to go to the bathroom and find it extraordinarily hard to find one or the ones that I find are so disgusting that I don’t want to use them. The other is where I have driven somewhere, parked the car and gone inside, and when I return the car is gone and I spend some time trying to search for it, without success. These two recurring dreams are apparently quite common for a lot of people. [Read more…]

The Prisoner’s Dilemma problem provides endless fascination for students of human psychology and has served as the foundation for many studies using game theory. There are endless variations of the basic idea and here is one version of it.

The basic version goes like this. Two criminals are arrested, but police can’t convict either on the primary charge, so they plan to sentence them to a year in jail on a lesser charge. Each of the prisoners, who can’t communicate with each other, are given the option of testifying against their partner. If they testify, and their partner remains silent, the partner gets 3 years and they go free. If they both testify, both get two. If both remain silent, they each get one.

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We have all experienced occasions when a family member or friend tells us a story that they have told us before. Usually we pretend it is new to us because it seems somehow rude to tell them that they are repeating themselves. Also it is likely that we have done the same thing to others and so we also benefit from this act of politeness. I know that I have done so and only realized what I was doing later or half way through the story and, in the latter case, felt obliged to quickly complete it. This is because we all have a repertoire of stories that we draw upon repeatedly in conversations with others. [Read more…]