When a man shot and killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., gun sales did not set records until five days later, after President Obama called for banning assault rifles and high-capacity magazines.

“It would be like you’ve never owned a toaster, you don’t really want a toaster, but the federal government says they’re going to ban toasters,” Mr. Ruttenbur said. “So you go out and buy a toaster.”

Gun sales rose in New Jersey in 2013 after Gov. Chris Christie proposed measures that included expanding background checks and banning certain rifles. (Mr. Christie later vetoed one of the most stringent parts

Catch-22 for gun control proponents: Pushing for new restrictions can lead to an influx of new guns.

Maryland approved one of the nation’s strictest gun-control measures in May 2013, gun sales jumped as buyers tried to beat the October deadline specified in the measure

after Hurricane Katrina, legally registered guns were confiscated from civilians. The confiscations outraged gun owners and prompted an increase in gun sales in the area. Conservatives responded by pushing for a federal law prohibiting the seizure of firearms from civilians during an emergency

Gun sales have more than doubled in a decade, to about 15 million in 2013 from about seven million in 2002. More firearms are sold to residents in the United States than in any other country

These estimates undercount total sales because they omit some purchases in states that do not require background checks for private sales. They also exclude permits that allow people in some states to buy multiple guns with a single background check.

The increase is mostly due to higher sales of handguns, which are typically bought for self-defense. Two of the fastest-growing segments of the market are women and gun owners with concealed carry permits.

When Missouri repealed a requirement that gun buyers obtain a permit to buy a handgun in 2007, estimated gun sales went up and stayed up, by roughly 9,000 additional guns per month. The influx shifted gun-trafficking patterns, reducing the number of guns used in crimes that had been brought in from neighboring states.

Supreme Court invalidated a ban on handguns in Washington, estimated handgun sales in the city went from near-zero to about 40 every month.

In 31 states, governors — most but not all Republicans — have formed an axis of ignorance, declaring their borders closed to refugees fleeing the Islamic State in Syria.

defending the displaced against blatant discrimination. That it is even necessary to protect the victims of Islamic extremism from being victimized again, in the United States, is a national disgrace.

the danger right now is allowing him to legitimize the hatred that he so skillfully exploits, and to revive the old American tendency, in frightening times, toward vicious treatment of the weak and outsiders.

The internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II, as some Republicans have either forgotten or never understood, was a dark episode in American history. It is remembered today with regret, as something the nation struggled with, learned from, and moved beyond. But there are millions of Muslims who have good reason to fear that the darkness is falling again.

The time to renounce Mr. Trump’s views was the day he entered the race, calling Mexico an exporter of criminals and rapists.

He played to the politics of nativism and fear that was evident last year

The racism behind the agenda of the right wing on immigrants and foreigners has long been plain as day. Mr. Trump makes it even plainer.

When participants were in diverse company, their answers were 58 percent more accurate. The prices they chose were much closer to the true values of the stocks. As they spent time interacting in diverse groups, their performance improved.In homogeneous groups, whether in the United States or in Asia, the opposite happened. When surrounded by others of the same ethnicity or race, participants were more likely to copy others, in the wrong direction. Mistakes spread as participants seemingly put undue trust in others’ answers, mindlessly imitating them. In the diverse groups, across ethnicities and locales, participants were more likely to distinguish between wrong and accurate answers. Diversity brought cognitive friction that enhanced deliberation.

For our study, we intentionally chose a situation that required analytical thinking, seemingly unaffected by ethnicity or race. We wanted to understand whether the benefits of diversity stem, as the common thinking has it, from some special perspectives or skills of minorities.

What we actually found is that these benefits can arise merely from the very presence of minorities.

before participants interacted, there were no statistically significant differences between participants in the homogeneous or diverse groups. Minority members did not bring some special knowledge.

When surrounded by people “like ourselves,” we are easily influenced, more likely to fall for wrong ideas. Diversity prompts better, critical thinking. It contributes to error detection. It keeps us from drifting toward miscalculation.

Our findings suggest that racial and ethnic diversity matter for learning, the core purpose of a university. Increasing diversity is not only a way to let the historically disadvantaged into college, but also to promote sharper thinking for everyone.

