Articles (12)
Topic: Finance
Published: Jan 29, 2026
Read time: 3 min
Your brain doesn't treat all money the same—it creates invisible 'accounts' that lead to irrational financial decisions. Understanding mental accounting can help you avoid costly mistakes and think more clearly about your finances.
Topic: Statistics & Probability
Published: Jan 28, 2026
Read time: 3 min
A devastating statistical error has sent innocent people to prison by confusing the probability of evidence with the probability of guilt. Understanding this fallacy reveals how easily our intuition about probability can lead us catastrophically astray.
Topic: Earth Science
Published: Jan 27, 2026
Read time: 3 min
Around 2.4 billion years ago, tiny bacteria poisoned Earth's atmosphere with oxygen—triggering the planet's first mass extinction and setting the stage for complex life. Here's how life's waste product became our most essential resource.
Topic: Statistics & Probability
Published: Jan 26, 2026
Read time: 3 min
Basketball players don't actually get "hot streaks" where they're more likely to score. This revelation about randomness challenges how we perceive patterns in everything from sports to stock markets.
Topic: Finance
Published: Jan 25, 2026
Read time: 3 min
Two investors with identical portfolios and identical returns can end up with wildly different outcomes—all because of the order in which their gains and losses occurred. Understanding sequence of returns risk is crucial for anyone approaching retirement.
Topic: Literature (ideas, not reviews)
Published: Jan 24, 2026
Read time: 3 min
Anton Chekhov's simple rule about rifles on walls transformed storytelling—and reveals how our minds demand that details matter. Understanding this principle changes how you consume stories and construct meaning in your own life.
Topic: Statistics & Probability
Published: Jan 23, 2026
Read time: 3 min
In a room of just 23 people, there's a 50% chance two share a birthday. This famous probability puzzle reveals how poorly we understand coincidence—and why that matters for everything from cryptography to DNA evidence.
Topic: Literature (ideas, not reviews)
Published: Jan 22, 2026
Read time: 3 min
When you're absorbed in a good story, you're not just entertained—you're neurologically transported into a different reality. This phenomenon, called narrative transportation, explains why fiction can change your real-world beliefs more effectively than facts alone.
Topic: Literature (ideas, not reviews)
Published: Jan 21, 2026
Read time: 3 min
You aren't just a person who tells stories—you are, in a very real sense, the story you tell about yourself. Narrative identity theory reveals how we construct our sense of self through an internal life story, complete with themes, turning points, and character arcs.
Topic: History
Published: Jan 20, 2026
Read time: 3 min
In 1858, London's unbearable odor forced Parliament to act on sewage infrastructure, accidentally launching the modern public health movement and proving that sometimes progress requires discomfort to affect the comfortable.
Topic: Music (conceptual, not technical)
Published: Jan 20, 2026
Read time: 3 min
Music creates pleasure not just through beautiful sounds, but by constantly predicting what comes next and then either confirming or cleverly violating those predictions. Understanding this expectation-play reveals why certain songs give us chills and why unfamiliar music can sound 'wrong.'
Topic: Law (as a system)
Published: Jan 20, 2026
Read time: 3 min
In 1805, two New York farmers fought over a dead fox in court, creating a precedent that still defines how we think about ownership today. This bizarre case reveals how law evolves through unexpected conflicts.