Check out this fascinating story by Benedict Carey that explores the reasons why certain older people (90 and over) are able to maintain their mental sharpness. In a nutshell: researchers have found little evidence that diet … keep reading
Great idea from Timothy Noah at Slate – we need more commencement speakers who talk about the underrated usefulness of failure, screw-ups, and falling short. Sounds like a buzzkill, but as Noah wisely points out, … keep reading
What’s the best training to be a writer? Part of the answer might be revealed in this Chip McGrath article which details the youthful creations of one of the most energetic of writers, Jack Kerouac, … keep reading
Check out this marvelous article about self-control in this week’s New Yorker by the consistently fascinating Jonah Lehrer . The takeaway: science is giving us a new way to think about willpower as a skill circuit you … keep reading
I was talking with my friend Allison the other day, and she had a cool idea I thought I’d pass along. Allison, who’s in her thirties, is an amateur dancer with a group here in … keep reading
Fascinating story in the NY Times today on the science of concentration by the reliably interesting John Tierney. His subject is Rapt, a new book by Winifred Gallagher. The upshot: focus is like money. We each … keep reading
Like a lot of people, I love watching Mike Rowe on “Dirty Jobs” because of his lightning-fast mind. Like all great improvisers, Rowe is essentially unsurprisable, always ready with a response calibrated to poke a … keep reading
One of the questions that comes up often is about talking to kids–specifically, how do you encourage them along? The simple and surprising answer from the research is to praise them for their effort, not … keep reading
More than just rail-splitting It’s one of the all-time talent mysteries: how did a poor, uneducated kid from the dirt farms of Kentucky and Illinois grow up to become one of the most skilled, wise, … keep reading
Here’s Funtwo (real name Jeong-Hyun Lim), the 25-year-old South Korean guitar virtuoso whose version of Pachelbel’s Canon has been viewed 58 million times on YouTube. I love this video for two reasons: 1) it rocks; … keep reading
