Cat People, Strippers, And Telekinesis: The Portraits And Testimonials Of Alien Abductees
Alien abductions make for a good sci-fi plot devices, but it’s easy to forget that we walk among people — in the real world — who claim to have been visited, beamed up and probed by little gray men. New York photographer Steven Hirsch, 63, has met many of these people face to face. He…
Are Afghans Unable to Beat the Taliban Because of Clinical Depression?
Maybe the reason that the Afghan counterinsurgency has been such a flop is that the people there are too traumatized and depressed to make nation-building work. That’s the controversial conclusion of an Air Force colonel who recently spent a year in Afghanistan as the head of a reconstruction team. In an unpublished paper, Col. Erik…
Five Embodied Metaphors That Actually Foster Creative Thinking
People often describe creative thinking in the form of metaphors. We talk about “thinking outside the box,” “putting two and two together,” and “seeing both sides of the problem.” But what if we could boost our creativity by taking these metaphors literally? We know our minds interact in all sorts of interesting ways with our…
Fitness Trackers Use Psychology to Motivate Couch Potatoes
When it comes to fitness trackers, the psychology behind them is just as important as the technology inside them. Gadgets like the Nike+ FuelBand, Fitbit Ultra and BodyMedia Fit Link use accelerometers, altimeters and algorithms to track everything from how many steps you took to how many calories you burned. By providing this data instantaneously,…