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Reach for the hand of a loved one in pain and not only will your breathing and heart rate synchronize with theirs, your brain wave patterns will couple up too, according to a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).The study, by researchers with the University of Colorado Boulder and University of Haifa, also found that the more empathy a comforting partner feels for a partner in pain, the more their brainwaves fall into sync. And the more those brain waves sync, the more the pain goes away.

The study is the latest in a growing body of research exploring a phenomenon known as "interpersonal synchronization," in which people physiologically mirror the people they are with. It is the first to look at brain wave synchronization in the context of pain, and offers new insight into the role brain-to-brain coupling may play in touch-induced analgesia, or healing touch.

He and his colleagues at University of Haifa recruited 22 heterosexual couples, age 23 to 32 who had been together for at least one year and put them through several two-minute scenarios as electroencephalography (EEG) caps measured their brainwave activity. The scenarios included sitting together not touching; sitting together holding hands; and sitting in separate rooms. Then they repeated the scenarios as the woman was subjected to mild heat pain on her arm.Merely being in each other's presence, with or without touch, was associated with some brain wave synchronicity in the alpha mu band, a wavelength associated with focused attention. If they held hands while she was in pain, the coupling increased the most.

Everyone knows couples break up when they fight too much. But what if they don't fight enough?

the “magic ratio” of positive and negative interactions in successful relationships is about 5 to 1.

So, too much fighting leads to breakups. That’s obvious. But what’s interesting about the theory is it implies that one sign of a doomed relationship could be not enough negativity.

Despite his best efforts, none of his business ventures ever achieved any commercial success, but his journey sparked in me an immense desire to understand how successful businesses are structured and managed. What I have come to appreciate is that no management structure or style is certain to result in business success but organizational cultures that encourage initiative, innovation and creativity are more effective than those cultures based on control.

He adopted a command and control management structure coupled with a patriarchal management style to operate his business. I don't think this was an intentional decision but like many new and less experienced entrepreneurs, organizational culture isn't usually a factor considered by the entrepreneur when determining how to build a successful enterprise. Instead, organizational cultures are often a byproduct of necessity driven by the demands of the business coupled with the leader's personal value system.

It is commonplace for leaders to choose management structures and styles that align with their own value systems. Like my father, many leaders possess a value system where the person at the top makes all the decisions and everyone else has to simply conform or risk losing their job.

While there is little or no research on the phenomenon of long-distance-only relationships among young people, it’s not surprising that it’s happening, say experts. It’s one of the ways teens and twentysomethings are adapting to a combination of two demographic trends—earlier puberty and later marriage—using the technology at hand

Research connecting this change in behavior to other changes in the habits of young people is virtually non-existent, but it’s at least plausible that one reason America’s young people are engaging in less risky behavior than previous generations is simply that they are hanging out online instead of in person. For example, the percentage of Americans age 18 to 29 who report not having had sex in the past year was 23% in 2018, where in the early 1990s the figure was about half that.

But his wife, Udella, who is 81 and has diabetes, has been unable to sign up for a vaccine at all. “Not eligible,” the couple says the state health department portal read after she tried to register.

But his wife, Udella, who is 81 and has diabetes, has been unable to sign up for a vaccine at all. “Not eligible,” the couple says the state health department portal read after she tried to register.

“It’s the anxiety, the frustration, the difficulty people have in scheduling appointments — which we are making with a very limited supply of vaccine that comes in — in quantities that we don’t know until it arrives,”

We face a frightening pandemic. More than 100,000 American have been infected with Covid-19, while tens of millions more continue to shelter at home. Meanwhile, the markets are crashing.

While health care workers and local governments frantically race against the clock to keep up with the escalating medical caseloads while trying to keep themselves and their families safe, Congress was still able to find the time to give money away to rich people.

Now here is what changed in the historic $2 trillion stimulus bill. Previously, if a married couple had depreciation deductions that exceeded their real estate business income, the couple could claim that "loss" to write off taxes on a maximum of $500,000 in income from other sources, like wages from a day job.

in the world of online dating, frivolous similarities really do matter. When researchers at MIT tracked 65,000 online daters for a 2005 study, they observed "significant homophily." Translation: You're typically interested in someone just like you, who likes the same things you do.

Finding a decent signal amid all this noise takes work. This is one of the market failures of window-shopping for soul mates, writes behavioral economist Dan Ariely, Ph.D., author of The Upside of Irrationality. He cites this finding from University of Chicago research: A typical online dater spends an average of 12 hours a week screening but only 2 hours dating. Not a good return.

All my wife's likes and dislikes—the ones I've had to learn over time—are right there on the screen for some other guy to capitalize on. To make her short list, all he has to do is declare, "Me too!"

The portraits seem to be asking a lot of impolite questions: Do you have as many friends as we do? How did you celebrate your birthday? Do you regularly drink prosecco over plates of fruit at Ralph Lauren’s Polo Bar? Have you betrayed your gender by preferring the company of men? You don’t have a friend with whom you publicly exchange photographs of your manicures? What’s wrong with you? If female friendship is so uplifting, then why do these photos make us feel the opposite — unbalanced and unsure?

I used to think that friendship as performed for an audience would end with middle school, but the past 10 years of technology have changed that expectation.

In social media, friendship gets fixed and mounted. It loses its dramatic tension. It becomes a presentation of happiness, an advertisement for friendship rather than an actual portrayal of it.

An emphasis on love is a new addition to Chinese weddings—and shines a pink-filtered spotlight on social change.

the bride’s family exchanged money or goods.

. An average wedding cost $12,000 in 2011 (the latest year for which such data exist)—the equivalent of more than two years’ income for the average urban household.

Allowing all couples to marry has zero impact on anybody's legally protected free exercise of religion

The legal basics of marriage equality and religion are not that complicated: The courts are addressing only civil marriage. No church will ever be forced to change its definition of marriage

Problems arise only when religious organizations act in the commercial realm -- such as by operating a public catering hall -- or when business owners harbor religious qualms about serving gay people (or black people or Japanese people) in their restaurants, bakeries, entertainment venues, or other public accommodations. In these settings, civil rights laws trump personal preferences -- even those based on religious conviction. That's a consensus we came to as a society long ago. Have a religious objection to serving Mexicans or Mormons or interracial couples? Don't open a lunch counter.

Instead of self-confident and self-centered answers, the author humbly asks fundamental questions: What is economics? What is its meaning? Where does this new religion, as it is sometimes called, come from? What are its possibilities and its limitations and borders, if there are any? Why are we so dependent on permanent growing of growth and growth of growing of growth? Where did the idea of progress come from, and where is it leading us? Why are so many economic debates accompanied by obsession and fanaticism?

The majority of our political parties act with a narrow materialistic focus when, in their programs, they present the economy and finance first; only then, somewhere at the end, do we find culture as something pasted on or as a libation for a couple of madmen.

most of them—consciously or unconsciously—accept and spread the Marxist thesis of the economic base and the spiritual superstructure.

One Year Together, Apart

The pandemic redefined relationships and self-reliance.

In the year since the pandemic began, people learned to be together while apart and navigated the pain of feeling apart while together

What’s startling is how many mystery infections still exist today.

More than a third of acute respiratory illnesses are idiopathic; the same is true for up to 40 percent of gastrointestinal disorders and more than half the cases of encephalitis (swelling of the brain).

Up to 20 percent of cancers and a substantial portion of autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis, are thought to have viral triggers, but a vast majority of those have yet to be identified.