Mary Martin

Thinking about curiosity as going beyond the need for quick answers also highlights the power of what happens when we engage with un­­cert­ain­ty: having to ponder and anticipate answers can improve learning and memory, and curiosity can facilitate brain states that help us encode new information. Learning new things can be tough, but harnessing... See more

When you view a situation as a challenge, you’re combining recognition of the problem that needs to be addressed with faith that you can rise to the occasion and deal with it successfully. Doing this can mobilise one’s positive self-regard and sense of potency.

it would appear the plague-clouds are within us, too. They illustrate the interconnectedness of our inner and outer worlds. They betray a certain flimsiness of human agency, painting our decision-making in strokes of environmental influence far bolder than our intuition suggests. And they throw the climate crisis into fresh, stark relief: because,... See more

The discovery suggested to Robert that electrostatics can enable a plant-pollinator mutualism, a well-known example of coevolution. This dynamic — in which a bee feeds on a flower’s nectar and gathers pollen to feed larvae, and also propagates pollen from flower to flower, enabling plant reproduction — was already well established. The potential... See more

This is why the idea that speech is violence is so dangerous. It tells the members of a generation already beset by anxiety and depression that the world is a far more violent and threatening place than it really is. It tells them that words, ideas, and speakers can literally kill them. Even worse: At a time of rapidly rising political polarization... See more