ACCORDING to Joseph Henrich and his colleagues at the University of British Columbia, most undergraduates are WEIRD. Those who teach them might well agree. But Dr Henrich did not intend the term as an insult when he popularised it in a paper published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences in 2010. Instead, he was proposing an acronym: Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic. One reason these things matter is that undergraduates are also psychology’s laboratory rats. Incentivised by rewards, in the form of money or course credits, they will do the human equivalents of running mazes and pressing the levers in Skinner boxes until the cows come home. Which is both a blessing and a problem. It is a blessing because it provides psychologists with an ... Continue reading →
Pete Souza/The White House In the photo that has hung in the West Wing for three years, President Obama looks to be bowing to five-year-old Jacob Philadelphia, his arm raised to touch the president’s hair — to see if it feels like his. WASHINGTON — For decades at the White House, photographs of the president at work and at play have been hung throughout the West Wing, and each print soon gives way to a more recent shot. But one picture remains after three years, its staying power testifying to the thousand words it seems worth to those who see it. In the photo, President Obama looks to be bowing to a sharply dressed black boy, who stands erect beside the Oval Office desk, his ... Continue reading →
Nicholas Kristof hosted the hangout, with five readers also asking questions The new opinion department of the New York Times has been experimenting with Google+ Hangouts, hosting a video interview with Susan Rice, the US Ambassador to the United Nations. Hangouts are one of the features of Google+, the social network that launched 11 months ago, and allow people to participate in an online video conversation. The New York Times hangout invited readers to nominate themselves to take part. Ten days before Thursday's hangout, columnist Nicholas Krystof, who moderated the interview, asked readers to help him "put her on the spot and challenge both of us with your questions". Hundreds wanted to participate in the half-hour conversation, according to Kristof in the introduction to the ... Continue reading →
Mortgages Borrowers with mortgage troubles must wait a period of time before seeking another loan. Behind the Wheel | 2011 Chrysler Town & CountryThe company says the new minivan has been only re-engineered a bit, but the van feels like an all-new, and better, vehicle. New Cars SearchUsed Cars SearchMore in Automobiles Corner Office: John W. Rowe John W. Rowe of Exelon, the electric utility, says he learned early in his career that it’s always important to take action — “to always be looking for something to do that moves the ball.” Find the best job in the New York metro area and beyond. Continue reading →
Thomas McDonald for The New York TimesThe diverse array of produce at the Wooster Square Farmers Market in New Haven. Most of the farmers there say they lack crop insurance.The farm bill, that cyclical flashpoint, is up for reauthorization in Congress this year, and reforms are needed to help small and organic farms obtain crop insurance, the Union of Concerned Scientists argues in a new report.Crop insurance policies, which are regulated and subsidized by the Department of Agriculture, provide coverage almost exclusively on a per-crop basis, which suits industrial farms growing single crops on vast acreage. But for farmers who grow a diverse array of crops, as many small and organic farms do, enrollment can be an onerous and complicated task requiring them to apply ... Continue reading →
Now 29 years old, Morris quickly launched into action, accomplishing the complex tasks of negotiating with various interests to establish new routes, developing and coordinating courier missions and making sure the arrangements allowed for secure and safe passage of classified pouch shipments. “In the Middle East and North Africa during the Arab Spring, we confronted the threat of U.S. diplomatic missions being overrun by protesters and classified materials being compromised,” said Jim Angell, a regional diplomatic courier officer. “Through her creative use of transportation routes, Shane extracted all classified materials from these hotspots to ensure they remained secure.”At the same time, Angell said, Morris “found non-traditional transportation routes to deliver sensitive materials within the region.”Morris showed creativity under difficult circumstances, said Gentry Smith, the deputy ... Continue reading →
The Environmental Protection Agency last year revoked a permit for a planned, 2,278-acre West Virginia coal mine that encapsulated everything wrong with a particularly destructive form of strip mining known as mountaintop removal. Two months ago, however, in a wrongheaded decision, a Federal District Court judge ruled that the agency had not only exceeded its authority but resorted to “magical thinking” to justify its action. The agency has announced that it would appeal the judge’s decision. This is exactly the right move, on two counts. First, the Spruce No. 1 mine would have buried 6.6 miles of streams under tons of mining waste, inflicting permanent damage on the environment and local communities. Second, it is important for the E.P.A. to assert its authority under the ... Continue reading →
By Maggie Koerth-Baker at 6:00 am Monday, May 21 I'm currently attending the Marine Biological Laboratory's 10-day science journalism fellowship. As part of that, I get to do some hands-on science experiments and get a better perspective on how the work of science is done and how data is collected. Along with five other fellows, I spent last weekend collecting A LOT of data in Massachusetts' Harvard Forest—3,500 acres of extremely well-documented wilderness. All this week, I'll be posting some of the highlights from my trip—videos and photos that will introduce you to the Harvard Forest, how science is done in the field, and to some of the key ideas that I'm learning during my time here. This will be the central access point for ... Continue reading →
Ed Ou for The New York Times A protester’s wound was redressed in a house acting as a makeshift clinic after she was hit by a police tear-gas canister. MANAMA, Bahrain — Three young men were slumped on a living room mat, groaning with pain from nuggets of birdshot lodged in a cheek, a forehead and under the lid of an eye. Bahrain’s nightly protests had exacted their reliable toll. Friends dragged the men away from the clashes and the riot police, to a safe house nearby. Soon, it was time to go, but not to a hospital: the police were there, too. “No one goes to the hospital,” one protester said. Instead, the men traveled to one of dozens of houses that are scattered ... Continue reading →
