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scientists claim to have identified the most common practitioners of the ignoble art. Their study of 40,000 teenagers reveals that boys; those from privileged backgrounds; and North Americans in particular, top the charts as the worst offenders.

Jerrim analysed data gathered by the OECD to assess how well 15-year-olds around the globe have mastered key academic subjects.

For one of the questions, the teenagers must rate how familiar they are with 16 mathematical concepts ranging from polygons and vectors to quadratic functions and congruent figures. Hidden among the bona fide terms are three fakes: proper numbers, subjective scaling and declarative functions

Confirmation bias occurs from the direct influence of desire on beliefs. When people would like a certain idea or concept to be true, they end up believing it to be true. They are motivated by wishful thinking. This error leads the individual to stop gathering information when the evidence gathered so far confirms the views or prejudices one would like to be true.

Confirmation bias can also be found in anxious individuals, who view the world as dangerous. For example, a person with low self-esteem is highly sensitive to being ignored by other people, and they constantly monitor for signs that people might not like them. Thus, if you are worried that someone is annoyed with you, you are biased toward all the negative information about how that person acts toward you. You interpret neutral behavior as indicative of something negative.

The story begins with the first American linguists who described (scientifically) some of the languages spoken by Native Americans. They discovered many awkward differences compared to the languages they had learned in school (ancient Greek, Latin, English, German, and the like).

They found sounds never heard in European languages (like ejective consonants), strange meanings encoded in the grammar (like parts of the verb referring to shapes of the objects), or new grammatical categories (like evidentiality, that is, the source of knowledge about the facts in a sentence).

Not surprisingly, some of these linguists concluded that such strange linguistic systems should have an effect on the mind of their speakers

There is no conventional “narrative” to Fortnite Battle Royale – Epic doesn’t provide an origin story for its endless 100-player wars, it doesn’t give us long cinematic scenes with characters explaining the world, the factions and the plot. Instead, Fortnite is split into a series of three-month-long seasons, each with a climactic event that suggests some kind of interdimensional struggle taking place over the future of the game’s isolated island locale.

Ostensibly, there’s no need for a narrative – Epic could, in theory, retain player interest simply by making sure there is a steady supply of new dance moves, costumes and scenic features to enjoy. Instead, the studio has built a vast functional universe in which an alien known as The Visitor is attempting to mend the space-time fissure around the island, and communicated this through systems of signs, signals and miracles – sort of like the Medieval Christian church

Indeed, it’s interesting how Fortnite has co-opted a lot of religious symbolism into the game’s suggestive narrative, from comets trailing across the sky, to the decidedly apocalyptic imagery of fire, brimstone and global destruction.

“Because of its analogies with the rise, fall and alterations of a society of living organisms, it belongs to a growing class of what are called ‘simulation games,’” Mr. Gardner wrote when he introduced Life to the world 50 years ago with his October 1970 column.

The Game of Life motivated the use of cellular automata in the rich field of complexity science, with simulations modeling everything from ants to traffic, clouds to galaxies. More trivially, the game attracted a cult of “Lifenthusiasts,” programmers who spent a lot of time hacking Life — that is, constructing patterns in hopes of spotting new Life-forms.

The tree of Life also includes oscillators, such as the blinker, and spaceships of various sizes (the glider being the smallest).

using ‘misconception-based learning’ to dislodge climate myths from peoples’ brains and replace them with facts, and beating denial by inoculating people against misinformers’ tricks.

The idea is that when people are faced with a myth and a competing fact, the fact will more easily win out if the fallacy underpinning the myth is revealed.

If people can learn to implement a simple six-step critical thinking process, they’ll be able to evaluate whether climate-related claims are valid.

Society is intrigued by psychopaths, at least from a distance. Hollywood paints them as powerful and emotionless predators – a small few who have embraced their inner dark passengers.

Psychopathy is of course a very real disorder and a lot more complex than portrayed on film.

What Fallon found was his own scan, which appeared to show reduced activity in a part of the brain associated with empathy. Based on this, and some genetic tests, Fallon concluded that he himself was a psychopath

there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that we’re all at least somewhat subject to bias

Tell Republicans that some imaginary policy is a Republican one, as the psychologist Geoffrey Cohen did in 2003, and they’re much more likely to support it, even if it runs counter to Republican values. But ask them why they support it, and they’ll deny that party affiliation played a role. (Cohen found something similar for Democrats.

those who saw the names were biased in favour of famous artists. But even though they acknowledged the risk of bias, when asked to assess their own objectivity, they didn’t view their judgments as any more biased as a result.

In the US, the sport of long-range weather prediction is dominated by two annual publications, the Farmer’s Almanac (founded in 1818) and the rival Old Farmer’s Almanac (1792).

Many interacting forces make for unpredictable outcomes, so they express their forecasts in broad probabilities.

The founders of the two almanacs developed their own systems from beliefs that were fashionable at the time, but are no longer scientifically accepted.

training, focus, discipline, loyalty, competitiveness, and individ

ual and team performances that are hallmarks of sports culture.

Sports can play a potential role in alleviating a wide range of social problems in communities that may otherwise be afflicted with substance abuse, crime, academic underachievement, and lack of a cohesive social identity.

Ah, happiness, that elusive state. Philosophers, theologians, psychologists, even economists, have long sought to define it, and since the 1990s, a whole branch of psychology—positive psychology—has been dedicated to pinning it down and propagating it.

