FEATURES

Sunday, 20 September 2020 05:37

Seeking happiness won't help you make major personal decisions. Here's what will

Jungian psychoanalyst James Hollis recommends asking yourself the question: Does this 'diminish' or 'enlarge' me? We tend to ask ourselves a simple question when faced with a major personal decision. Say you're considering whether to start a business. Or change careers. Or set out to accomplish a huge goal. If you're like most people, the decision usually comes down to this: "Will (this) make me happy?" The problem is, where major personal decisions are concerned, we tend to be terrible at predicting what will make us happy. For example, plenty of entrepreneurs build successful businesses only to discover they love…

Sunday, 20 September 2020 05:36

A few simple changes to how you have a conversation are guaranteed to make people like you

Psychologist and popular TED speaker Guy Winch explains how we can all be more likable. Ever wonder if there's anything you can do to make more people like you? While it won't work on everyone, a few simple changes to the way you interact with people can make a big difference to how likable you are. In an insightful post at Psychology Today, psychologist and popular TED speaker Guy Winch offers 10 simple changes in how you interact with people that are certain to make you more likable to potential customers or business partners, friends, or even possible dates. You…

Sunday, 20 September 2020 05:35

Face masks that work and those that don’t work against Covid-19

While the hunt for a vaccine against novel coronavirus continues, researchers across the world have been evaluating the best materials for filtering Covid-19, especially protective gears like face masks. As face masks become the new fashion accessory and the most effective tool in the battle against coronavirus, it is important that you opt for a covering which offers sufficient protection. A face mask comes handy not only because it blocks the large respiratory droplets from coughs or sneezes and prevents passing of the virus to others but also because it blocks the smaller airborne particles or aerosols, which are produced…

Saturday, 19 September 2020 05:31

Psychologists can now predict 57% of your personality traits from the way you use your smartphone

It used to be that psychologists would have to administer a litany of tests to uncover the structure of someone’s personality. Not anymore. Nowadays, semi-accurate personality inferences can be made simply by analyzing a person’s online behavior. Enter Suzie’s clicks, likes, posts, and web visits into a whizzy machine learning algorithm and out comes her personality profile. No questioning necessary. New research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences takes this idea one step further. A team of scientists led by Clemens Stachl of Stanford University found that three of the Big Five personality dimensions — namely,…

Friday, 18 September 2020 04:53

Experts recommend certain amount of moderate exercise. What exactly is ‘moderate’ exercise?

Medical studies and experts recommend that we get a certain amount of moderate exercise each week. But, what exactly is moderate exercise? How can we tell if the exercise we’re incorporating into our routines is enough? Everyone is different, that’s a given. So exercise guidelines are exactly that – guidelines. They’re not hard and fast rules, but something to use as a marker. Are you exercising for your health? For competition? To improve how you look? Just for fun? These all play a role in what kind of exercise you do, how often and for how long. 150 minutes per…

Thursday, 17 September 2020 05:33

Millions of African children rely on TV education amid pandemic

Five-year-old Kenyan student Miguel Munene sits between his parents, holding their hands as he watches cartoon characters teaching him to pronounce “fish”. The television has replaced Munene’s teachers and classmates after the government shut schools indefinitely in March to curb the spread of novel coronavirus. They are closed until at least January. Many children don’t have the option to learn online - United Nations children’s agency UNICEF says at least half of sub-Saharan Africa’s schoolchildren do not have internet access. So some, like Munene, watch a cartoon made by Tanzanian non-profit organisation Ubongo, which offers television and radio content for…

Monday, 14 September 2020 05:48

Behind Ghana and Nigeria's love-hate affair

In our series of letters from African journalists, Ghanaian writer Elizabeth Ohene looks at the fraught relationship between Ghana and Nigeria, which underlies the current tensions over the closure of some Nigerian-owned shops in Ghana. We see them as too loud, and abrasive and chaotic and we believe they think they can outsmart everybody, especially Ghanaians. They think we are too submissive, not very smart, always punching above our weight and nothing upsets them more than Ghana defeating Nigeria, in anything. The Ghana-Nigeria rivalry has been around for as long as both countries have existed. When I was a child,…

