"Everybody dies in the end": Does knowing the ending always spoil the fun?

Adapted from source

If you ever find yourself in the kind of situation where you (semi-) intentionally reveal the ending of a book/movie/TV show to someone who hasn’t read or seen it yet – AND if you happen to feel generally quite protective over your various body parts – there is only one sensible course of action: run. Very fast and, preferably, very far away. Unless you have revealed the ending of the Game of Thrones series, in which case you may seriously consider testing out firsthand how cozy life on other planets could be.

Men have it bigger: gender differences in social networks

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Have you ever wondered why men and women seem to differ in the way they socialise? According to Baumeister and Sommer, men and women are equally driven by the need to belong to a social group. However, women tend to socialise within a smaller social circle, whereas men tend to socialise within a wider network. This would then lead women to form attachments with close others, and men to have more numerous associates who are less close.

Moving for Money

Would you be willing to run around the block each morning in exchange for a free cappuccino or a free ride on the metro? Rewarding people with money increases motivation to exercise, finds a recently published study in Annals of Internal Medicine. During a 13-week intervention, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania managed to motivate their employees to take no less than 7000 steps a day!

Figure 1. Illustration by Iván López Núñez (for Homo Sociabilis)