favorites. A few months later, Gemma Elwin Harris, the editor who had envisioned the project, reached out to invite me to participate in the book’s 2013 edition by answering one randomly assigned question from a curious child. Naturally, I was thrilled to do it, and honored to be a part of something as heartening as Does My Goldfish Know Who I Am? (public library) — a compendium of primary school children’s funny, poignant, innocent yet insightful questions about science and how life works, answered by such celebrated minds as rockstar physicist Brian Cox, beloved broadcaster and voice-of-nature Sir David Attenborough, legendary linguist Noam Chomsky, sci... posted on Sep 1 2014 (15,295 reads)

run any such risk, perhaps not even for his own child.” The second take away comes from close study of Darwin’s Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals, published one year after Descent of Man. There, Darwin details descriptions of emotions such as reverence, love, tenderness, laughter, embarrassment and the conceptual tools to document the evolutionary origins of these emotions. That led me to my own work on the physiology and display of these remarkable emotions, and to the science-based conclusion that these emotions lie at the core of our capacities for virtue and cooperation. DISALVO: You recently wrote an article with the provocative title “In Defense of Tea... posted on Oct 19 2013 (26,862 reads)

Yes. It was kind of formative, I think. RW: What do you think made it such an important memory? Peter: That's a good question. There was a feeling of loneliness and alienation, but also a sense of questioning the way we're living. It was kind of waking up a bit, coming out of this sense of everything having to be the way it is. You know? Sometimes it's hard to imagine things being another way because we get so used to them. RW: How did your interest in science evolve? Peter: When I was a kid I was good at math and science, and I got a lot of validation. I'd get the good grades and the teachers would like me, so I think I got a little addicted... posted on Oct 11 2020 (17,679 reads)

languages of these two geniuses into my perspective is: we were going too fast. We are still going too fast. When we rush, we make decisions that lack information, lack proper reflection, and ultimately make the problems of humanity worse. In my opinion, the problem lies not in the contribution to human knowledge of talented minds like Einstein and Feynman, but the uses to which those contributions were put. Now is the time to slow down, to take a pause, to rethink the purpose of science and education and to cultivate our critical thinking—and our critical feeling. It is time to combine science with the soul: science as the sustainable, collective and critical developmen... posted on Jul 10 2017 (6,653 reads)

His book, It Didn’t Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle, is the winner of the 2016 Silver Nautilus Book Award in Psychology. Mark specializes in working with depression, anxiety, obsessive thoughts, fears, panic disorders, self-injury, chronic pain, and persistent symptoms and conditions. In this conversation, we talk about how unexplained symptoms can often be linked to inherited family trauma. Mark helps us understand the science behind this, and more importantly, how becoming aware of these patterns is the first step in the very important healing we all need to do, so that we can receive the love and support of our fa... posted on Dec 4 2020 (9,490 reads)

research that you were doing before, because this is cool stuff.” So I was encouraged, and I started up again. But I almost left the whole thing. I didn’t want anything to do with this kind of work again [laughs]. EM Well, that landmark study you described—published in Nature in 1997—was dubbed the “wood-wide web,” and it really created a wave of interest around the world and a ripple effect, and not just from reporters and academia and the science community but people all around the world. So I wonder, for those who don’t know the intricacies of what you discovered, if you could just briefly explain what your study showed. SS&n... posted on Aug 16 2021 (7,143 reads)

with my mother that I once trudged with tiny feet beside her, astonished at the flood of long-ago feelings rushing in with each step, astonished too at how effortlessly I navigate these routes I have not walked in decades. The psychological, neurocognitive, and geophysical underpinnings of these astonishments are what M.R. O’Connor explores in Wayfinding: The Science and Mystery of How Humans Navigate the World (public library) — a layered inquiry into the science and cultural poetics of how we orient in space and selfhood, illuminating the stunning interpenetration of the two. “View of Nature in Ascending Regions” by Levi Walter Yagg... posted on Sep 26 2021 (4,151 reads)

back at 10 years of writing about the science of human goodness for Greater Good, Jeremy Adam Smith discovers that the bad and good—and the inner and outer—go hand in hand. I’ve been covering the science of human goodness, off and on, for almost 10 years. In that time, I’ve seen a dramatic transformation in the way scientists understand how and why we love, thank, empathize, cooperate, and care for each other. Of course, “goodness” doesn’t seem like a very scientific concept. It sounds downright squishy to many people, and thus unworthy of study. But you can count acts of goodness—and all science begins with counting. It&rsquo... posted on May 24 2015 (14,941 reads)

a Greek citizen (laughing). I was free to explore Nature on my own. I got to climb high trees, to cross fences that said "No Trespassing," and to walk on thin ice, with no grownups watching. I noticed that my own grandchildren didn't have that freedom in Nature, that they were always watched, and it drove me a little nuts at times. It’s not the same world. We can't trust our children to Nature in the way my parents could, when I was a child. I wanted to study science. My parents, however, said science was a boy's subject. I finished high school at 16 and they said, "No, art school --- art and music and culture and things like that." I got mys... posted on Aug 11 2017 (11,186 reads)

past few years have been marked by two major trends in the science of a meaningful life. One is that researchers continued to add sophistication and depth to our understanding of positive feelings and behaviors. Happiness is good for you, but not all the time; empathy ties us together, and can overwhelm you; humans are born with an innate sense of fairness and morality, that changes in response to context. This has been especially true of the study of mindfulness and attention, which is producing more and more potentially life-changing discoveries. The other factor involves intellectual diversity. The turn from the study of human dysfunction to human s... posted on Jan 23 2014 (127,976 reads)

