Orion Jones

As more of our professional and pleasurable reading shifts to screens, the way in which we read is changing. And while technology is not exactly eating away at our brains, it is causing us to read less deeply.

When Parkinson’s patients treated with a synthetic dopamine-precursor pill, levodopa, showed high upticks in creative activities from writing novels to painting portraits, their doctors began to wonder at the causes. 

What is happiness? It is often confused with fame, even the low-level fame that social media affords us, gathering “followers” and massive amounts of “friends”.

Researchers at the University of Chicago have found that many people are willing to work more hours than are needed to do their jobs, even though it results in a more stressful life. 

If the current experiment doesn’t yield positive results, scientists say they will be forced to go back to the drawing board about what makes up dark matter, i.e. 80 percent of the universe.

“Liberals and conservatives disagree about politics in part because they are different people at the level of personality, psychology, and even traits like physiology and genetics.”

From TVs and laptops to tablets and smartphones, screen time trades off with other valuable actives, according to a study of over 1,300 3rd to 5th graders. 

Spanish researchers have discovered that crowds may be less wise than we once thought, at least according to the (often observed) phenomena that aggregated wisdom is more accurate than that of a single individual.

Dubai is set to build the world’s largest–and truly first–completely climate-controlled city. The structure will measure 48 million square feet, including 20,000 rooms available for stay.

By most scientific accounts, the world’s governments have been too slow to react to climate change. The idea of slowing economic growth to combat carbon emissions has proven too unpalatable.

If we are told a particular wine is artisanal and another is more mechanically produced, we are more likely to grade the artisanal wine as better tasting and more expensive. 

Singular goals like increasing your online audience or to fundraise, fundraise, fundraise cannot be the measured success they aspire to because they do not measure or seek to understand the complex conditions which preceded the present moment.

The impact of practice on people’s musical, athletic, and professional abilities is much more limited than previously thought, according to a meta-analysis of 88 studies on the topic.

An analysis of 343 peer-reviewed studies on the nutritional content of organic versus non-organic food concludes that organic produce does indeed contain more nutrients.

With Project Adam, Microsoft has thrown down the artificial intelligence gauntlet. The company boasts that it’s new deep-learning system is better in terms of speed, efficiency, and accuracy than Google’s best attempts.

Google’s maps will find you the shortest route from point A to point B. Now, Yahoo is working to provide Internet users with the most beautiful walking routes through London.

One in three Americans are reportedly considering reducing the amount of gluten in their diet, gluten being an enzyme found in wheat, which has been a staple of the human diet for many thousands of years.

The last fifty years have seen a steady progression of values in America. From civil rights to feminism to gay rights, more self-determination is consistently afforded to more people.

Anyone who has purchased a house, especially one which required you to move from your former residence, knows that few things feel more stressful.

The new prices are an experiment in stoking demand. If the cost of a single ride drops far enough, people may begin abandoning their cars for their daily commute or midday errand.

When researchers analyzed thousands of table orders from an Oklahoma restaurant over the span of 19 weeks, they found that people tended to order like their friend regardless of health concerns presented by menus.

A new study which explores impact craters in Argentine soil has found ancient remnants of plant life suggesting that asteroid strikes act to preserve evidence of life long after it has passed away. 

From self-parking cars to voice-recognition software on smartphones, the ability of individual machines to learn from collected sets of data is the forefront of artificial intelligence research.

A Massachusetts company hopes to begin testing a remote-controlled contraceptive device next year with the goal of introducing it to the public by 2018. 

When startups look for investors, it’s essential that the company put forward its best ideas, but that’s increasingly being done without legal protections that prevent investors from taking those ideas for themselves.

When placed in a room with a machine that delivered a moderate electric shock, most people preferred to gives themselves a jolt of painful electricity than entertain their own imagination.

Researchers stationed at a Zambian animal sanctuary were amused when they observed a female chimpanzee named Julie stick a piece of grass in her ear.

Researchers found that individuals who had actually made art showed a greater increase in brain function than those who merely learned how to appreciate it better. 

For just 99 cents, you can contribute images, text, audio, or video clips to be included in a Mars-bound spacecraft that will await the arrival of future astronauts, greeting them with your message once they’ve landed.

If increasing agricultural efficiency and reducing global poverty are among our goals, the world must prepare to vastly increase its energy consumption, or so said speakers at the Breakthrough Institute’s recent Dialogue conference.