One possibility is that knowledge of your talents becomes something of a ball and chain. Indeed, during the 1990s, the surviving Termites were asked to look back at the events in their 80-year lifespan. Rather than basking in their successes, many reported that they had been plagued by the sense that they had somehow failed to live up to their youthful expectations.

The most notable, and sad, case concerns the maths prodigy Sufiah Yusof. Enrolled at Oxford University aged 12, she dropped out of her course before taking her finals and started waitressing. She later worked as a call girl, entertaining clients with her ability to recite equations during sexual acts.

Another common complaint, often heard in student bars and internet forums, is that smarter people somehow have a clearer vision of the world’s failings. Whereas the rest of us are blinkered from existential angst, smarter people lay awake agonising over the human condition or other people’s folly.

MacEwan University in Canada found that those with the higher IQ did indeed feel more anxiety throughout the day. Interestingly, most worries were mundane, day-to-day concerns, though; the high-IQ students were far more likely to be replaying an awkward conversation, than asking the “big questions”. “It’s not that their worries were more profound, but they are just worrying more often about more things,” says Penney. “If something negative happened, they thought about it more.”

seemed to correlate with verbal intelligence – the kind tested by word games in IQ tests, compared to prowess at spatial puzzles (which, in fact, seemed to reduce the risk of anxiety). He speculates that greater eloquence might also make you more likely to verbalise anxieties and ruminate over them. It’s not necessarily a disadvantage, though. “Maybe they were problem-solving a bit more than most people,” he says – which might help them to learn from their mistakes.

The harsh truth, however, is that greater intelligence does not equate to wiser decisions; in fact, in some cases it might make your choices a little more foolish.

we need to turn our minds to an age-old concept: “wisdom”. His approach is more scientific that it might at first sound. “The concept of wisdom has an ethereal quality to it,” he admits. “But if you look at the lay definition of wisdom, many people would agree it’s the idea of someone who can make good unbiased judgement.”

“my-side bias” – our tendency to be highly selective in the information we collect so that it reinforces our previous attitudes. The more enlightened approach would be to leave your assumptions at the door as you build your argument – but Stanovich found that smarter people are almost no more likely to do so than people with distinctly average IQs.

People who ace standard cognitive tests are in fact slightly more likely to have a “bias blind spot”. That is, they are less able to see their own flaws, even when though they are quite capable of criticising the foibles of others. And they have a greater tendency to fall for the “gambler’s fallacy”

A tendency to rely on gut instincts rather than rational thought might also explain why a surprisingly high number of Mensa members believe in the paranormal; or why someone with an IQ of 140 is about twice as likely to max out their credit card.

“The people pushing the anti-vaccination meme on parents and spreading misinformation on websites are generally of more than average intelligence and education.” Clearly, clever people can be dangerously, and foolishly, misguided.

spent the last decade building tests for rationality, and he has found that fair, unbiased decision-making is largely independent of IQ.

Crucially, Grossmann found that IQ was not related to any of these measures, and certainly didn’t predict greater wisdom. “People who are very sharp may generate, very quickly, arguments [for] why their claims are the correct ones – but may do it in a very biased fashion.”

employers may well begin to start testing these abilities in place of IQ; Google has already announced that it plans to screen candidates for qualities like intellectual humility, rather than sheer cognitive prowess.

He points out that we often find it easier to leave our biases behind when we consider other people, rather than ourselves. Along these lines, he has found that simply talking through your problems in the third person (“he” or “she”, rather than “I”) helps create the necessary emotional distance, reducing your prejudices and leading to wiser arguments.

If you’ve been able to rest on the laurels of your intelligence all your life, it could be very hard to accept that it has been blinding your judgement. As Socrates had it: the wisest person really may be the one who can admit he knows nothing.

Although he already speaks English well, he says meeting native speakers has been helpful for picking up new phrases and mastering the art of both British and American slang.

