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As a kid, I saw the 1968 version of Planet of the Apes. As a future primatologist, I was mesmerized. Years later I discovered an anecdote about its filming: At lunchtime, the people playing chimps and those playing gorillas ate in separate groups. It’s been said, “There are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide the world into two kinds of people and those who don’t.” In reality, there’s lots more of the former. And it can be vastly consequential when people are divided into Us and Them, ingroup and outgroup, “the people” (i.e., our kind) and the Others. The core of Us/Them-ing is

Not all smiles are created equal. tonipostius via Flickr How much teeth should you show when you smile? How wide should your grin be, and what if it’s crooked? Using a variety of computer-animated faces, researchers from the University of Minnesota have done their best to isolate the traits of a winning smile. At first glance, this may seem like a laughing matter. But for people with paralysis or other medical conditions, being physically unable to smile can cause communication problems, anxiety, and depression. The new study, published today in PLOS One, could help doctors who perform facial

When we are facing a challenge in life, we're often encouraged to talk about it with a confidante, a family member or to seek professional counsel like a therapist. But some people find more comfort in silence. In her new memoir, Sit, Walk, Don't Talk, Jennifer Howd takes readers into the world of silent meditation retreats, where, as you may imagine, there's scarcely any talking. Howd says the practice of mediation is a viable option for pretty much anyone seeking an escape from our sometimes too-noisy world. "You don't have to necessarily go away for days on end," she says, "but just sitting

Neuroscience isn't on many elementary school lesson plans. But this spring, a second grade class at Fairmont Neighborhood School in the South Bronx is plunging in. Sarah Wechsler, an instructional coach with wide eyes and a marathoner's energy, asks the students to think about the development and progress that they've made already in their lives. "You probably don't remember, but there was a time when you didn't know how to speak and you were just like 'Wah wah wah blah blah blah, mama, mama!' " she tells the kids. "Our brain grows and changes when you try hard things, when you learn new thing

This article is accompanied by an illustration by Josh Cochran that is available at no charge to clients of The New York Times Op-Ed service. MODERN HUMANS HAVE DESIGNED THE PERFECT ENVIRONMENT FOR DRUG AND FOOD ADDICTION. As a psychiatrist, I have yet to meet a patient who enjoys being addicted to drugs or compulsively overeating. Why would anyone continue to use recreational drugs despite the medical consequences and social condemnation? What makes someone eat more and more in the face of poor health? One answer is that modern humans have designed the perfect environment to create both of th

The sea is miraculous. Just the sight of the seemingly boundless body of water is humbling for many. And in the 18th century, the ocean was often regarded as a panacea, with doctors prescribing drinking a pint of sea water to cure everything from leprosy to heatstroke to depression. While modern medicine has yet to support ocean water as a cure-all, there are certainly some major benefits to spending time by the seaside — whether you’re lucky enough to live there or are just visiting. A breath of fresh ocean air might be medicinal. Research has found that patients with cystic fibrosis experie

Do you really love your job? Are you truly engaged in your work? If you are able to answer “yes” to both questions, you’re in the minority. Less than 30% of millennials responding to a 2016 Gallup survey indicated they felt engaged at work and 16% even said they were actively disengaged. Now, to improve your feelings about work, it might require some changes — like a promotion or pay bump — or even a big job switch, especially early in your career. But the truth for at least some is that sometimes the problem is not the job but your own attitudes, and being more satisfied must start with you.

President Trump claimed this month on Twitter that the news media was “working hard” to convince people he “should not use social media.” But it was precisely his knack for social media, he implied, that helped win him the presidency. Is this true? If so, why might Trump be politically effective on Twitter? To better understand how political discourse works on Twitter, we recently analyzed more than half a million public tweets on three political topics — same-sex marriage, gun control and climate change — in the year leading up to the 2016 election. Our research, which was published this mont

