Word: explainers
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...safest teen drivers tend to use. These include setting firm rules and boundaries for driving - such as no speeding, no talking on a cell phone or texting while on the road and no driving while intoxicated. Parents of safe drivers also tend to make it a point to explain to their children that the reason for their rules is to ensure the child's safety. ?They have to see the rules as a safety issue, so they choose to do the right thing," he says. (Read "Distracted Driving: Should Talking, Texting Be Banned...
...Dean Malmgren has. A faculty member in Northwestern University's department of chemical and biological engineering, Malmgren thinks a lot about universal laws and how they might explain human behavior, even seemingly spontaneous actions like writing an e-mail to a friend. (See the top 10 scientific discoveries...
...current issue of Science, Malmgren and several colleagues explain that as far as human correspondence goes, when and how long you choose to sit down and e-mail your friends or family has less to do with your desire to get in touch than with a larger - and less random - system of outside factors...
...practical level, Malmgrem's research could help explain a range of other apparently unique human behaviors, like running errands, making phone calls, checking books out of the library and doing homework. In the meantime, the study offers at least a few possible excuses for why it's taken you so long to respond to that e-mail from your mother - like "The universal mathematical model made me do it," or maybe "You wouldn't complain if I were Einstein...
...turns out that just three mechanisms combine to explain both activities. The first is our propensity to continue repeating a task once we've started: "Once you send one e-mail or write one letter, you tend to do another," says Malmgren. The second is our circadian sleep-wake cycle, which limits the available time we have to devote to letter-writing. The third is that we typically work on the same days each week, further restricting when and how long we spend getting in touch with friends. (See TIME's brain covers...