Language teachers aren’t surprised by the trend, and see it as a natural progression given improved access to technology in countries like India. “In a developing country many people don’t have the disposable income to invest in self-improvement with things like language lessons. But access to the internet creates opportunities for self-directed study and to learn from the wealth of English language [content] available,”

“Smart learning is all about learning the English you need to deal with day-to-day situations that you may encounter. The instant gratification of learning something and being able to apply it in a meaningful way is a huge motivator,”

Brooding, which is known among cognitive scientists as morbid rumination, is a mental state familiar to most of us, in which we can’t seem to stop chewing over the ways in which things are wrong with ourselves and our lives. This broken-record fretting is not healthy or helpful. It can be a precursor to depression and is disproportionately common among city dwellers compared with people living outside urban areas, studies show.

such rumination also is strongly associated with increased activity in a portion of the brain known as the subgenual prefrontal cortex.

gathered 38 healthy, adult city dwellers and asked them to complete a questionnaire to determine their normal level of morbid rumination. The researchers also checked for brain activity in each volunteer’s subgenual prefrontal cortex, using scans that track blood flow through the brain. Greater blood flow to parts of the brain usually signals more activity in those areas.

walking along the highway had not soothed people’s minds. Blood flow to their subgenual prefrontal cortex was still high and their broodiness scores were unchanged. But the volunteers who had strolled along the quiet, tree-lined paths showed slight but meaningful improvements in their mental health, according to their scores on the questionnaire. They were not dwelling on the negative aspects of their lives as much as they had been before the walk. They also had less blood flow to the subgenual prefrontal cortex. That portion of their brains were quieter.

many questions remain, he said, including how much time in nature is sufficient or ideal for our mental health, as well as what aspects of the natural world are most soothing. Is it the greenery, quiet, sunniness, loamy smells, all of those, or something else that lifts our moods?

One reason the attack drew so much international attention was that France doesn’t experience nearly as much terrorism as countries with comparable recent attacks, such as Lebanon or Kenya.

attacks were unusually terrifying precisely because they did not target a particular class of people — such as only Christians, university students, or government officials. They targeted anyone and everyone. A life lost in this manner is not “more tragic” than a life lost in a civil war. However, it might be more newsworthy, because it’s unusual

Terrorists, of course, seek out such targets. Attacking tourism hot spots is excellent for drawing attention to their cause.

The attack on Paris also shocked observers around the world because many have been there, or plan to visit. France is the most visited country in the world. This creates an “it could happen to me” factor, and also suggests that terrorism could affect someone we know.

The Paris attack also stands out for the tactics used by the perpetrators. This attack played out over time in multiple public locations. It also seemed to target everyone, instead of a specific group.

drawing international attention because it suggests a new outward turn for the Islamic State

The Islamic State leadership apparently directed the attack, according to French officials. That would set it apart from attacks that were only inspired by the group, such as the few killings that have occurred in Western countries in the past year.

One reason why we often see lone-actor attacks in high-capability states is that organized terror is difficult to accomplish in these countries

realization that the Islamic State is apparently willing and able to carry out complex, coordinated attacks in developed countries outside of its home region has European security services worried. Beyond Europe, what other targets might be next? This further adds to the global interest

Paris attack shocked the world for many reasons. It’s true that terrorism in less-developed countries is worth our attention as well. Crises, such as the Syrian civil war, deserve much more media coverage and policy focus. But the Paris attack continues to draw interest because of the relative rarity of terrorism in France, the fact that the country receives visitors from around the globe, the shocking nature of the attack, and the potential implications for the Islamic State’s future plans.

The company’s president, Chris Lewicki, compared the bill to the Homestead Act, which distributed public land to Americans heading west and helped reshape the United States. “The Homestead Act of 1862 advocated for the search for gold and timber, and today, HR 2262 fuels a new economy,” Lewicki said in a statement. “This off-planet economy will forever change our lives for the better here on Earth.”

obstacle to space mining is an 1967 international treaty known as the Outer Space Treaty, to which the US is a signatory. The treaty holds that no “celestial body” is subject to “national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means”.

careful to add in their bill that they grant rights only to citizens who act under the law, “including the international obligations of the United States”.

added a “disclaimer of extraterritorial sovereignty”, saying the US does not thereby assert ownership, exclusive rights or jurisdiction “of any celestial body”.

bill asserts certain rights for US citizens, it disavows any national claim – sending a mixed message on asteroid rights

“They’re trying to dance around the issue. I tend to think it doesn’t create any rights because it conflicts with international law. The bottom line is before you can give somebody the right to harvest a resource you have to have ownership.”

