Psychology Facts Everyone Needs To Know

1. Your favorite song is likely associated with an emotional event.

You and everyone else. (source)

2. Music impacts your perspective.

This one seems kind of obvious! A study at the University of Groningen showed that music has a dramatic impact on your perception. (source)

3. The more you spend on others, the happier you are.

According to various studies. Be sure to give plenty this holiday season! (source)

4. Spending money on experience instead of stuff also makes you happier.

Collect memories not things, right? (source)

5. Kids are more high strung today than the average psych ward patient in 1950.

Which is pretty scary but not surprising. About half the human population now suffers anxiety, depression, or a sort of substance abuse. (source)

6. Certain religious practices lower stress.

“The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Mood Disorders” shows that people who engage in meditation and prayer religiously are less stressed out. (source)

7. Money does buy happiness, but only up to $75,000 a year.

For the average American, $75k a year buys happiness. It liberates you from poverty and gets you what you need in life. (source)

8. Being with happy people makes you happier.

This should come as no surprise. (source)

9. 18 to 33 year olds are the most stressed out people on earth.

Family, education, work, it can all be pretty stressful. (source)

10. Convincing yourself you slept well tricks your brain into thinking it did.

Thus giving you more energy. They called it “placebo sleep”. (source)

11. Smart people underestimate themselves and ignorant people think they’re brilliant.

It’s called the Dunning Kruger Effect, it’s real, and just go on Facebook and you’ll see what I’m talking about. (source)

12. When you remember a past event, you’re actually remembering the last time you remembered it.

Alright, that one blew the hell out of my mind. This is why our memories fade and distort over time. (source)

13. Your decisions are more rational when thought in another language.

A university of Chicago study showed that Korean citizens who thought in foreign languages reduced their overall bias. Neat. (source)

14. If you announce your goals, you’re less likely to succeed.

It’s true. Tests since the 1930’s have pretty well proven it. (source)

Watch as Patrick Stewart Recites a Poem with a Yorkshire Dialect

In a scene from TOWN with Nicholas Crane, Patrick Stewart, of Star Trek and X-men fame, gets nostalgic over his childhood and recites a poem in his native Yorkshire dialect. His mother and aunt would recite the poem around Christmas time every year which is probably why he still remembers it many years later. Stewart was born in Mirfield - a small town in West Yorkshire England.

Wildlife conservation on ice: frozen zoos to save animals

On the edge: Disease and habitat loss is decimating wild amphibian populations globally, with more than 200 species needing urgent intervention through captive breeding, says Dr. Simon Clulow. In a south-eastern suburb in Melbourne, there’s a zoo. It has no visitors, and there are no animals anywhere inside it. Rather, the Australian Frozen Zoo houses living cells and genetic material from Australian native and rare and exotic species. This place, and others like it, could be a big part of the future of conservation. Department of Biological Sciences’ Simon Clulow and his colleagues make the case for ‘biobanking’ in a recent piece in Conservation Letters. Clulow is keen to stress that this doesn’t mean getting rid of conventional zoos or captive breeding programs. “Captive breeding has had some wonderful successes, and there will always be a huge place for it,” he says. PhD student and lead author Lachlan Howell agrees. “It was captive breeding that brought the giant panda back f...

Liu Xue: Sculpture

Chinese artist Liu Xue has created some fabulous anthropomorphic sculpture which are sure to tweak your “Eweeee, gross!” button, in a great way. The unusual hybrids are from his series - ‘We are the World’ and they aren’t far from it. Obese fat Buddha men sit on their frog legs or flippers while emaciated men and women balance on chicken legs or dog bodies. The different anatomies merge seamlessly into a viable being. They are distorted and somewhat monstrous – yet at the same time so realistic, one might believe they actually do exist. Liu lives in Beijing, Chaoyang, China and that’s about all we could find out about him. We would love to know a little about his process – any Chinese folks out there that could throw a little research our way? LINK: To Liu’s Website/Blog

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