Pokémon Go gyms are open again and offer a bunch of new and changed features. When approaching an open gym, you'll still have the same goal: battling Pokémon so your team can control the gym. However, the latest update has revamped the whole Pokémon Go gym experience, and new players and old players alike should like the changes. Some of the new gym features according to WWG are below. Before, defending Pokémon would generate prestige, and attacking Pokémon would wear it down. Gyms with less prestige had fewer slots for gym defender Pokémon, and that made them easier to capture. With the new

Individuals whose parents had a noncooperative divorce showed a more pronounced immune response when exposed to a common cold virus. Pixabay Turns out if your parents played nice during their divorce, you might not go through as many boxes of tissues as an adult. In a recent study led by Carnegie Mellon University psychologists, folks whose parents had separated on non-speaking terms during their childhood were three times as likely to develop a cold when intentionally exposed to the virus—even though adults whose parents had separated but continued to communicate were just as healthy as their

Are chimpanzees spiritual? It's a question that Jane Goodall made famous by proposing that the rhythmic swaying and rock-throwing by chimpanzees at waterfalls in Gombe, Tanzania, is an expression of awe and wonder — of spirituality. It's a question, too, that takes on new twists and turns as new data come in. In 2016, a group of 80 scientists reported in Scientific Reports that chimpanzees at four sites across West Africa cache stones and throw them repeatedly at trees. One of those scientists, Laura Kehoe, who is now a postdoctoral researcher at the Baum Lab at the University of Victoria, ear

Emotions, the classic thinking goes, are innate, basic parts of our humanity. We are born with them, and when things happen to us, our emotions wash over us. "They happen to us, almost," says Lisa Feldman Barrett, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University and a researcher at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital. She's also the author of a book called How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain. In it, she argues for a new theory of emotions which is featured in the latest episode of NPR's program and podcast Invisibilia. The "classical view" of emoti

There’s a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit,” then-Senator Barack Obama said in a 2006 commencement address at Northwestern University. “But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit.” What we need, he said, was the ability to “see the world through those who are different from us.” Since Obama’s speech, the phrase “empathy deficit” has gained a foothold, appearing everywhere from academic journals to mainstream media outlets. Among the varied responses to the 2016 United States presidential election were calls for a greater general empathy. Many liberals tried

ODDS ARE YOU DON’T LOOK FORWARD TO spending time in a magnetic resonance imager—and with good reason. The clanging, coffin-like machine seems purpose-built for sensory assault. But you’re not Ninja, a 3-year-old pit-bull mix, who trots into a lab at Emory University in Atlanta, catches a glimpse of the MRI in which she’ll spend her morning and leaps happily onto the table. Ninja is one of the few dogs in the world that have been trained to sit utterly still in an MRI (the little bits of hot dog she gets as rewards help) so that neuroscientist Gregory Berns can peer into her brain as it works.

Everyone—moms, therapists, rock stars—says the waiting is the hardest part.It turns out there is a way to “wait well,” researchers say. People who feel anxious or pessimistic or who ruminate while awaiting news fare better than others when it finally arrives, the researchers say. They’re more prepared for bad news and more excited about good news.“If you are blindly optimistic and you haven’t steeled yourself for the possibility of failure, you might be caught flat-footed,” says Kate Sweeny, an associate professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, who studies how people

Attention, editors: This article is accompanied by an illustration by Maxwell Holyoke-Hirsch that is available at no charge to clients of The New York Times Op-Ed service. WHAT BEST DISTINGUISHES HUMAN BEINGS FROM OTHER ANIMALS IS OUR FORESIGHT, AS SCIENTISTS ARE JUST BEGINNING TO RECOGNIZE. We are misnamed. We call ourselves Homo sapiens, the “wise man,” but that’s more of a boast than a description. What makes us wise? What sets us apart from other animals? Various answers have been proposed — language, tools, cooperation, culture, tasting bad to predators — but none is unique to humans. Wha

Boredom has, paradoxically, become quite interesting to academics lately. The International Interdisciplinary Boredom Conference gathered humanities scholars in Warsaw for the fifth time in April. In early May, its less scholarly forerunner, London’s Boring Conference, celebrated seven years of delighting in tedium. At this event, people flock to talks about toast, double yellow lines, sneezing, and vending-machine sounds, among other snooze-inducing topics. What, exactly, is everybody studying? One widely accepted psychological definition of boredom is “the aversive experience of wanting, but

