A Love Affair With Questions
In this beautiful black-and-white vignette, filmmaker Nic Askew interviews a man named Julio Olalla. Julio candidly speaks about an encounter with his father that changed his life, and what he learned: "Gratitude in so many ways is so dramatically missing in the world today. Without gratitude nothing is enough." Over this 10-minute video, he reflects on his own experiences, ranging from exploring ... posted on Jul 03 2011, 5,301 reads

20 Untranslatable Words From 'Round The World
There are at least 250,000 words in the English language. But to think that English -- or any language -- could hold enough expression to convey the entirety of the human experience is naive. For example, 'Toska,' from Russian, which is a kind of dull ache of the soul. Or 'Mamihlapinatapei,' from Yagan, describing the wordless, yet meaningful look shared by two people who both desire to initiate s... posted on Jul 02 2011, 26,823 reads

The Bird Man of Long Beach
They call him the Bird man of Long Beach. "It all started with one little one-legged guy I named Buddy," ex-marine Dan Lubniewski said. Dan saw the little bird hobbling along, and felt sorry for him. He started feeding him and wound up taking him home for rehab. Apparently, someone had been tying pigeons' feet together. "They were all tied up the same way, with the same strength," Dan said. "I did... posted on Jul 01 2011, 3,454 reads

The Artist Who Gives It All Away
One day, San Francisco artist Jane Baker realized something. Now she operates from a new place -- new, but also very old: "I don't know art history that well, but it is only in the last few hundred years that art has been a commodity. Before that, most artists were doing it out of their love for, frankly, for God or their church. Most of the art that's been made has not been made for money. So I'm... posted on Jun 30 2011, 2,978 reads

Why Invisible Gorillas Matter
Daniel Simons has become one of the most influential young cognitive scientists in the last decade, co-authoring smash-hit studies in two different fields. He's best-known for his "Gorillas in our Midst" study, co-authored with Christopher Chabris, where viewers are shown a 45-second video of six students tossing around basketballs. Viewers are instructed to carefully count only the passes between... posted on Jun 29 2011, 4,894 reads

I Heart Strangers
"Every single day, I went out into the world to seek out someone I had never before met. I introduced myself and asked them if I could photograph them. I took something valuable away from every encounter and did my best to pass that along." Artist Joshua Langlais started the "I Heart Strangers" project as an attempt to love his neighbors. Starting it in 2008 with the intention of doing it for a ye... posted on Jun 28 2011, 4,687 reads

Mother of All Languages
The world's 6,000 or so modern languages may have all descended from a single ancestral tongue spoken by early African humans around 50,000 years ago, a new study suggests. The finding could help explain how the first spoken language emerged, spread and contributed to the evolutionary success of the human species. Quentin Atkinson, an evolutionary psychologist and author of the study, found that t... posted on Jun 27 2011, 5,274 reads

A Change of Heart Changes Everything
Did you know that briefly re-experiencing a cherished memory creates synchronization in your heart rhythm in mere seconds? It increases the release of healthy, energizing hormones, while decreasing levels of damaging stress hormones, and strengthening the immune system. HeartMath, an emotional physiology research institute, has also discovered that if someone has a coherent heart rhythm, it has a ... posted on Jun 26 2011, 15,876 reads

Learning to Love Uncertainty and Failure
Edge Magazine called for eminent scientists, philosophers, and artists to submit responses to the question, "What scientific concept would improve everybody's toolkit?" The results have recently been published online. A common basis among the responses was that many people currently misunderstand the scientific process, undervalue the need for scientific doubt, and fail to recognize the role of fa... posted on Jun 25 2011, 5,448 reads

Why Is Humility So Underrated?
Generally we don't equate genius with being humble. If anything, we expect the opposite, and are pleasantly surprised when we find a counterexample. But this presumption is actually relatively modern. Ancient Romans believed that a genius was actually an invisible, divine entity who would assist a person in a creative work. In effect, this view positions a person as an instrument of their work, a... posted on Jun 24 2011, 4,760 reads