Inside the Mind

Most people throughout the world are right-handed. So can they teach themselves to use their left hands, too and become ambidextrous?

By Patty Rasmussen

The Kobayashi Maru simulation puts future Starfleet commanders in a classic "no-win" scenario. It's so accurate, even the U.S. military uses the exercise to test the measure of a good leader.

By Mark Mancini

Whether you're a procrastinator or a workaholic, you can improve your time management. How? With a timer, scheduled breaks and some serious discipline.

By Carrie Whitney, Ph.D.

Phrenology, the belief that you could determine personality from the shape of someone's skull, was so popular in the Victorian era that phrenology parlors sprang up all over Europe and America. But the trend was soon debunked.

By Jennifer Walker-Journey

Heuristics are rule-of-thumb strategies that help us shorten decision-making time and solve problems quickly and effortlessly.

By Michelle Konstantinovsky

This new form of sound therapy takes advantage of the fact that a different frequency in each ear yields a third frequency that can allegedly calm you down or improve your focus. Does it really work? Our writer tried it out.

By Alia Hoyt

We see faces in clouds, on buildings - heck, in grilled cheese sandwiches. But why is that? And how is this a help to our survival?

By Dave Roos

A new study shows that mothers prefer daughters and fathers prefer sons, regardless of economic background, contradicting an earlier well-known hypothesis.

By Alia Hoyt

You could call dopamine the most misunderstood neurochemical in the brain. It's allegedly the cause of people getting addicted to drugs, chocolate or video games. But what does really dopamine do?

By Patrick J. Kiger

Researchers from Penn State University College of Medicine suggest that a shared circuit in the brain could be one reason why heavy drinking and high-fat 'junk food' cravings go hand in hand.

By Michelle Konstantinovsky

Maybe. A study that wasn't even about kissing turned out to (sort of) give the answer.

By Michelle Konstantinovsky

A new year is always a good time to set new goals. We've come up with five healthy changes that have been scientifically shown to improve your well-being.

By Dave Roos

ASMR has become a pop phenomenon and scientists are trying to figure out why some people love those tingling-inducing videos and others can't stand them.

By Nathan Chandler

Ever had a "woulda, shoulda, coulda" feeling about something? It's called regret. What really triggers this emotion - and can we trust it?

By Dave Roos

It's not just your imagination - people feel freer to bail out on others at the last minute than they used to. But why?

By Danielle Douez

Is your first memory of lying in a crib? You may want to revisit that. A new large study found that nearly 40 percent of participants had a first memory that was improbably early.

By Alia Hoyt

Roller coaster junkies rejoice: Riding these coasters could be a safe way to deal with your addiction to endorphins.

By Alia Hoyt

The noises that others make - be it walking, chewing or breathing heavily - are very noticeable to us. Yet we seldom hear it in ourselves. Why is that?

By Alia Hoyt

A new study shows that IQ levels have been falling since 1975, reversing a 20th-century trend.

By Melanie Radzicki McManus

Ever walked from your kitchen to the living room to find your phone and then forgotten what you were looking for once you got there? Researchers think your brain is hard-wired to undergo precisely that process of forgetting.

By Nathan Chandler

Have you ever met someone with a unique first name, and then all of a sudden you hear the name everywhere you turn? That's the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon at work. How did it get that handle?

By Kate Kershner & Austin Henderson

Are you a person who likes to be social but also values some alone time? You are? How did we guess without knowing you? Welcome to the Barnum effect.

By Kate Kershner

Why does the experience of sleep paralysis often summon explanations of demonic visitations? Visit the place where dreams and reality overlap, and where science and myth attempt to interpret our hallucinations.

By Robert Lamb

Nostalgia, contrary to centuries of common knowledge, appears to be a good thing. A really good thing.

By Julia Layton

You've probably experienced that moment where you're driving, get lost, turn down the radio, and then think, "Why did I just do that?"

By Maria Trimarchi