Surprising Science — April 12, 2010

Mental Notes

The infamous English Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge “was also a metacognitive theorist far ahead of his time,” writes David Schneider.

bigthinkeditor

The infamous English Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge “was also a metacognitive theorist far ahead of his time,” writes David Schneider. “Specifically, from around 1796 to about 1808, Coleridge was incessantly burying into four related questions: how does perception work; how does the mind think; what is the Imagination; and how does perception become thought become action?” Many of today’s scientists are still dealing with these same questions.

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

Up Next

Technology & Innovation

Unexceptional Performance

Samuel Culbert writes that companies should do away with regularly scheduled performance reviews because they are “fraudulent” and reinforce an employee’s feelings of being dominated.