When you’re lucid, it can feel so real the distinction ceases to matter.
Is Dreaming Real?
Month: June 2020
13 Lessons to Make You Really, Truly Happy. Maybe.
Outside’s favorite curmudgeon completed UC Berkeley’s ten-week Science of Happiness online course. Did it make him happier? Not really. But he still came away with some important, if obvious, rules to live by.
The ‘pandemic’ destroying the world’s favourite fruit
The banana equivalent to Covid-19 is spreading to new countries, forcing the industry to change how the world’s most widely eaten fruit is farmed and even how it could taste.
How — and When — Can the Coronavirus Vaccine Become a Reality?
It is likely we’ll eventually have a coronavirus vaccine — but perhaps not as quickly as some expect. From development, to clinical trials and distribution, ProPublica reporter Caroline Chen explains the tremendous challenges that lie ahead.
Alaska Airlifts ‘Into the Wild’ Bus Out of the Wild
In recent years, the bus once occupied by Christopher McCandless had attracted tourists from all over the world—a growing number of whom had to be rescued in their attempt to reach the remote location. Now, apparently, the authorities have had enough.
How Elon Musk aims to revolutionise battery technology
Elon Musk has perhaps the most exciting portfolio of businesses on the planet.
There’s SpaceX with its mission to Mars, and Tesla with its super-fast hi-tech electric cars.
He claims his Hyperloop concept could revolutionise public transport. And even his Boring Company is kind of interesting – it aims to find new ways to dig tunnels.
A grave situation: What happens if your MP is incapacitated?
For Members of Parliament (MPs), their main role is to act as a bridge between the community and the Government, to be the voice of their constituents, the people who elected them.
The Hard Truth Of Poker — And Life: You’re Never ‘Due’ For Good Cards
For many years, my life centered around studying the biases of human decision-making: I was a graduate student in psychology at Columbia, working with that marshmallow-tinted legend, Walter Mischel, to document the foibles of the human mind as people found themselves in situations where risk abounded and uncertainty ran high. Dissertation defended, I thought to myself, that’s that. I’ve got those sorted out. And in the years that followed, I would pride myself on knowing so much about the tools of self-control that would help me distinguish myself from my poor experimental subjects. Placed in a stochastic environment, faced with stress and pressure, I knew how I’d go wrong — and I knew precisely what to do when that happened.
The Dystopian Lake Filled by the World’s Tech Lust
Hidden in an unknown corner of Inner Mongolia is a toxic, nightmarish lake created by our thirst for smartphones, consumer gadgets and green tech, discovers Tim Maughan.
How Poverty Changes the Brain
You saw the pictures in science class—a profile view of the human brain, sectioned by function. The piece at the very front, right behind where a forehead would be if the brain were actually in someone’s head, is the pre-frontal cortex. It handles problem-solving, goal-setting, and task execution. And it works with the limbic system, which is connected and sits closer to the center of the brain. The limbic system processes emotions and triggers emotional responses, in part because of its storage of long-term memory.