The world's population will pass the 7 billion mark on Monday

According to a UN estimation, the world's population will pass the 7 billion mark on Monday. 7 billion is a number that is hard to perceive, It raises questions: How does this number spread among the countries? How is population growth today different than the way it used to be in the past?  


It is interesting to see information (that is usually presented with dry numbers) presented in a different way. A beautiful visualization for the population growth by NPR:

Mind Wandering.....................

I am always fascinated with brain processes that are mysterious (or at least unknown to me) and their affect on our behavior. According to yet another brilliant article by Jonah Lehrer from WIERED (oh yeah, I am definitely becoming a groupie), it is OK to just let the mind wander.
Furthermore, Not only that it is NOT unproductive, it actually makes us be MORE CREATIVE!

Fun fact: Did you know that the brain consumes more energy during daydreaming than it does during periods in which we are focused?!

This image is a detail taken from a beautiful Mercedes Benz add: called "Left Brain Right Brain" 

(Advertising Agency: Shalmor Avnon Amichay/Y&R Interactive Tel Aviv, Israel)

 A research from Schooler lab, mentioned in the article, demonstrated that "people who consistently engage in more mind-wandering [...] score significantly higher on various measures of creativity". 

Before you start gazing at the screen and let your mind wander, you should know that there are different types of mind-wandering, and not in all of them patients exhibited increased creativity (you'll have to read the article to know the distinction ). Click HERE to link to the full article.

Interesting read about what makes us learn better

Do you hate to be wrong? What is your reaction when you make a mistake?

According to a new paper by Moser at Michigan State University there are two distinct mindsets: a fixed one and a growth one. Having one or the other has an impact on our ability to learn from our mistakes and to improve our performances. 

This interesting article by Jonah Lehrer touches on the difference between feedback that is given on effort versus feedback that is granted for intelligence. Apparently there is a different impact based on the subject of feedback (praise on effort or praise on intelligence as part of an experiment done with children by Carol Dweck, a psychologist at Stanford). 

Should we avoid the unpleasant symptoms of being wrong? 

The article answers this question and others:
Why Do Some People Learn Faster? By Jonah Lehrer, Wired Magazine