Another “contemplation has been crowded out by modernity” data-point
Nietzsche, writing in 1882: “Soon we may well reach the point where people can no longer give in to the desire for a vita contemplativa (that is, taking
“this groundbreaking naturalist conducted his scientific labors in the midst of a rambunctious family life”
University of Iowa historian Elizabeth Yale (she's a fellow at the Center for the Book) has a nice piece about Down House, Charles Darwin's home for forty years, in
The coevolution of cognitive ability and Alzheimer’s disease?
In The Distraction Addiction I made the argument that our cognitive abilities and facility for using technology— in particular, our possibly unique ability for becoming mentally absorbed in
My Washington Post interview: “How Charles Darwin used rest to be more productive”
I'm in today's Washington Post, thanks to Brigid Schulte, a Post contributor and author of Overwhelmed. In the United States, we work among the longest hours of any
How Thomas Hobbes worked
From John Aubrey, A Brief Life of Thomas Hobbes, 1588-1679: As I remember, there were others likewise did preach his doctrine. This little MS treatise grew to he
“A walk of twenty or thirty miles a day is one of his favorite amusements”
One of the things that constantly amazes me about our ancestors is how much more exercise they got in the course of a day, and especially how much
Is there an art of thought?
Recently I've been reading Graham Wallas's 1926 book The Art of Thought and his other works, and am now in the process of working it into Rest. Wallas is one
Athletes, academic performance, and the stereotype threat
A couple months ago Annie Murphy Paul wrote about new research demonstrating that the “stereotype threat”— the negative effect that stereotypes about low academic performance can have on
“electrical illumination revolutionised the night and, in turn, sleep”
A nice piece in Aeon by Scottish writer Karen Emslie about segmented sleep, featuring the (pioneering and incredibly innovative) work of Virginia Tech historian A. Roger Ekirch, and why it
When our ancestors became “human:” New evidence
Archaeologists trying to establish when our ancestors developed the cognitive and creative abilities we think of as distinctly human have pointed to a series of artifacts dating back some