Asteroids vary in their makeup, but some are rich in platinum and other valuable metals. Nasa has run missions to explore the possibilities of mining asteroids

solidifies America’s leading role in the commercial space sector

After all, four decades of social pressure and sometimes coercive enforcement have deeply engrained the one-child norm into Chinese identity — and it may well take as many decades to root it out. And given the economic realities associated with raising a child in modern China, a second child could be an expensive luxury, reserved largely for the wealthy.

Chinese culture has long valued children above all things. Families with large broods were seen as exceptionally fortunate — because more offspring are signs of wealth, or meant more hands to work for the family.

having two or fewer children was a patriotic duty that ensured the nation would have enough resources for all

one child has become a social standard, with the consequence that for every household, a single son or daughter is now doted upon by two parents and four grandparents, showered with material possessions, pushed to excel academically and entrusted with the entirety of a family's hopes and expectations.

Americans spend about $13,600 per year on each child they have. That's about 27% of the median U.S. household income. Chinese spend around $3,745 per year on their kids — or about 50% of China's median household income. Almost three-quarters of that money goes toward education and enrichment; it's seen as an investment in the future

most of China's 140 million rising middle-class families feel they simply can't afford the financial burden of raising more than one. Which is why China's attempted doubling down on childbirth may ultimately have little near-term effect on Chinese demographics.

The affluent have always been able to pay the penalties for multiples. Fong points out that the three richest men in China all have more than one child. But for middle class families, simply removing penalties isn't enough. "I think many will be resistant to have second children unless the measures are accompanied by financial relief — tax breaks, scholarship guarantees, things like that.

Will second children simply be a luxury of the wealthy? And if so, how will that impact Chinese society?My prediction: Within a few years, no Chinese millionaire's Mercedes will be fully complete without two baby seats in back, and Bugaboo Donkey double strollers will become the new Prada bags.

"We're one of the few countries in the world that has an acrolect -- an accent of the elite," Shepherd said. Around the Industrial Revolution, as people became more socially mobile, they strove to emulate the accent heard around London.

listen to Craig, he presents as well-spoken and well-educated. He's soft on his consonants.

interesting about accents, mainly, is they kind of assign us immediately to a tribe, but they are this ever-changing social history as we're walking about -- what we've been through as well as what we want to get to

"Irish basically has a really beautiful musicality," said Shepherd. "They start at the top and go all the way down to the bottom. The other thing they do that adds to the beauty of it is they're soft on the consonants, like Ds and Ts. If (the Irish language) were a person, it'd be very sensitive and spiritual."

no accent is forever. They evolve naturally, even within a person's lifetime.

calls from people who want accent softening, who say, 'I want to sound like the queen

"Unless you're over 60, that sounds weird. Generally speaking, you don't want to sound like the posh guy who doesn't care about the poor. It's not as attractive as it once was. "But outside the U.K.," she admits, "it becomes really gorgeous."

One person who took part in a study into aphantasia said he had started to feel "isolated" and "alone" after discovering that other people could see images in their heads. Being unable to reminisce about his mother years after her death led to him being "extremely distraught".

Adam Zeman, a professor of cognitive and behavioural neurology, wants to compare the lives and experiences of people with aphantasia and its polar-opposite hyperphantasia.His team, based at the University of Exeter, coined the term aphantasia this year

How we imagine is clearly very subjective - one person's vivid scene could be another's grainy picture.But Prof Zeman is certain that aphantasia is real. People often report being able to dream in pictures, and there have been reported cases of people losing the ability to think in images after a brain injury. He is adamant that aphantasia is "not a disorder" and says it may affect up to one in 50 people.

It can take long hours of deliberation and difficult rounds of confronting yourself about why you want something and what it's good for. Being honest with yourself is critical.

