Credit: Dell Center for Therapy
Back when you were trying to master scales on the violin or memorize your times tables, someone probably told you, “Practice makes perfect.” (And when you were adult, Malcolm Gladwell essentially told you the same thing).
The idea behind this classic advice is simple: the way to shove new information into your brain is to trudge along, doing the activity or re-exposing yourself to the target information again and again. It might not be fun to hear when you’ve been up late studying, but we’ve all internalized this harsh truth. The more you try, the more you learn.
There’s only one problem with this age-old wisdom. Science suggests it’s at least partially wrong. While no study is going to find you can master Beethoven or calculus by kicking back with your feet up all the time (sorry), new research is finding that rest plays a larger role in memory than your nagging mother […]
Fishermen prepare to fish, amidst floating garbage off the shore of Manila Bay during World Oceans Day in Paranaque, Metro Manila June 8, 2013. The U.N. officially designated June 8th each year as World Oceans Day, in December 2008.
Credit: Reuters/Erik De Castro
Scientists have created a mutant enzyme that breaks down plastic drinks bottles – by accident. The breakthrough could help solve the global plastic pollution crisis by enabling for the first time the full recycling of bottles.
The new research was spurred by the discovery in 2016 of the first bacterium that had naturally evolved to eat plastic, at a waste dump in Japan. Scientists have now revealed the detailed structure of the crucial enzyme produced by the bug.
The international team then tweaked the enzyme to see how it had evolved, but tests showed they had inadvertently made the molecule even better at breaking down the PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic used for soft drink bottles. “What actually turned out was we improved the enzyme, […]
The Rev William Barber and the Rev Liz Theoharis, co-chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign, speak at the National Civil Rights museum on 3 April.
Credit: Mark Humphrey/AP
In 2013, Callie Greer’s daughter Venus died in her arms after a battle with breast cancer. If caught early, the five-year survival rate for women diagnosed with breast cancer is close to 100%. But Venus’s cancer went undiagnosed for months because she couldn’t afford health insurance. She lived in Alabama, a state that refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Venus’s death is not an isolated incident – more than 250,000 people like her die in the United States from poverty and related issues every year.
Access to healthcare is just one of the issues facing the 140 million people who live in poverty in the US today. Over the past two years, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival has carried out a listening tour in dozens of states […]
