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Tuesday, 04 July 2023 04:48

People almost always get this simple math problem wrong: Can you solve it?

The question goes: "A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?" Is your knee-jerk response that the ball costs 10 cents? That is a common answer, but also an incorrect one. If the ball costs 10 cents, then the bat would cost $1.10, which would bring the total to $1.20. The correct answer is the ball costs 5 cents and the bat $1.05. This question is part of the Cognitive Reflection Test, CRT, which was first described in 2005 by psychologist Shane Fredrick. Fredrick wanted…

Thursday, 29 June 2023 04:29

Is it possible to spot a good liar – and why do we all tell tales?

When were you last lied to? To your knowledge, obviously. Was the lie something that mattered? Was the liar convincing? Did they confess, or did you find them out? And how did you react? Maybe with anger. Maybe with hurt bemusement. Or contempt – like my grandmother, who had a stock retort for anyone who tried to pull the wool over her eyes: “I hate liars. They’re worse than thieves.” Did you feel, afterwards, that you’d been easy to fool? If so, you’d be in good company. It’s the norm to assume communication is honest – and that’s something to…

Saturday, 24 June 2023 02:37

Time flies by faster as we get older. Here's why

There's a reason our perception of time changes as we age — but there are ways to make it feel slower. For many people, 2022 went by in a blink ― doesn’t it feel like it was just January? But for others, especially children, last year’s holidays may seem like eons ago. There’s a reason why you may feel like the years moved slowly when you were a kid, but zoom by now. Experts say our perception of time greatly changes as we age, which makes certain periods feel like they go by quickly. “Our perception of days, weeks, years…

Sunday, 18 June 2023 03:22

Why dying people often experience a burst of lucidity

Long the fixation of religions, philosophy and literature the world over, the conscious experience of dying has recently received increasingly significant attention from science. This comes as medical advances extend the ability to keep the body alive, steadily prying open a window into the ultimate locked room: the last living moments of a human mind. “Around 1959 humans discovered a method to restart the heart in people who would have died, and we called this CPR,” says Sam Parnia, a critical care physician at NYU Langone Health. Parnia has studied people’s recollections after being revived from cardiac arrest—phenomena that he…

Saturday, 17 June 2023 04:36

20 words that are spelled the same but have different meanings

There are lots of English language words that are spelled the same but have different meanings. A baseball bat and the nocturnal animal bat are good examples of a "homonym." An airy wind and "to wind down" are homographs, too. It's no secret that the English language can be tricky. For anyone learning the language, it's difficult to grasp all the drastic differences a single word can have. People most get tripped up on words that are too similar. When words are spelled the same and sound the same but have different meanings, then they are called homonyms. When they…

Saturday, 10 June 2023 04:21

Your brain starts shrinking after 30. What you need to do next to keep your mind sharp and clear

It’s no secret that we physically shrink as we get older, but did you know that your brain (yes, your brain) is also getting smaller? Before you panic, it’s important to know that age-related shrinkage is normal. But if you want to get a head start on improving your brain health, here’s what to do. When your brain starts to shrink Most studies indicate that brain volume starts to change in your 30s or 40s; however, “it’s in your 60s or 70s that we start to see more promenade atrophy, or changes in the brain happening, both in normal aging…

Friday, 09 June 2023 03:59

Obituary: Vera Putina claimed to be Vladimir Putin’s real mother

After scraping flour from her hands with a large, sharp knife, Vera Putina went through the photographs. A very small child with a velvet cravat and smart strap shoes. A boy equipped for winter, in a balaclava and scarf, and for summer, with just a pair of shorts. A pupil in the back row at the Metekhi village school, the brightest in his class. All had the same blond hair, weak chin and sulky bottom lip; all had pale eyes, Russian eyes, like hers. Most also had the wary, sidelong look of an unhappy child. Yes, Vladimir Putin had been…