Then, you have to believe that your dream will come true. This strong belief will become apparent to others in the way you speak

"People are afraid to plain out ask for what they want because they have fear of being rejected. In the US, you ask for what you want again and again until you get what you want. Here, it's almost like an offence. If someone says 'no' to my ideas, wishes or hopes that can have devastating consequences

establishing the common goal frame

just getting to the point of asking for what they want can be difficult. Cultural norms and even specific settings can impact how the conversation goes

In Germany, for instance, people may dance around sensitive matters out of politeness and are reluctant to do anything that could be perceived as self-promotion. This is, of course, in contrast to the reputation Germans have for being direct. But, when it comes to selling themselves, Germans can be shy about asking

"Often, people have a cinema of the mind playing in an eternal loop," Barho said. They are unable to put their plan into action because they face real or perceived external blockers or obstacles.You can break yourself out of this loop in a really simple way: talk openly, clearly, and effectively about what it is you want with those people who can help you.

Asian cultures, it’s uncommon to ask for something unless you're very sure you'll get it. "Because people don't want to lose face, they are more careful in building a case and having compelling reasons to ask for something specific

If the person reappears with the idea developed further and can show why he or she can succeed, Staenberg is all ears.

"If it's authentic and true, the goal you are working toward will be met. The goal is your path. So often, people don't spend the upfront time to be quiet with themselves and contemplate the goal."

“We’re not busy … we’re productive,” he wrote. “And yes, there’s a difference.”

“Busy paints a picture of people who are either keeping themselves occupied or who don’t have the time to do other things,” Spurlock explained. “Productive describes an environment rich with goals, personal and professional achievements and wrapped in success, a place where you're actually creating something vs just doing something.”

“Personal productivity… is the most important one, as it centres around the time that I make to spend with my family, my friends and doing things that fulfil me as a living person,”

Financial productivity is an important one, as these are the projects that create consistent revenue

“Being busy has somehow become a badge of honor. The prevailing notion is that if you aren’t super busy, you aren’t important or hard working,”

busyness makes you less productive

“When we think of a super busy person, we think of a ringing phone, a flood of emails and a schedule that’s bursting at the seams with major projects and side-projects hitting simultaneously,” he wrote. “Such a situation inevitably leads to multi-tasking and interruptions, which are both deadly to productivity.”

As Socrates said: Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

switching what you’re doing mid-task increases the time it takes you to finish both tasks by 25%

people an average of 15 minutes to return to their important projects… every time they were interrupted by e-mails, phone calls, or other messages

“We’re so enamored with multitasking that we think we’re getting more done, even though our brains aren’t physically capable of this,”

most productive when we manage our schedules enough to ensure that we can focus effectively on the task at hand

people use busyiness to “hide from… laziness and fear of failure”

In sleep our bodies are paralysed, and we become oblivious to events in the outside world. But our muscle control isn’t flicked off like a switch.

reticular activating system controls our basic functions, like breathing, and tells us whether we feel alert. In contrast, the ventrolateral preoptic nucleus, located near the optic nerve, dictates tiredness. As we descend into sleep, the reticular activating system releases control of our body and the venterolateral preoptic nucleus takes over. The process is like a slow fade

Random bursts of our remaining wakeful energy occasionally surface in the form of jerky movements

unpleasant phenomenon called ‘exploding head syndrome’ follows a similar pattern of behaviour – our wakeful and sleeping minds attempting to wrest control from each other – and results in the sensation of seeing flashing lights and hearing loud bangs

feeling is nothing to worry about; it’s just a funny coincidence of falling asleep

modern civilisation, like all civilisations before it, has settled around a set of myths and legends as the basis of its culture. They are more complex, more interesting, more sophisticated, and with a much richer interaction between creators and fans than you might think

shared mythos, the cultural touchpoints we can use as a framework to tell each other stories, is no longer the Bible or the Odyssey. It's Star Wars and Star Trek, Gotham City and Westeros

For fans of all of these extended worlds, there is scholarship, debates, and a need to get the stories straight that rivals contemporary mainstream theology.

employs a whole team dedicated to keeping the mythos consistent. Recently, there has been a schism in the Star Wars canon, and stories known as the backdrop of this insanely popular world are being reassessed, with no sense of oddity, as to their actual historical accuracy.

write new archetypes. Fan fiction is our new folklore - a continuation of the traditions that gave us the tales of Robin Hood

because of our stuff. What kind of stuff? Who cares!

don’t do anything but take up space and look pretty for a season or two before being replaced by other, newer things – equally pretty and equally useless.

if you have more stuff than you do space to easily store it, your life will be spent a slave to your possessions.

