Merv Mandelbaum 
Okay, brace yourselves: YouTube commenters are objectively worse than commenters on other platforms. Maybe not Tumblr, though. Hyperbole aside, researchers publishing in PLOS One found that TED commenters are more likely to talk about content and ideas than YouTube commenters, who mainly talk about the person presenting in a video. … Read More
Do lazy people get fat? Actually, it may be the other way around—being fat might make you tired and more sedentary. That’s the gist of a new study published in Physiology and Behaviour. Aaron Blaisdell, a scientist at UCLA, put thirty-two rats on two separate diets for six months. The healthy … Read More
Are you depressed, despite having every ridiculous thing possible? Unfortunately, that’s how it works: the more stuff you have, the less happy you are. A study published in Personality and Individuality Differences has found that materialism is correlated with unhappiness. Researchers issued a brief survey to 246 people living in … Read More
What’s the big deal, you ask? Can’t the chemicals just deal with it? Well, sort of—but those same chemicals plus your pee can make a whole new set of dangerous chemicals. According to a study published in Environmental Science and Technology, human urine is the culprit behind a couple of … Read More
As you probably know, people who are happy work more without sacrificing quality. Well, now you can put a number on it: people work about twelve per cent more when they’re happy. From where does the twelve per cent number come? A study (pdf warning) published in the Journal of … Read More
