The Daily Galaxy: Great Discoveries Channel

Music's Power Dominates Our Memory -A Galaxy Insight

Remember that great Stones' ballad you heard on your first date with that first great love? Well, despite music's importance to our lives, very little is known about the memories and emotions that are often evoked when hearing a piece of music from our past. Does music have a more powerful effect on memory than other influences, like images, words, or smells?

Does Time Slow Down in a Crisis? A Galaxy Insight

In The Matrix, hero Neo wins his battles when time slows in the simulated world. In our real world, accident victims often report a similar slowing of time as they slip unavoidably towards disaster.

Vulcans Nixed: You Can’t Have Logic Without Emotion -A Galaxy Classic

Fifty years ago some young MIT scholars delivered a radical notion to the world. They proposed that it is possible to scientifically study precise mechanisms and processes of human thought. The movement was the catalyst for many fields of study.

Now after a generation of productive research, a newer paradigm shift is taking place. Science is discovering that it is our emotions that make thought possible, not the other way around. We simply cannot understand thought without understanding emotion. This is a radical departure from the traditional perspective, which used to regard emotion as the antagonist of reason.

Fifty years ago some young MIT scholars delivered a radical notion to the world. They proposed that it is possible to scientifically study precise mechanisms and processes of human thought. The movement was the catalyst for many fields of study.

Now after a generation of productive research, a newer paradigm shift is taking place. Science is discovering that it is our emotions that make thought possible, not the other way around. We simply cannot understand thought without understanding emotion. This is a radical departure from the traditional perspective, which used to regard emotion as the antagonist of reason.

Einstein's Eureka! Moment: Does Unconscious Thought Underlie Creative Problem Solving?

For years Albert Einstein had been trying to reconcile two seemingly contradictory theories about space and time. One day while riding a street car home, he was struck by the sight of Bern's famous clock tower. The answer to special relativity was simple and elegant: time can beat at different rates throughout the universe, depending on how fast you moved.

"Conscious thought is better at making linear, analytic decisions, but unconscious thought is especially effective at solving complex problems," says Adam Galinsky of the Kellogg School of Management. "Unconscious activation may provide inspirational sparks underlying the 'Aha!' moment that eventually leads to important discoveries." Moments similar to the one Einstein experienced as he watched trains moving into the station past rows of clocks that were synchronized with the one atop the famed Bern tower

MythBuster's Adam Savage on Failure as an Option

Low Self-Esteem & Materialism Goes Hand in Hand -A Galaxy Insight

“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.”

~From the movie Fight Club, based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk

Researchers have found that low self-esteem and materialism are not just a correlation, but also a causal relationship where low self esteem increases materialism, and materialism can also create low self-esteem. The also found that as self esteem increases, materialism decreases. The study primarily focused on how this relationship affects children and adolescents. Lan Nguyen Chaplin (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) and Deborah Roedder John (University of Minnesota) found that even a simple gesture to raise self-esteem dramatically decreased materialism, which provides a way to cope with insecurity.

The Psychology of Facebook Profiles

Will “Human Nature” Affect Our Long-term Survival? -A Galaxy Classic

It’s a given that Earth cannot survive indefinitely, if for no other reason than that the sun will eventually expand and roast the planet. Of course, many scientists believe that by the time that happens, life will have long since disappeared on this planet for other reasons—many of them involving manmade disasters. Are they just being pessimistic, or realistic, or both?

Homo Sapiens -The "Time Travelers" -A Galaxy Insight

Brain researchers have recently discovered that when we perform mental activities such as adding numbers, comparing shapes, or identifying faces these areas of our brains light up, other areas go dark. This "dark network," according to Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, comprises regions in the frontal, parietal and medial temporal lobes. Gilbert writes that "if you climbed into an MRI machine and lay there quietly, waiting for instructions from a technician, the dark network would be as active as a beehive. But the moment your instructions arrived and your task began, the bees would freeze and the network would fall silent. When we appear to be doing nothing, we are clearly doing something. But what?"

