Fonts can mean different things to different people. <ul><li>A new study by Monotype suggests that fonts can change how we feel about a particular message.</li><li>Another study determined that some fonts, like Garamond EB and Montserrat, were harder for older people to read.</li><li>Fonts can trigger an emotional response. For example, we experience positive emotional responses to softer and more recognizable font types, while pointy and sharp font types often trigger negative emotions.</li></ul>

Fonts are subjective

A recent study tested the stimuli of 400 participants in three contrasting typefaces:FS Jack, a soft, lightweight sans serifGilroy, a bolder, more geometric sans serifCotford, a serif font that looks more historical When participants were shown the word “quality” in Cotford, they found it 10% more noteworthy than the two other fonts. When they were shown a full sentence in Gilroy, they found it stood out by 12%. These numbers may seem marginal. However, any difference above 5 to 6% is considered significant.

Study on fonts and emotional responses

Stashed ideas

The surprising psychology of fonts

Marie Curie profoundly impacted the world. Born in 1867 in Warsaw, Poland, she was a child prodigy in literature and mathematics. She worked as a governess until age 24 to save money for school and became the first woman in France to earn her PhD. She studied uranium, which was not well understood at the time. She discovered two new elements, radium and polonium, created cancer treatments and advanced x-ray technology, won a Nobel Prize in 1903, and won a second Nobel Prize in 1911.

Learning from Marie Curie

As an extraordinary scientist, Marie Curie relied on three key strategies to understand the world, make decisions, collaborate with others, and explore new ideas. <ul><li>She embraced the unknown. Curie challenged widely-held beliefs and later proved her position.</li><li>Making radical bets on herself. When Pierre Curie, her husband and lab partner, unexpectedly died, she did not step down from the lab as colleagues expected but stayed at the university, Sorbonne, and took over the lab herself.</li><li>Sharing her ideas. Marie Curie would work with anyone interested in radiation, including people in healthcare.</li></ul>

Marie Curie’s thinking strategies

<ul><li>Learn how to bet on yourself. Marie Curie made decisions about her career because she valued science. What small risk can you take right now to improve your work or life?</li><li>She made choices based on her values. Are your work and personal decisions aligned with your values?</li><li>Share ideas. Use them to connect with others inside and outside your field. It will give you the opportunity to receive feedback.</li></ul>

How to think like Marie Curie

Marie Curie became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in 1903. Then, in 1911, she became the first person to win two Nobel Prizes, and still holds the record as the only woman who has earned two Nobel Prizes in two different fields.

Marie Curie: the power of sharing radical ideas with the world

Parents want what is best for their children. Many parenting books promise to reveal how to achieve the best outcomes. The constant message is that if your child isn't succeeding, you're doing something wrong.  However, science supports a different message.

Good parenting, bad parenting

Children are not just shaped by the power of parenting. Children are also shaped by forces like genes, peers, and the culture children grow up in.  This can make it difficult to know which forces influence who children become. Just because we care about parenting or feel confident about it doesn't mean we understand it.

We don't understand how parenting works

Children that are raised in the same house are not noticeably more alike in how successful they are or how happy or self-reliant they are. One child might find structure in the house helpful. Her sister might find it stifling. One child might think his parents are caring for asking questions. His brother might view it as nosy. But just because an event doesn't shape people in the same way doesn't mean it has no effect. Your parenting does shape your children, just not in ways that lead them to be the same.

Parents don't shape their children

Though many of us take pride in how different we are from our parents, we are endlessly sad at how different our children are from us.

<ul><li>Parents do matter. But how they matter is complex and difficult to predict. </li><li>For any parent, stop blaming yourself. You are not that in control of your child's path. You have influence, but you don't have control. For anyone who has ever been a child, stop blaming your parents. Stop blaming other parents.</li><li>Appreciate how powerful the moments can be because of what they mean for you and your child right now, not because of what they mean for your child in the long term.</li><li>We can be less sad if we are more realistic and let go of the idea that our children's futures are in our control.</li></ul>

Take away thoughts on parenting

Understanding the science of parents and children can free people to focus on what is meaningful. It can make the experience of being a parent and having been a child more realistic and satisfying.

Parents, take a deep breath: how your kids turn out isn't fully on you. Of course, parenting plays an important role in shaping who children become, but psychologist Yuko Munakata offers an alternative, research-backed reality that highlights how it's just one of many factors that influence the chaotic complexity of childhood development. A rethink for anyone wondering what made them who they are today and what it means to be a good parent.

