To admit these are confusing times is a statement of the obvious, like saying water is scarce in the desert.  I’m confused when I read lawmakers in Mississippi are crafting legislation that will require schools, including those with primarily black attendance, to fly the Confederat

As researchers probe into the secrets of our brains, we learn more about the characteristics of leadership.  Surprisingly, being smart isn’t high on the list   Good character tends to produce better workers and better leaders.   Does a person feel bad about a transgression, for

If I were allowed to interview the President-elect, I wouldn’t ask Donald Trump about his ties with Russia, or his misogynist views of women or whether or not actor Tom Arnold’s claim that the man is a racist is true. (Click)   I’d ask him what he was reading.  Apparently, he

Our president-elect has told so many lies to the public, his fibbing has taken on a transparency akin to truth-telling.  What’s more, when his followers fail to notice his contradictions, they provide an example of cognitive dissonance working on a massive scale.    Cognitive di

Like a person in a drunken stupor, I careen between bouts of messiness and sterile order.  My physical work environment is becoming more and more sterile as I gain skills that allow me to file documents on my computer.  The evolution poses a new problem, however. I sometimes get los

If you’re feeling jittery about where the country is going, there’s good news on the personal front.  The link between physical exercise and mental acuity is real. (“Ask the Brains,” Scientific American Mind, Sept/October 2016, pg.72.)  As we already know, the brain requires

Depending upon what surveys you read, a majority of women voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, but not by a wide margin. (Click)  Thirty-nine percent went for her opponent, a certifiable  misogynist. One woman explained she was uncomfortable with her support

In My Fair Lady, Professor Higgins laments, “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?”  At the moment, there  is no answer to that question but scientists are working on it.  Besides the obvious gender differences, studies reveal men and women differ at the brain’s cellular le

While I was working late last night, a message popped up on my computer.  In an hour, I would lose control of my machine while Microsoft performed an upgrade.  Or, if I chose, I could upgrade immediately.  I must have hit the wrong button because the screen went black before starin

“The universe is not only queerer than we suppose but queerer than we can suppose.”  So observed J. B. S. Haldane, a scientist and popularizer of science who died in the 1960s.  Thinking about existence, I can imagine no statement more accurate than Haldane’s.  Not only are h