How did I not hear of this experiment sooner? This is one in a series of rather startling studies conducted at the University of California at Berkeley that finds that wealthier people tend to behave more unethically than people of more modest means. Even when wealth is accumulated by means outside of their control, the wealthy considered themselves to be entitled to their advantages, more so than anyone else would be.

From PBS:

Paul Solman (PBS) : But the simple Darwinian story is if I have more resources than you, I can have more kids than you; my kids will pass on my DNA, which is the resource-hoarding DNA.

Dacher Keltner (Psychologist, UCB): That was sort of an older view of how we evolved as the particular social species we are, but what we’re learning through a lot of new advances in evolutionary biology is that we really had to cooperate to make it as a species.

We had to cooperate in terms of food gathering, defending against predators and so on. And human cultures evolved particular tendencies to reward the generous — to ensure that there weren’t people hoarding resources and that the resources were more equally distributed.

This is such a visually awe-inspiring video. Very cool. The question posed is: what would Nebulae look like if they were totally visible in our night sky?

Truth be told, it’s getting harder and harder to see the night sky. I’m almost 27 years old as of this writing, and it wasn’t until last year that I even saw the milky way galaxy in person, or at least as it looks in photographs. I understood where the term “backbone of the night” came from.

So what would our night sky look like if all of the nebulae were visible? Probably a lot like what the above video depicts. Enjoy.

In Madison, Wisconsin, the homeless population has grown by 7% in the last four years, rising to around 3,370. Occupy Madison, frustrated by lack of movement on behalf of city leaders opted to develop their own solution. It’s called Occupy Madison Inc. It’s a nonprofit organization, and their mission is to house the homeless.

Tiny Village, the name of their housing development, has 9 tiny homes, a permanent day resource center, safe places to sleep at night, as well as restrooms, showers, laundry facilities, a community gardening space; basically everything a chronically homeless person would need in order to function within the system. Their ribbon cutting event was November 15th, 2014.

Reincarnation is a believe in several cultures in religions stemming from Asia that after death, our souls might still have lessons to learn so we’re given human vessels again. We may also be reincarnated as other animals.

Dr. Ian Stevenson, a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia School of Medicine spent 40 years of his career researching reincarnation stories with children. He investigated 3,000 independent stories from children who claimed to have memories of a past life or to know people who were in their alleged past lives. Stevenson says the number of cases are so high that it warranted him studying them, and it exceeded what he and his team were able to do.

There’s some evidence that these children, claiming to be reincarnated, looked similar to the people they claim they were, or they have birth marks in the same places.

It’s tough not to be disappointed with people sometimes. We’re taught to be so reliant on others for our own lives that when they fall short of our expectations, we end up being pretty unhappy about it. But maybe it’s time to rethink what our expectations are.

Don’t expect people to fit a mold that you’ve made for them.

People are independent. They are who they are, completely independent of the people around them, and that includes you. If someone doesn’t do what you want them to, that’s more your problem than theirs in most cases. So embrace people for who they are. Help them if they need it, but let them be themselves.

Don’t rely on other people for your own well-being.

Look, I know it’s hard, especially when you’re in a relationship with someone, but you need to have a life set up for yourself where you can get by just fine without anyone else helping you along, be it functionally or personally. At the end of the day, you’re the boss of you, and you should rely on yourself for happiness.