May 14, 2013

Why Thinking about Eating is Taboo

The reason that eating and everything that involves is taboo is that it’s something we have in common with animals.

The reason that eating and everything that involves is taboo is that it’s something we have in common with animals. I think that human beings don’t like to be reminded that they, too, are just organisms – big sacks of guts that are chewing and swallowing and processing and excreting.

I think we do what we can to live in our heads and just be our minds. And we don’t really want to think about it. In fact, we don’t really think about our interiors until something goes wrong. So I guess I like to force people to dive in there – not to gross them out. I’d like to replace some of the revulsion with kind of fascination and even maybe awe.

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

Helping is Not the Enemy of Productivity

I think a lot of people stereotype generous and helpful people as pushovers, as weak, as not tough and driven enough to be successful. And I think that is a myth that we really need to break down.