Monday, 14 September 2020 05:47

"We are dying of hunger here, we have nothing," Migrants lament harsh living condition at the heart of Europe

Scotti Kele was one of the lucky ones: he had managed to find a rusty old wheelchair in which his four-year-old daughter could rest from the boiling sun. That, and a filthy babygrow they picked up on the street, are now their only belongings, beyond the clothes they're wearing. They lay beneath a makeshift shelter on the side of the road, beside some of 13,000 others who had streamed out of Moria as Europe's largest migrant camp burned to the ground on Tuesday night. "We are dying of hunger here, we have nothing," Scotti said. "When I was in my…

Sunday, 13 September 2020 05:32

Lucid dreams: A new approach brings closer an understanding of what dreaming is about

That dreams contain hidden meanings is an old idea. The Biblical Book of Genesis, written down about 2,500 years ago, describes how Joseph, son of Jacob, interpreted the Egyptian pharaoh’s dreams of fat and thin cattle as predicting years first of plenty and then of famine. In China, meanwhile, the most popular work on dream interpretation has long been the “Zhougong Jie Meng”, a dictionary of explanations for weird and wonderful dreams written 500 years earlier still. It is, however, only since the publication of Sigmund Freud’s treatise “The Interpretation of Dreams”, in 1899, that dreams have become a subject…

Saturday, 12 September 2020 05:19

5 questions you should always ask before taking anyone’s advice

Phil Lewis I am a consultant and I will tell you that a lot of the advice that consultants offer is not worth listening to, let alone acting on. I’m not singling out consultants, either: the same is true of most advice on offer, period. Advice is, indeed, cheap—for the simple reason that it is typically given by people who, to paraphrase the author Nicholas Nassim Taleb, have no skin in the game. Bad advice can have horrendous consequences for those who take it. But for those providing it the downside will, at worst, comprise some sort of (usually localized)…

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Wednesday, 09 September 2020 05:16

Skills lost due to coronavirus school closures will hit output for generations - Report

Disruption to schooling stemming from Covid-19 epidemic will cause a skill loss that could result in a 1.5% drop in global economic output for the rest of this century, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development estimated. For the United States, that will represent an economic loss of $15.3 trillion, OECD said in a report published on Tuesday, with the bill rising higher still if disruption to education extends into the next academic year. “Learning loss will lead to skill loss, and the skills people have relate to their productivity,” the report said, explaining the forecast drop in global GDP. Governments…

Tuesday, 08 September 2020 05:13

In pandemic, Nigerian teacher can 'teach the whole world'

For many 12th graders, the closure of Nigeria’s public schools to combat the spread of Covid-19 presents a particular problem: How to prepare for crucial, final exams? Basirat Olamide Ajayi, a math teacher in Lagos, Nigeria’s biggest city, came up with a solution. She began offering free mathematics classes online via Twitter, WhatsApp and Instagram. And now, after almost six months, more than 1,800 students at various levels are taking her classes -- across Nigeria and even internationally. Students watch her short math videos -- no more than 5 minutes long -- and respond to her questions. She will send…

Sunday, 06 September 2020 05:27

14 time-honored quotes perfect for today and the future

Geoffrey James It's been a strange year for sure but here's some wisdom that can help you understand the chaos. There's supposedly a Chinese curse that goes "May you live in interesting times." Well, the year 2020 has proved to be a lot more interesting than anyone expected, or wanted. With that in mind, I thought I'd share some quotes I've gathered over the past few months that have helped me understand exactly how "interesting" our times have become. "Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so." - Gore…

Wednesday, 02 September 2020 05:14

Covid-19: Restaurant treats customers to air travel feel with flight-themed menu

Missing the thrill of air travel during the coronavirus lockdown? A Nigerian restaurant is now offering its customers the illusion of flight without them ever having to leave the ground. The diners at Urban Air in Nigerian capital Abuja sit on plush white seats and peruse a flight-themed cocktail menu beside windows illustrated with blue skies and puffy white clouds. Some customers take selfies as staff leave the ‘cockpit’ to serve them. “The environment is really amazing considering this corona stuff,” said IT worker, Ms Fatima Garba during her second visit. “It’s been a while since we’ve all got to…

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