Boredom is in many ways an emotion of absence. The absence of stimulation, of interest, of excitement. But as Mary Mann reveals in her new book, Yawn: Adventures in Boredom, what’s lacking when we feel bored is often something much deeper than entertainment. She writes about her “fear that there was no overarching purpose for my time,” how boredom can paper over feelings of powerlessness or meaninglessness. It’s easier to label that itchy sensation “boredom” than it is to consider the feeling one gets sometimes that the train of life is stopped on its tracks, that the narrative is going nowher

On Reddit forums that ask “What’s a dead giveaway that someone is American?” one trait comes up over and over again: big, toothy grins. Here’s how one Reddit user in Finland put it: When a stranger on the street smiles at you: a. you assume he is drunk b. he is insane c. he’s an American Last year, I wrote about why some countries seem to smile less than average—and mistrust those who do seem unusually peppy. A country’s level of instability, that study found, might be why people who seem happy for no reason in, say, Russia, are considered foolish. But there’s an interesting line of research t

By Heart is a series in which authors share and discuss their all-time favorite passages in literature. See entries from Colum McCann, George Saunders, Emma Donoghue, Michael Chabon, and more. In My Name Is Lucy Barton, the bestselling novel Elizabeth Strout published last year, the ailing narrator recalls her childhood with the help of her mother’s stories. Now, in a new book, Anything Is Possible, Strout takes us back to Lucy’s hometown—and we start to learn there’s more to the story. Not that Lucy was necessarily being coy about her traumatic upbringing, which seems to have been worse than

Reading medieval literature, it’s hard not to be impressed with how much the characters get done—as when we read about King Harold doing battle in one of the Sagas of the Icelanders, written in about 1230. The first sentence bristles with purposeful action: “King Harold proclaimed a general levy, and gathered a fleet, summoning his forces far and wide through the land.” By the end of the third paragraph, the king has launched his fleet against a rebel army, fought numerous battles involving “much slaughter in either host,” bound up the wounds of his men, dispensed rewards to the loyal, and “wa

Pixabay Why do we feel awkward? Embarrassed? Guilty? Read on. The following is an excerpt from AWKWARD: The Science of Why We’re Socially Awkward and Why That’s Awesome. Charles Darwin provided some of the early scientific insights about why humans would be wired for emotions. Darwin hypothesized that in the survival of the fittest, people had to respond quickly to circumstances that threatened their safety or well-being. People did not have the luxury of conscious deliberation when they were under attack from a predator or fighting for scarce resources. Emotions are reflexive and involuntary,

On paper alone you would never guess that I grew up poor and hungry. My most recent annual salary was over $700,000. I am a Truman National Security Fellow and a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations. My publisher has just released my latest book series on quantitative finance in worldwide distribution. None of it feels like enough. I feel as though I am wired for a permanent state of fight or flight, waiting for the other shoe to drop, or the metaphorical week when I don’t eat. I’ve chosen not to have children, partly because—despite any success—I still don’t feel I have a safety ne

Make America great again. Clearly the message resonated. In 2016, prior to the presidential election, the Public Religion Research Institute, a nonpartisan group, published its annual American Values Survey. It revealed 51 percent of the population felt the American way of life had changed for the worse since the 1950s. Further, 7 in 10 likely Donald Trump voters said American society has gotten worse since that romanticized decade. Of course America today has its problems, but many indices of standards of living show the general population is better off now than it was 60 years ago. We live o

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. When a person lives in poverty, a growing body of research suggests the limbic

It's difficult to have a teenager's mind. The brain develops rapidly during the adolescent years, which partially explains why teens experience anger, sadness and frustration so intensely. During these tumultuous years, hormones surge, bodies change and adolescents must face a number of social and academic challenges, such as managing their relationships, coping with peer rejection and,-- especially this time of year — graduating from high school or preparing for college admission tests. These worries can take a definitive toll on a teenager's emotional health. "My daughters are dealing with f