"By clicking on the image above, you'll be able to explore:

*The history of the Periodic Table in just 2 minutes
*How certain elements changed the course of history
*How the different parts of our planet are made up of the same elemental building blocks
*Where different elements occur, and what places they get their names from
*Which elements make up the human body
*The elements that are vital, and dangerous, to human life"

What does it mean to be awake? What exactly is therapeutic about retail therapy? And what are you really working on when you're at your desk, in the gym, or having dinner? From getting ready in the morning, through heading to work, going to a party, having sex and falling back to sleep, Breakfast with Socrates provides an hour-by-hour commentary on what history's greatest philosophers have said about the meaning behind everything we do. A fascinating exploration of our daily lives, Breakfast with Socrates also draws on literature, art, politics and psychology to offer an informal introduction to the history of ideas that will help anyone to think more healthily. Breakfast will never be the same again…

There is a bunch of data that shows that the more we talk about things, the less we tend to actually accomplish them. This is because—and I’m sure you can think of a person in your life who does this a lot—the act of articulating the goal entails visualizing the achievement of it, and thus partially gives us credit for it in our own minds and reduces the motivation to actually do it. So doing this diminishes the payoff. There are many people smarter than I who have written about this, but there is a word for such a process that I think its very important. It’s called reification.

Adam Birchall is one of those rare footballers who, when he says he loves playing for his club, actually means it. The 26-year-old, known as the Wayne Rooney of non-league football because of his prolific goalscoring form, loves playing for Dover so much that his eyes shine as he speaks with all the zeal of a religious convert.

On Wednesday, based on observations from large telescopes in Chile and Hawaii, astronomers announced that the Earth has, if not a twin, at least a planetary cousin. It’s called Gliese 581g, so named for the small, dim star some 20 light-years away that it circles in a 37-day orbit. One of its co-discoverers, Steven Vogt of the University of California, Santa Cruz, has proposed a more memorable appellation: Zarmina’s World, after Vogt’s wife.

“What is happiness?” is one of those strange questions philosophers ask, and it’s hard to answer. Philosophy, as a discipline, doesn’t agree about it. Philosophers are a contentious, disagreeable, lot by nature and training. But the question’s hard because of a problematic prejudice about what kind of thing happiness might be. I’d like to diagnose the mistake and prescribe a corrective.

In this book Flanagan is dealing with what he calls ‘the really hard problem’ which is the problem of the meaning of life. If the human being is not anything that’s supernatural, if there’s no such thing as a soul, if there’s no such thing as immortality, if we’re just a biological system, how is it possible that we could have meaningful lives?

A working mother's guide to writing a novel: http://lat.ms/a29g5n

RT @longformorg: "The Unfinished" David Foster Wallace’s struggle to surpass “Infinite Jest": http://nyr.kr/aTJUZa (@NewYorker '09) #lon ...

Using examples from vacations to colonoscopies, Nobel laureate and founder of behavioral economics Daniel Kahneman reveals how our "experiencing selves" and our "remembering selves" perceive happiness differently. This new insight has profound implications for economics, public policy -- and our own self-awareness.

Here’s what I’ve been doing–or at least trying to do–to stay healthy and sane while working on a startup. It’s not rocket science. It may work for you, and it may not. But these strategies have been helpful for me, so I thought I’d share, in hopes that others have an easier time of it.

In 2008, full-time blogger and entrepreneur Chris Guillebeau published a report called 'A Brief Guide to World Domination' on his blog. It outlined a plan to take over the world through individuals doing what is most meaningful to them while serving others in a unique way. Within weeks it was downloaded more that 100,000 times in 60 countries. Here Guillebeau expands on his ideas and challenges common assumptions about how people should live and work, motivating readers to create their own ideal life - working harder than they ever have on work that they really love.

Anonymous asked: What advice would you give to a graphic design student?

Puberty is difficult enough. Imagine going through it when you’re nine.

From his Fifth Avenue penthouse, Woody defends his love for Soon-Yi and heatedly denies allegations of child abuse.

12 ways in which David Karp (Tumblr) has imporoved his life through minimalism.

Lovely - the author finds a discarded box of possessions, and is fascinated by the family he discovers.

Steve Martin is responsible for so many great comic and musical moments, so it's a shame that a whole generation will remember him from some pretty execrable comedies from the previous decade. Nice feature that rounds up his many successes, including his semi-rebirth as a bluegrass plucker.

This article on US film critic Roger Ebert and his heath has been widely referenced and shared, so I was pleased to finally read it. It's a fascinating portrait of a man who, faced with considerable adversity, has thrown himself into life and work, for the better. A great piece.

Graphic designer Glaser shares 10 nuggets of wisdom from his long and successful career.

"I suffer from a motor neuron disorder, in my case a variant of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS): Lou Gehrig's disease. Motor neuron disorders are far from rare: Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, and a variety of lesser diseases all come under that heading. What is distinctive about ALS—the least common of this family of neuro-muscular illnesses—is firstly that there is no loss of sensation (a mixed blessing) and secondly that there is no pain. In contrast to almost every other serious or deadly disease, one is thus left free to contemplate at leisure and in minimal discomfort the catastrophic progress of one's own deterioration."

Questions to ask and rules of thumb to use to solve problems and be productive.

"The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day."

"Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google."

"Tips For Students with a Bachelors in Computer Science" - but relevant for many more.

"In the late 1800s, the Brooklyn Bridge was built with no power tools, no heavy machinery, and only a basic, evolving understanding of how to make steel. It’s not these facts, but the stories surrounding the facts that inspire me when I take a good, long stare at a suspension bridge."

"That success is in the eye of the unsuccessful would seem to be the great unspoken dilemma dogging critics asked to consider the work of the rich and famous author and inspirational speaker Malcolm Gladwell. No matter how well intentioned or intellectually honest their attempts to assess his ideas, the subtext of Gladwell's perceived success, and its implications for their own aspirations in the competitive thought-generation business, obscures their judgment and sinks their morale."

A neat venn diagram on why we should combine what we do well, what we want to do, and what we can be paid to do - aka the 'Hooray!' zone.