Sunday, 04 June 2023 04:20

Boost your happiness by using these 5 steps to forgive others, says psychologist who studied forgiveness for 30 years

If you've been truly hurt by someone, it can be hard to forgive. But there is new research that shows forgiveness may just free up more space in your life for happiness. Everett Worthington has decades of experience studying forgiveness as a clinical psychologist. He is the co-author of a recent study that shows forgiving others may lead to improved mental health and well-being. "There are a lot of benefits to the person who forgives," Worthington says. "The main way that forgiveness affects mental health is by lowering rumination," which is playing things over and over again in our minds,…

Friday, 02 June 2023 04:31

5 essential Gmail features Google forgot to tell you about

Gmail has so many useful features that some of them go unnoticed. Here’s a handful that you’ll wish you’d known about ages ago. Most of us have been using Gmail for so long that we never really bother to explore new features that have been added over the years. But if you use Gmail to get actual work done, there are a handful of really helpful goodies that aren’t quite so obvious unless you look for them. Here are five of these time-savers that you may have overlooked—until now. Add a recipient in the body of a message This one’s…

Wednesday, 31 May 2023 04:33

As it spreads across the world, who owns English?

What country does French belong to? The answer seems obvious: France, as it says on the label. But there are roughly four times as many speakers of French outside France as there are within it. Who does Portuguese belong to? You might now hesitate to blurt out “Portugal”, remembering that Brazil’s population is about 20 times bigger than Portugal’s. Maybe Portuguese belongs jointly to them both. But then 70m people live in African countries in which Portuguese is an official language. Perhaps it belongs to them, too. The English can be under no illusion that the language of the same…

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Saturday, 27 May 2023 04:29

Personality Test: The way you squeeze your toothpaste tells your boldest quality

According to psychologists, habits rather than conscious choices account for 40% of your behaviour. Your daily routine and everyday activities, which you might believe to be inconsequential, actually make up a substantial portion of your life and can tell a lot about your personality and how you're feeling right now. The proverb "habits make a man" is accurate for everyone. Your life's habits and decisions have formed a long pattern that makes up your personality. We have one such entertaining yet educational personality test for you today. Your boldest personality qualities are revealed by the way you squeeze your toothpaste.…

Tuesday, 23 May 2023 03:54

Buhari leaves legacy of kidnapping, inflation and debt - BBC

When he steps down next week President Muhammadu Buhari will be leaving Nigerians less secure, poorer and more in debt than when he came to office in 2015. The former military ruler became president after winning a momentous election which saw the defeat of underperforming incumbent Goodluck Jonathan. Riding a wave of optimism that change was possible, he was supported by a powerful coalition and had the reputation of being a hard-man soldier, who would get things done. After Buhari's brief stint in charge in the 1980s, his second coming was on the back of promises to curtail the rampaging…

Sunday, 21 May 2023 03:24

How to retrain your brain and achieve the highest levels of success

A common misconception tells us that we fail to reach our maximum potential because we only use 10% of our brain. This statistic is often repeated, but that doesn't make it true. In fact, functional magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, reveals that the majority of our brain is in use even during very simple tasks. The truth is that achieving our highest potential and entering the ranks of the ultra-successful has much more to do with how we are using our brain rather than how much of our brain we are using. So many people never learn how to use…

Friday, 19 May 2023 04:57

How emotionally intelligent people use the 10-10-10 rule to stop being impulsive and make smarter, better decisions

There are plenty of frameworks you can use to make better decisions. Jeff Bezosuses the two-way door rule to identify reversible decisions and embrace a bias towards action. Southwest Airlines founder Herb Kelleher used the one-question rule to add clarity the decision-making process. Science can also help you make better decisions. You can leverage your circadian rhythm. You can the power of experience-based intuition. You can even sleep on a decision (as long as you get a good night's sleep.) Problem is, most frameworks won't necessarily help you make good decisions when your willpower reserves run low. When temptation trumps…

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