On January 6, 2010, unusual status updates started appearing on Facebook. Many women began posting colors and patterns. The Facebook Bra Color meme, which promoted breast cancer awareness, became a one-week wonder across the Internet and in main-stream media. The meme was spread through an e-mail between women, letting the guys puzzle it out. One [...]

For the past twelve years, I’ve made 12th Night the most important holiday on my personal calendar. It’s a night when I raise a glass in toast and remember all of the people who have, in one way or another, touched my life. I spent most of my childhood very sick, and I never thought that [...]

A friend of mine, Tim Sanders, offers the following insight about gossip: Gossip, especially about personal tragedies, is a social form of pornography. It can only poison your psyche and drag down your spirit. What is “social pornography?” I’m not going to define pornography directly, because it’s a slippery slope. For example, Justice Potter Stewart‘s  maxim [...]

Social learning appears in more than human beings. Many animals, including0 stickleback fish display the behavior. Now, scientists believe that fruit flies are capable of social learning. Yes, fruit flies. According Sachin Sarin and Reuven Dukas at McMaster University, inexperienced female fruit flies follow the lead of mated female fruit flies when selecting which fruit to lay [...]