Is Fear Our Friend? Experts Say "Yes"

Music's Power Dominates Our Memory -A Galaxy Insight

Remember that great Stones' ballad you heard on your first date with that first great love? Well, despite music's importance to our lives, very little is known about the memories and emotions that are often evoked when hearing a piece of music from our past. Does music have a more powerful effect on memory than other influences, like images, words, or smells?

Does Time Slow Down in a Crisis? A Galaxy Insight

In The Matrix, hero Neo wins his battles when time slows in the simulated world. In our real world, accident victims often report a similar slowing of time as they slip unavoidably towards disaster.

Vulcans Nixed: You Can’t Have Logic Without Emotion -A Galaxy Classic

Fifty years ago some young MIT scholars delivered a radical notion to the world. They proposed that it is possible to scientifically study precise mechanisms and processes of human thought. The movement was the catalyst for many fields of study.

Now after a generation of productive research, a newer paradigm shift is taking place. Science is discovering that it is our emotions that make thought possible, not the other way around. We simply cannot understand thought without understanding emotion. This is a radical departure from the traditional perspective, which used to regard emotion as the antagonist of reason.

Fifty years ago some young MIT scholars delivered a radical notion to the world. They proposed that it is possible to scientifically study precise mechanisms and processes of human thought. The movement was the catalyst for many fields of study.

Now after a generation of productive research, a newer paradigm shift is taking place. Science is discovering that it is our emotions that make thought possible, not the other way around. We simply cannot understand thought without understanding emotion. This is a radical departure from the traditional perspective, which used to regard emotion as the antagonist of reason.

Einstein's Eureka! Moment: Does Unconscious Thought Underlie Creative Problem Solving?

For years Albert Einstein had been trying to reconcile two seemingly contradictory theories about space and time. One day while riding a street car home, he was struck by the sight of Bern's famous clock tower. The answer to special relativity was simple and elegant: time can beat at different rates throughout the universe, depending on how fast you moved.

"Conscious thought is better at making linear, analytic decisions, but unconscious thought is especially effective at solving complex problems," says Adam Galinsky of the Kellogg School of Management. "Unconscious activation may provide inspirational sparks underlying the 'Aha!' moment that eventually leads to important discoveries." Moments similar to the one Einstein experienced as he watched trains moving into the station past rows of clocks that were synchronized with the one atop the famed Bern tower

MythBuster's Adam Savage on Failure as an Option

Low Self-Esteem & Materialism Goes Hand in Hand -A Galaxy Insight

“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.”

~From the movie Fight Club, based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk

Researchers have found that low self-esteem and materialism are not just a correlation, but also a causal relationship where low self esteem increases materialism, and materialism can also create low self-esteem. The also found that as self esteem increases, materialism decreases. The study primarily focused on how this relationship affects children and adolescents. Lan Nguyen Chaplin (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) and Deborah Roedder John (University of Minnesota) found that even a simple gesture to raise self-esteem dramatically decreased materialism, which provides a way to cope with insecurity.

The Psychology of Facebook Profiles

Will “Human Nature” Affect Our Long-term Survival? -A Galaxy Classic

It’s a given that Earth cannot survive indefinitely, if for no other reason than that the sun will eventually expand and roast the planet. Of course, many scientists believe that by the time that happens, life will have long since disappeared on this planet for other reasons—many of them involving manmade disasters. Are they just being pessimistic, or realistic, or both?

Homo Sapiens -The "Time Travelers" -A Galaxy Insight

Brain researchers have recently discovered that when we perform mental activities such as adding numbers, comparing shapes, or identifying faces these areas of our brains light up, other areas go dark. This "dark network," according to Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, comprises regions in the frontal, parietal and medial temporal lobes. Gilbert writes that "if you climbed into an MRI machine and lay there quietly, waiting for instructions from a technician, the dark network would be as active as a beehive. But the moment your instructions arrived and your task began, the bees would freeze and the network would fall silent. When we appear to be doing nothing, we are clearly doing something. But what?"

Is Fear Our Friend? Experts Say "Yes"