Two new studies on exercise and the brain
Whoever came up with the idea that intelligence and physical activity don’t mix should be dropped into one of the lower circles of Dante’s Inferno. Two new studies,
Nelson Mandela on exercise on Robben Island
When he was in prison on Robben Island, Nelson Mandela spent long periods engaged in hard manual labor— breaking rocks into gravel, and working in a quarry. You
How Richard Feynman had time for physics: “I have invented another myth for myself—that I’m irresponsible”
One of the pleasures working on a book like REST is that it provides a great excuse to read about the lives of all kind of fascinating people, and
“Gaining attention has always involved a struggle of ideas and ideals”
University of Kent sociologist Frank Furedi writes about the “Focus Fracas” in the Chronicle of Higher Education (behind a firewall), riffing off Sherry Turkle’s Reclaiming Conversation and the writings
“mildly enjoying and completely forgetting an infinite series of disconnected ideas”
In 1926, in his classic yet often-forgotten The Art of Thought, Graham Wallas warned against engaging distractions like reading the newspaper. Newspaper reading is for most of us a
Abraham Crowley, Of Solitude
It's very old, but Crowley's essay on solitude is still worth reading: The First Minister of State has not so much business in public as a wise man
“There is no kind of idleness, by which we are so easily seduced, as… the appearance of business”
That was Samuel Johnson writing in The Idler two centuries ago (and quoted in a more recent essay by Steven Poole). Some things seem constant. There is no
Is the epidemic of sleep deprivation a myth?
At Quartz, Akshat Rathi challenges the claim that modern times has caused a sleep epidemic. According to a survey conducted by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
“science benefits when we think more and do less”
Susan Fitzpatrick, the president of the McDonnell Foundation, has an opinion piece in The Scientist about the importance of unstructured, social time in doing good science. There was
Another virtue of naps: lower blood pressure
A new study finds that daytime napping has a positive effect on blood pressure and lowers the need for anti-high blood pressure meds. As the New Zealand Herald reports: