After a traumatic brain injury, it sometimes happens that the brain can repair itself, building new brain cells to replace damaged ones. But the repair doesn’t happen quickly enough to allow recovery from degenerative conditions like motor neuron disease (also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease or ALS). Siddharthan Chandran walks
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Things Are Good: Inject More Serendipity Into Your Online Adventures
Not Recommended For You is a new website that is a reaction to all the other websites that recommend content based on what you do. Google tailors your search results so they are different than your friend’s and other websites track what you do on their sites to drive you
Continue readingThings Are Good: Obviously, The Climate Change Debate is Over
Anybody with the ability to reason realizes that anthropogenic climate change is happening – and it’s happening in an unpredictable but faster way than previously imagined. The fact that fools argue against this infuriates me as they are essentially arguing against reality. Recently, two acclaimed scientific bodies (The Royal Society
Continue readingThings Are Good: Indigenous Food and Cultural Protection
Food and ecosystem knowledge which has been passed down for centuries is constantly threatened by the modern mechanical market. To stymie this change in food (and knowledge) consumption there is a global effort to protect the sanity of food and related support systems. The significance of sacred foods. Many indigenous
Continue readingThings Are Good: A New Zealand School Abandons Rules, Ends Bullying
Having zero tolerance policies in schools is a truly horrible way to treat children. It can blunt curiosity and punish severely for minor infractions, combine such oppressive control with bizarre rules (like no playing schoolyard games) and you’ll bored, agitated and disengaged kids. When children aren’t able to express themselves
Continue readingThings Are Good: A Scientific Approach to Better Urban Design
Urban design is not an easy activity because of the multitude of variables that impact the overall urban experience. There are buildings, traffic (foot and vehicular), landmarks, natural occurrences like rivers, and abstracted economic forces. Space Syntax is a company has set out to make better urban design by using
Continue readingThings Are Good: Walking or Biking Through Neighbourhoods Makes You Like Them More
Walking or biking through neighbourhoods will increase the likelihood that you think positively of that space. A bunch of research has concluded that people have an increase tendency to positively judge an environment when exposed to it using more personal means of transportation. Whereas people who opted to drive a
Continue readingThings Are Good: Philosophy is Needed in Corporate Boardrooms
It’s not often that you hear CEOs and other executives call for philosophers to be among their boards. In a recent Financial Times article, there is an argument that businesses need philosophers. People who are trained philosophers tend to look root causes and issues that impact whatever it is that
Continue readingThings Are Good: A Toy Designed to Increase Empathy
Who doesn’t like toys? Nobody! Everybody loves playing and we all can remember the joy that toys bring us when were kids. Now some educators are looking to make a toy that is not only fun but also teaches kids empathy. Empathy is perhaps the most important skill one can
Continue readingThings Are Good: Stop Procrastination Using Science
Procrastination is the easy act of not doing what you should be doing. For some, like me, it’s an uphill battle trying to get things done and stop procrastinating. I’ll get to the point: here are some scientifically-proven things one can do to stop procrastinating. Do the “Right” Kind of
Continue readingThings Are Good: Changing Car-Based Infrastructure for Walkable Communities
The suburbs are designed for cars as opposed to people and this is a problem that has surprising side effects from personal health issues to an increase in violent deaths. So how do we modify the suburbs to stop these side effects? In this TED talk, Jeff Speck explores what
Continue readingThings Are Good: Studying Positive Emotions
How do we study emotion and how do we even think about positive emotions? Why do we even have positive emotions? These questions and more are being investigated by June Gruber, and here she is talking about them: I thought I’d first start briefly with a tale of positive emotion.
Continue readingThings Are Good: Economists: Reduce Time Spent Working
Since roughly the end of the 70s productivity at workplaces has increased yet wages have stagnated (except for the top 1%) meaning that we are relatively worse off than before. All one has to do is look at the graph below to get the basic idea of this global issue.
Continue readingThings Are Good: Even Moderate Exercise Can Stave Off Depression
There’s a bunch of scientific evidence that already proves the benefits of exercise for one’s mental health, and now we know that even moderate workouts can have a huge impact. Even walking for just 20-30 minutes a day can improve resilience to depression! So if you don’t want to go
Continue readingThings Are Good: Men: Drink With Your Friends to Stay Healthy
Now there’s the perfect excuse to go watch the game with your friends or just chillax in a bar! It turns out that males really benefit when they engage in face to face activities with their friends twice a week regardless of what they actually do. So go out tonight
Continue readingThings Are Good: Literary Fiction Enhances Empathy in Readers
Literary fiction, not popular fiction, can make people better understand one another according to a new study. Because literary fiction (i.e. books not for sale at airports) focuses on the psychology and inner life of the characters it gives people a window into the thoughts of others that aren’t covered
Continue readingThings Are Good: A Good New Podcast
Talking GOOD is “PR for people making a difference” and each episode focuses on one person who is improving the world. It’s a Q&A about the work they do and the impact it has. The most recent article is a groovy musician and involved with National People’s Action. 9. WHAT
Continue readingThings Are Good: Artists Better Protected Against Cognitive Decline
People who engage in music or visual arts are better protected against dementia and other cognitive decline issues. Nows the time to pick up that instrument you keep meaning to learn how to play! Artists compared with non-artists are better protected, he added. “Due to their art, the brain is
Continue readingThings Are Good: Ideas to Get Consumers to Buy Sustainable Products
Every year more sustainably produced products hit store shelves yet consumer uptake on these products isn’t as strong as it should be. Sure, there are increasing sales overall but the amount of people who are buying environmentally-concious products isn’t increasing at a fast enough rate.Over at Fast CoExist a writer
Continue readingThings Are Good: Lovebots Invade Toronto
Lovebots are a fun art project that aims to fill Toronto with little concrete robots. The goal is to remind people that the city is a lovely place filled with nice people. No fewer than 100 2′ tall concrete statues of Lovebot will be put on display in “secret locations”
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