testing, and about what I want for my children will never be the same after this conversation I had with the neuroscientist Adele Diamond. What Adele Diamond is learning about the brain is turning some of our most modern ideas about education on their heads. What nourishes the human spirit, the whole person, also hones our minds. I’m Krista Tippett, and this is On Being. MS. TIPPETT: American born and Harvard trained, Adele Diamond is a professor of developmental cognitive neuroscience at the University of British Columbia. She's a formative figure in innovative networks in British Columbia and beyond that are bringing the fruits of unfolding science into classrooms and ... posted on Dec 6 2014 (26,322 reads)

been covering the science of human goodness, off and on, for almost 10 years. In that time, I’ve seen a dramatic transformation in the way scientists understand how and why we love, thank, empathize, cooperate, and care for each other. This essay originally appeared (in slightly different form) in the May 2015 issue of Shambhala Sun.  Of course, “goodness” doesn’t seem like a very scientific concept. It sounds downright squishy to many people, and thus unworthy of study. But you can count acts of goodness—and all science begins with counting. It’s the counting that has started to change our understanding of human life. For example,... posted on Oct 24 2015 (14,710 reads)

I would say we probably felt the most spiritual when we’d go river rafting, which we did quite often. MS. TIPPETT: I think it was in your Connection film that you talked about — you grew up with your father, who was your version of Einstein. You called him “Dad.” MS. SHLAIN: Mm-hmm. MS. TIPPETT: But I’m really intrigued by how it seems your father was always making these fascinating connections between breakthroughs in art and breakthroughs in science, and that space. And that’s also something — you’ve kind of moved into that lineage, as well. MS. SHLAIN: Yeah. I think a lot of my — the apple doesn’t fall to... posted on Apr 11 2016 (10,111 reads)

is the transcript of an interview between On Being's Krista Tippett and Frank Wilczek MS. KRISTA TIPPETT, HOST: “Having tasted beauty at the heart of the world, we hunger for more.” These are words of the Nobel physicist Frank Wilczek in his book A Beautiful Question. It’s a winsome, joyful meditation on the question “Does the world embody beautiful ideas?” — probing the world, by way of science, as a work of art. Frank Wilczek is the unusual scientist willing to analogize his discoveries about the deep structure of reality with deep meaning in the human everyday. My experience of how his mind makes connections took off as we bantere... posted on Jul 25 2016 (11,636 reads)

science, nothing can be taken for granted; even the most seemingly settled notion is a candidate for further testing and exploration. That’s part of what makes our work at Greater Good so exciting: We’re constantly uncovering research that looks at humanity in new ways, helping us all learn to be happier, more compassionate, and more resilient. This year’s top insights are a tribute to that spirit. They debunk things we thought we knew, like how many human emotions there are. They inject some questions into the popular discussion of mindfulness, which can at times be overenthusiastic. And they open up new horizons for us to consider, like the possibility of ... posted on Jun 21 2018 (18,623 reads)

eradicating our wounds and weaknesses but understanding how they complete our identity and equip us to help others. The way we deal with losses, large and small, shapes our capacity to be present to all of our experiences. There’s a difference, she says, between curing and healing. RACHEL NAOMI REMEN: We thought we could cure everything, but it turns out that we can only cure a small amount of human suffering. The rest of it needs to be healed, and that's different. I think science defines life in its own way, but life is larger than science. Life is filled with mystery, courage, heroism, and love — all these things that we can witness but not measure or even under... posted on Jan 15 2019 (13,875 reads)

of financial, social, or physical challenges. The Sounds True Foundation is a nonprofit dedicated to providing these transformational tools to communities in need, including at risk youth, prisoners, veterans, and those in developing countries. If you’d like to learn more or feel inspired to become a supporter, please visit soundstruefoundation.org. You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today, my guest is Dan Goleman. Dan is an internationally known psychologist and science journalist. He is the author of the book Emotional Intelligence, a book that has more than 5 million copies in print worldwide, in 40 languages. And recently, has been released as a speci... posted on Jun 28 2021 (5,309 reads)

an awakening where the Chinese are trying to realize that they can rise as the industrial nation. Getting into WTO, hosting the Olympics… these are very significant symbolic indicators through which the Chinese are saying, “We can make it”. The question is, “What is our contribution? How can China bring something into the world that the world really needs? The world doesn’t just need more computers. That is going to happen regardless.  I also think that science and spirituality both are important. I can’t remember his name but there is this Chinese Nobel Laureate who actually gave a press conference in which he said he thought Chinese tradition... posted on Aug 28 2011 (11,482 reads)

than a decade after Greater Good first started reporting on the science of compassion, generosity, happiness—what we call “the science of a meaningful life”—the research in our field is acquiring ever more nuance and sophistication. New studies build on and even re-interpret findings from previous years, particularly as their authors use more exacting methods, with bigger and broader data sets, and consider additional factors to explain prior results. These nuances are clearly reflected in this year’s list of our Top 10 Insights from the Science of a Meaningful Life—the fourth such list compiled by Greater Good’s editors. Indeed, many of this... posted on Jan 7 2016 (18,316 reads)

you asked how I got back into the Ivory Tower? I was happy with what I was doing, I was going places, I was getting into lists - in the Baltimore Sun I was in a list of [the] most promising figures in Maryland. I ran for the State Senate and I almost won, when I was still in my twenties. But that other part of the soul was not being fed. So I thought to myself I'll find a compromise route - and I went back to grad school in Political Science, which got me to MIT and got my PhD in political science, thinking that would be a compromise between the contemplative and the active. But I found that it was actually neither - rather than both, it was neither. I neither could get to the depth of ... posted on Dec 28 2019 (6,765 reads)