Research shows that happiness is not the result of bouncing from one joy to the next; achieving happiness typically involves times of considerable discomfort. 

. Researchers estimate that much of happiness is under personal control. Regularly indulging in small pleasures (such as warm baths!), getting absorbed in challenging activities, setting and meeting goals, maintaining close social ties, and finding purpose beyond oneself are all actions that increase life satisfaction.

The term "synesthesia" comes from the Greek words syn, which means "together", and aisthesis, which means "sensation." Synesthesia is a perception in which stimulating one sensory or cognitive pathway  causes experiences in another sense or cognitive pathway. In other words, a sense or concept is connected to a different sense or concept, such as hearing a color or tasting a word. The connection between pathways is involuntary and consistent over time, rather than conscious or arbitrary.

Types of SynesthesiaThere are many different types of synesthesia, but they may be categorized as falling into one of two groups: associative synesthesia and projective synesthesia. An associate feels a connection between a stimulus and a sense, w

There are at least 80 known types of synesthesia, but some are more common than others: Chromesthesia: In this common form of synesthesia, sounds and colors are associated with each other. For example, the musical note "D" may correspond to seeing the color green.Grapheme-color synesthesia: This is a common form of synesthesia characterized by seeing graphemes (letter or numerals) shaded with a color. Synesthetes don't associate the same colors for a grapheme as each other, although the letter "A" does appear to be red to many individuals. Persons who experience grapheme-color synesthesia sometimes report seeing impossible colors when red and green or blue and yellow graphemes appear next to each other in a word or number. Number form: A number form is a mental shape or map of numbers resulting from seeing or thinking about numbers.Lexical-gustatory synesthesia: This a rare type of synesthesia in which hearing a word results in tasting a flavor. For example, a person's name might taste like chocolate.Mirror-touch synesthesia: While rare, mirror-touch synesthesia is noteworthy because it can be disruptive to a synesthete's life. In this form of synesthesia, an individual feels the same sensation in response to a stimulus as another person. For example, seeing a person being tapped on the shoulder would cause the synesthete to feel a tap on

The Science of Animal CognitionOver the past several years, one of the biggest advances in our human understanding of doggie cognition has been the use of MRI machines to scan dog brains. MRI stands for magnetic resonance imaging, the process of taking an ongoing picture of what parts of the brain are lighting up through what external stimuli.Dogs, as any doggie parent knows, are highly trainable. This trainable nature makes dogs great candidates for MRI machines, unlike non-domesticated wild animals like birds or bears.

Do you imagine they feel something like human jealousy? Well, there’s science to back this up, too.

As Smart as ChildrenAnimal psychologists have clocked dog intelligence at right around that of a two to two-and-a-half year old human child. The 2009 study which examined this found that dogs can understand up to 250 words and gestures. Even more surprising, the same study found that dogs can actually count low numbers (up to five) and even do simple math.

people who are passionately in love are less able to focus and to perform tasks that require attention.

because you spend a large part of your cognitive resources on thinking of your beloved,

When you fall in love, the same neural system in your brain linked to cocaine addiction becomes active, giving you that feeling of euphoria.

It is a global emergency that has already killed on a mass scale and threatens to send millions more to early graves. As its effects spread, it could destabilise entire economies and overwhelm poorer countries lacking resources and infrastructure. But this is the climate crisis, not the coronavirus. Governments are not assembling emergency national plans and you’re not getting push notifications transmitted to your phone breathlessly alerting you to dramatic twists and developments from South Korea to Italy.

More than 3,000 people have succumbed to coronavirus yet, according to the World Health Organization, air pollution alone – just one aspect of our central planetary crisis – kills seven million people every year. There have been no Cobra meetings for the climate crisis, no sombre prime ministerial statements detailing the emergency action being taken to reassure the public. In time, we’ll overcome any coronavirus pandemic. With the climate crisis, we are already out of time

Pandemics and the climate crisis may go hand in hand, too: research suggests that changing weather patterns may drive species to higher altitudes, potentially putting them in contact with diseases for which they have little immunity.

The number of teenagers setting up businesses has increased eightfold in the past decade, a study has found. The rise from 500 in 2009 to more than 4,000 has been driven by technology startups, according to the Brighton-based financial services provider OneFamily, which commissioned the research.

“Generation Z were born after Google and have grown up with social media, so it’s no surprise that these teens are already using their networks to help build their career. We also know that many are already making money from it.

I work as a psychotherapist and my specialism is ultra-high net worth individuals.

I got into working with billionaires by accident. I had one wealthy client, who passed my name around to their acquaintances. They are called the 1% for a reason: there are not that many of them and so the circle is tight.

Over the years, I have developed a great deal of empathy for those who have far too much. The television programme Succession, now in its third season, does such a good job of exploring the kinds of toxic excess my clients struggle with that when my wife is watching it I have to leave the room; it just feels like work.

If heat waves were as deadly as the press proclaims, Homo sapiens couldn’t have survived thousands of years without air conditioning. Yet here we are

Humans have shown remarkable resilience and adaptation—at least until modern times, when half of society lost its cool over climate change.

it’s alarmist stories about bad weather that are fueling mental derangements worthy of the DSM-5—not the warm summer air itself.