Word: phenomenonal
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...with Hurricane Katrina where the images, no matter how awful, were insufficient measured against the reality. The most overpowering sensation is the smell, a stench that seems to imprint itself on the brain's memory bank, suddenly wafting back hours after you have left the scene. It's a phenomenon well-known among homicide detectives and soldiers...
...That is, after all, what this phenomenon boils down to: what makes you happy. As ecstatic as California’s gay community was in June, November may prove to be a somber affair. The economy is collapsing around us, gas prices are through the roof, and who knows what the world will look like tomorrow. Who’s to begrudge a little kiss...
...help. A variation of Gresham's Law was also at play, with imprudent lending driving out prudent lending. This tends to occur as responsible institutions see their market share fall while those of irresponsible institutions rise, and decide to emulate the reckless practices they previously eschewed. The phenomenon was particularly prevalent in the mortgage market. Central bankers cannot escape censure, either. In his memoirs Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, writes: "I was aware that the loosening of mortgage credit terms for subprime borrowers increased financial risk, and that subsidized home-ownership initiatives distort market outcomes...
...When anthropologists observe cultures, they oftentimes choose a particularly unique social phenomenon that allows a glimpse into that culture’s canon of values: a Balinese cockfight, for example, or a Pueblo rain dance. These are the times when a people’s deepest shared emotions are on display, when their ideals and dreams take on ceremonial form. The good ethnographer realizes that these behaviors are not just aesthetic curiosities. They are codebooks of culture...
...Jean] Piaget, the highest rung in the ladder of cognitive development was about age 12 - formal operations." In the past, children entered initiation rites and started learning trades at about the onset of puberty. Some theorists concluded from this that the idea of adolescence was an artificial construct, a phenomenon invented in the post-Industrial Revolution years. Giedd's scanning studies proved what every parent of a teenager knows: not only is the brain of the adolescent far from mature, but both gray and white matter undergo extensive structural changes well past puberty. "When we started," says Giedd, "we thought...