We shop because we’re bored, anxious, depressed or angry, and we make the mistake of buying material goods and thinking they are treats which will fill the hole, soothe the wound, make us feel better. The problem is, they’re not treats, they’re responsibilities and what we own very quickly begins to own us.

when you buy something, you’re also taking on the task of disposing of it (responsibly or not) when you’re done with it. Our addiction to consumption is a vicious one, and it’s stressing us out.

A study published by UCLA showed that women’s stress hormones peaked during the times they were dealing with their possessions and material goods.

Our current solution to having too much stuff is as short-sighted as it is ineffective: when we run out of space, we simply buy a bigger house.

So if bigger homes aren’t the solution, what is? I suggest heading in the exact opposite direction: deliberately choose a life with less. Buy less and instantly you have less to store; you use less space. Eventually you can work less to pay for all of this stuff. Soon you will stress less too and, above all, your life will involve less waste.

wondering where to begin? Don’t. You know exactly where this journey starts. It starts with the stuff that makes you feel guilty, stressed or overwhelmed when you look at it.

Because when it comes to stuff, I promise you, you don’t need more labels or better systems or complicated Pinterest tutorials – all you need is less.

Psychologists think of willpower as a “limited resource” – essentially, you can use it up over the course of a day.

Self-control often involves suppressing some difficult emotions, as you keep your eye on the prize. Fortunately, mindful contemplation helps you to balance your feelings

ways to restore it. One option is comedy. A recent study found that people who watched funny videos were better at controlling their impulses later on.

Self-control uses up the brain’s energy reserves, meaning that you are more weak-willed when you are hungry. One study found that judges are more likely to make rash judgements before lunch for this very reason

The mind automatically associates guilt with pleasure – meaning that we find our vices even more enticing when we know we’re not meant to enjoy them. Conversely, a little guilt-free indulgence may just be the rest you need to help you maintain your resolve.

Think of what would change if we valued terrestrial water as much as we value the possibility of water on Mars. Only 3% of the water on this planet is fresh; and of that, two-thirds is frozen. Yet we lay waste to the accessible portion.

domestic demand is such that the upper reaches of many rivers disappear during the summer. Yet still we install clunky old toilets and showers that gush like waterfalls.

salty water, of the kind that so enthrals us when apparently detected on Mars, on Earth we express our appreciation with a frenzy of destruction

Coral reefs are under such pressure that most could be gone by 2050. And in our own deep space, our desire for exotic fish rips through a world scarcely better known to us than the red planet’s surface.

Human ingenuity is on abundant display at Nasa, which released those astounding images. But not when it comes to policy.

this is the way in which governments seek to resolve planetary destruction. Leave it to the conscience of consumers, while that conscience is muted and confused by advertising and corporate lies.

All this drilling and digging and trawling and dumping and poisoning – what is it for, anyway? Does it enrich human experience, or stifle it? A couple of weeks ago I launched the hashtag #extremecivilisation, and invited suggestions

Every year, clever new ways of wasting stuff are devised, and every year we become more inured to the pointless consumption of the world’s precious resources. With each subtle intensification, the baseline of normality shifts. It should not be surprising to discover that the richer a country becomes, the less its people care about their impacts on the living planet.

China today, like Germany before the war, is an industrial power incapable of feeding its population from its own territory

The Kremlin, which is economically dependent on the export of hydrocarbons to Europe, is now seeking to make gas deals with individual European states one by one in order to weaken European unity and expand its own influence.

Denying science imperils the future by summoning the ghosts of the past.