The Last Word On Nothing

We Are All Both Ant and Grasshopper

By: Jessa Gamble | January 31, 2014

When we deposit our money at the bank, when we drop our kids off at school, when we prepay for a future service, we are exercising the trust that has been encouraged in human nature by thousands of years of fruitful cooperation. But not every human we encounter will be trustworthy.

According to The Truth About Trust, a new book by social psychologist David deSteno, the motivations that pull us between self-interest and loyalty to others are highly volatile, strongly reacting to emotions like gratitude and pride. De Steno runs a lab that investigates the impact of emotions on moral behavior.

If trustworthiness seems like a stable trait, discernable through reputation, that’s only because we assume a stable situation as well. The truth is in the incentives. “The question should not be ‘Is he trustworthy?’” argues the author. “It should be: ‘Is he trustworthy right now?’” Continue reading →

Does Your Messy Desk Make You a Bad Person?

By: Helen Fields | January 30, 2014

My desk is a disaster. Let’s see…there’s a pile of notebooks. An extension cord. A Christmas card from Switzerland and a postcard from Oklahoma. Index cards with poems by Wordsworth and Blake. A folder with the notes for a paper I wrote in 11th grade. And the only reason there’s no stack of unread and partially-read New Yorkers is that the stack has temporarily relocated to the dining room table.

I don’t understand people with clean desks. Do they drop everything to pay a bill the instant it arrives? Do they heartlessly throw away postcards, mere months after receipt? I bet they think to put tools straight into the tool box, rather than putting them on a stack of papers for a couple of weeks first. They’re probably even capable of recycling conference handouts that have a 90% chance of being useless. (My threshold is more like 99.8%.) Continue reading →

My Dirty Stream

By: Michelle Nijhuis | January 29, 2014

You’ve probably heard a lot of Pete Seeger songs in the last couple of days. And no wonder: When Seeger died on Monday, he left behind a very long lifetime’s worth of beautiful, cheeky, unforgettable songs. But what he left me — and the millions of other kids who grew up along the Hudson River during his tenure there — is not a song but a story. And the story is as good a cure for cynicism as any I know.

It goes like this.

Continue reading →

Can the World’s Greatest Athlete Have a Name like ‘Twiggy?’

By: Erik Vance | January 28, 2014

This week, it seems like all I am seeing in the news is sports. Athletes, trained to the very pinnacle of human possibility, competing for money, fame, and above all, glory. For Americans, the centerpiece is the Super Bowl, which will scoop up more than four times more viewers than an average Winter Olympics day. For one day, a hundred million people will sit down and watch multimillionaire monsters crash into each other.

And why not? I like nachos and beer as much as the next guy. But on the all-important Erik’s-List-of-True-Athletes, football players rank a paltry 7 out of 10. Who’s at the top, you say? Among others, big wave surfers. You think a 300-lb runningback going 15 miles an hour is scary? Try a 40-foot water wall going 35.

Continue reading →

Guest Post: Mad Collectors of Science

By: Ivan Amato | January 27, 2014

Several years ago, I went on a reporting foray to Building 8 of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. I had known about the work of John Daly, one of the world’s greatest-ever amphibian natural product scientists, and I decided I would learn more by doing a profile of him for my writing home at the time, Chemical & Engineering News.

There was no one in the galaxy who knew more about the origin, chemistry, and biological effects of frog toxins than Daly, who died in 2008 after 50 years at NIH. That scientific longevity, coupled to Daly’s relentless passion for the biomolecular niche he had embraced and helped to define, accounts for one of the most amazing refrigerators I have ever seen.

Daly and I had finished a long interview and a tour of his lab. It was time to go. As Daly escorted me down a hallway toward the exit, I spied a geriatric General Electric freezer that shivered as though it were about to give up its refrigerant spirits—Freon no doubt—for good. It also looked like it had to contain something astonishing, even it were only a ham sandwich that was prepared in 1973 and never eaten. I stopped in my tracks and stared. Daly took my cue. Continue reading →

The Last Word

By: Sally Adee | January 25, 2014

January 20 – 24

This week, Christie did us all the favour of dispensing with the notion that there are “best places to live.”

Cassie had another go at “Three Cups of BS” Mortensen.

Abstruse Goose and Ann contemplated why the best science is guaranteed to piss people off.

I pondered whether everything isn’t a little bit better if it’s a little bit shit.

And guest poster Craig Childs examined the relationship between us humans and the dogs we’ve taken along with us for quite an evolutionary ride.

Mustn’t Grumble

By: Sally Adee | January 24, 2014

The_Scream Looking for fun things to do around London? Here’s an idea: Find a Brit on a first date with an expat from New York. Your task could be challenging — Americans don’t know this but British people don’t go out on dates until they’re in a relationship — but there’s every chance some hapless Brit has been cajoled into taking an exotic American girl out to dinner per her native custom. Just make sure the Brit under observation has never done this before and doesn’t know what to expect.

Watch as the New Yorker issues major alterations to the menu. “I’ll have the salmon, but can you do it poached instead of grilled? And instead of risotto, can you do a salad? Also I’m allergic to tarragon, so definitely no tarragon. Is the bread gluten free?”

Look past the polite smile, and you’ll see all the blood has drained from your Brit’s face.

When the salmon arrives, it will certainly be grilled and propped on a bed of risotto, surrounded by a flourishing thicket of tarragon. This is when the fun starts — you’ll witness at least three bounce backs to the kitchen, a tide increasingly loud, performative complaining meant to elicit sympathy from nearby diners (“Can you believe this place?”), and when the time comes to settle up, a heated exchange about removing the offending item from the bill.

Don’t take your eyes off the Brit, because you’re in for a treat. A man is about to rip off his own face. Continue reading →

24 Reasons to Ignore Best Places Lists

By: Christie Aschwanden | January 23, 2014

The latest issue of Sunset Magazine arrived in my mail last week, and the cover story immediately caught my eye — “24 Best Places to Live and Work 2014.” “Looking for the perfect place to launch a career? Start a family? Just relax? We’ve found the ideal city, town, or neighborhood for you.”

For instance, if you’re “ready to put down roots,” the story’s handy flowchart offers you two choices — Issaquah, Washington (if “the burbs are calling”) or Sugar House, Salt Lake City, Utah, if they’re not.

Now Sunset is a fine magazine and they’re hardly alone in propagating these “best places” inventories. I understand the impulse to quantify a place’s attributes and size them up against other localities. But I worry that the proliferation of these lists have transformed place into a commodity rather than a commitment.

What I’ve learned from living in three countries and more than 20 locations is that there is no perfect place. Believing otherwise prevents the letting go of elsewhere necessary to create a home place where you are— a journey that takes effort and devotion. Continue reading →