Science Archives

The History of Palliative Care for Cancer

What is palliative care? Why were doctors so opposed to putting cancer patients into palliative care? Palliative care is designed to provide patients with relief of symptoms and improve their quality of life as opposed to curing the disease. For patients suffering from cancer, palliative care wasn’t even an option until the 1950s. According to Siddhartha Mukherjee, the author of The Emperor of All Maladies, many doctors were opposed to the idea of putting cancer patients into palliative care because it felt like surrendering. Keep reading to learn about the arrival of cancer palliative care.

How Did Elon Musk Start SpaceX With So Little Money?

How did Elon Musk start SpaceX? What set SpaceX apart from other companies in the space industry? Elon Musk started SpaceX because of his belief in the importance of space travel and his frustration with NASA. To do this, he set extremely high expectations and focused on building a rocket cheaply and quickly, which was a unique approach in the space industry. Keep reading to find out how Elon Musk started SpaceX.

The MVP Test: How Lean Startups Learn From Failure

What is an MVP test? How does an organization use the MVP test to improve? An MVP test is a way to test out a product by building out a prototype or stripped-down version of the product and then gathering feedback to act upon. The author of Black Box Thinking uses the minimum viable product test as an example of how learning-oriented institutions grow from failure. Keep reading to find out how lean startups use MVP tests to gather feedback.

How to Gain Respect: Body Language Is Key

Do you wish that people valued and respected you more? What can you do to make that happen? Jordan Peterson argues that others will treat you with more respect if you simply stand up straight. There’s a deeply-ingrained biological reason for this. Understanding the science behind it and leveraging it to your advantage can cause you to behave differently. As a result, people will treat you differently. Read more to learn how to gain respect.

A Look at the Future of VR (Outside of Gaming)

How can virtual reality be useful outside of gaming? Is VR the future? Will the virtual world sever interpersonal relationships? What kind of effect will VR have on mental health? When most people think of virtual reality, they think of an expensive gaming headset with mediocre graphics and limited games. However, VR is for a lot more than just video games. VR technology is becoming more prominent in healthcare, education, and even in the workplace. Learn why VR may just be the future of technology.

Fake Memories: Why and How Do They Occur?

Do you ever remember an event differently than someone else who was there? How do fake memories form in the brain? A fake memory is one that is remembered differently from how it happened or one in which details of a thing or event are wrong. But, don’t worry—everybody has fake memories. It’s part of how the human brain functions. Here’s why your memory may be playing tricks on you.

Perceiving Reality: We All Use a Distorted Lens

Are you perceiving reality accurately, or do you have blind spots in your perception? Does everybody perceive the world in the same way? According to Harvard professor and social psychologist Daniel Gilbert, we all are perceiving reality through a distorted lens. Gilbert says that your brain fabricates your present reality by filling in visual and aural gaps in your perception with assumed information—and by interpreting present events in a way that’s advantageous to you. Here are the two fabrications that most people make about reality.

How to Judge a Personality Based on Little Information

What’s the most effective way to size up someone’s personality? How much information do we really need to accurately size up a person’s qualities? When it comes to reading personalities, we really don’t need much information. In fact, too much information can obscure the bigger picture with irrelevant details. Taking a “thin slice”—an extremely small segment of information about a person’s life—can lead to very accurate judgments about their personality. Here’s why “thin-slicing” is the best way to judge a personality.

The Role of the Unconscious in Insight Problem-Solving

What’s an “insight problem”? How do you solve such a problem? An insight problem is a problem that requires a fundamental shift in perspective in order to arrive at the solution. Oftentimes, the solution to an insight problem comes out seemingly out of nowhere in an “Aha! moment” fashion. In 1931, psychologist Norman Maier investigated how we arrive at solutions to insight problems in his famous Two-String Problem experiment. Here’s what he found.

Personal Preferences: Why Do We Like What We Like?

Why do we like what we like? How do we determine our own preferences? Are our judgments about our own likes and dislikes always accurate? We’re good at making fast judgments about what we do and don’t like. But, surprisingly, sometimes these snap judgments about our own preferences can be inaccurate. Here’s why your judgments about what you do and don’t like may not reflect your actual preferences.