The moon is both easy and tough to figure out. Of the many things Galileo got wrong, the moon was the biggest, despite it being studied for millenia by then, unless you think we only have one tide per day. And last year some people wanted to believe an earthquake in Japan was caused by a 'Supermoon', where our friend Luna was slightly closer to us. read...
read moreMarriage counseling is so 20th century. The 21st century may belong to relationship neuroinformaticians because they can create a mathematical model for efficient communication in your love life. The dynamics of love can look like a sine wave, with smooth, repetitive highs and lows. That's probably not too bad. We certainly try for a flat line but that is difficult to...
read moreDr. Brian Wansink, professor of marketing and director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab, has tackled weighty issues such as what the paintings of "The Last Supper" can tell us about their diets, how kitchen spoons could be poisoning children and why we all think vegetarians are sissies.(1) read...
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Urban legend says that alcohol is a social icebreaker - and we want to believe, given our preference for commercials where impossibly attractive young people converge on some beach and all have a fantastic time, which is in contrast to actual beer gatherings where a lot of fights and arrests occur.(1)Want to look like this? Drink alcohol. Credit: Shutterstock read...
read moreAfraid of flying? Maybe there is something to that. Dogs? Okay. But fear of buttons? Puh-leeeze. The phobia business - legitimizing irrational quirks - has become Big Business and life change consultant Mark O'Donoghue of Purple Smarties in Stoke-on-Trent is ready to believe you.In all, he has helped 99 people since he set up his business in 2008, he says. It isn't...
read moreIf the legend is true, Aesop lived during the sixth century B.C. He was born a slave but was given his freedom as a reward for his wit and intelligence. He never wrote anything down but the stories people remembered were so intriguing virtually every moralistic fable before him (and after) got attributed to him. Now Aesop's Fables number in the 600s. One of them, "The Crow and...
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