The science behind how parents affect child development

Oxygen is atomic number 8 with the element symbol O. It was discovered by Carl Wilhelm Scheele in 1773, but he did not publish his work immediately, so credit is often given to Joseph Priestly in 1774. Oxygen is one of the best-known gases on the planet, largely because it is so important for our physical survival. It is a crucial part of Earth's atmosphere and hydrosphere, it's used for medical purposes, and it has a profound effect on plants, animals, and metals.

Discovering Oxygen

Animals and plants require oxygen for respiration. Plant photosynthesis drives the oxygen cycle, maintaining it around 21% in air. While the gas is essential for life, too much of it can be toxic or lethal. Symptoms of oxygen poisoning include vision loss, coughing, muscle twitching, and seizures. At normal pressure, oxygen poisoning occurs when the gas exceeds 50%.

Breathing Oxygen

Oxygen gas is colorless, odorless, and tasteless. It's usually purified by fractional distillation of liquefied air, but the element is found in many compounds, such as water, silica, and carbon dioxide.

Oxygen: The Characteristics

Liquid and solid oxygen is pale blue. At lower temperatures and higher pressures, oxygen changes its appearance from blue monoclinic crystals to orange, red, black, and even a metallic appearance.

Liquid And Solid Oxygen

<ul><li>It has low thermal and electrical conductivity, but high electronegativity and ionization energy. </li><li>The solid form is brittle rather than malleable or ductile. </li><li>The atoms readily gain electrons and form covalent chemical bonds.</li></ul>

Oxygen Is A Nonmetal

Oxygen gas normally is the divalent molecule O2. Ozone, O3, is another form of pure oxygen.Atomic oxygen, which is also called "singlet oxygen" does occur in nature, although the ion readily bonds to other elements. Singlet oxygen may be found in the upper atmosphere. A single atom of oxygen usually has an oxidation number of -2.

O2 And O3

However, it is not truly flammable. It is considered an oxidizer. Bubbles of pure oxygen don't burn.

Oxygen Supports Combustion

This means it is weakly attracted to a magnet but doesn't retain permanent magnetism.

Oxygen Is Paramagnetic

<ul><li>This makes it the most abundant element, by mass, in the body. Much of that oxygen is part of water, H2O. </li><li>Although there are more hydrogen atoms in the body than oxygen atoms, they account for significantly less mass. </li><li>Oxygen is also the most abundant element in the Earth's crust (about 47% by mass) and the third most common element in the Universe. As stars burn hydrogen and helium, oxygen becomes more abundant.</li></ul>

Approximately 2/3 Of The Mass Of The Human Body Is Oxygen

Excited oxygen is responsible for the bright red, green, and yellow-green colors of the aurora. It's the molecule of primary importance, as far as generating bright and colorful auroras.

Excited Oxygen 

Oxygen was the atomic weight standard for the other elements until 1961 when it was replaced by carbon 12. Oxygen made a good choice for the standard before much was known about isotopes because although there are 3 natural isotopes of oxygen, most of it is oxygen-16. This is why the atomic weight of oxygen (15.9994) is so close to 16. About 99.76% of oxygen is oxygen-16.

The Atomic Weight Standard

Learn 10 interesting facts about the element oxygen, the breath of life, including its color, characteristics, and more.

Get 10 Interesting Facts About the Element Oxygen, the Breath of Life

Self-Authorship is a kind of mind-framing, which states that we can discard all the instructions and behavioural patterns we learned since childhood, and create our own belief system and identity.We are released from what others think of us and can define our own goals, crafting a unique life without using the blueprint of society.

Self-Authorship

<ol>
<li>Trusting our own internal voice, rather than reacting by the ways taught to us.</li>
<li>Building an internal foundation of relationships, beliefs and values.</li>
<li>Securing internal commitments and using them for taking decisions when faced with problems, situations and other external circumstances.</li>
</ol>

Self-Authorship: The Three Phases

<ol><li>Question your own values and beliefs, ingrained inside you for decades.</li><li>Keep a journal for your thoughts.</li><li>Challenge yourself to move out of your comfort zones.</li><li>Be with a diverse set of people who increase your awareness and understanding.</li><li>Take responsibility for your own actions and beliefs, controlling what you engage yourself with.</li></ol>

How To Develop Self-Authorship

Self-authorship is the belief that you can rely on your own internal values to make decisions. It’s a powerful mind frame, but it's hard to master.

Self Improvement

How to develop your self-authorship

More and more psychologists are realizing that people can score highly on one or more psychopathic personality traits without having criminal or violent tendencies, such as:
<ul>
<li>Self-centered impulsivity (how selfish you are)</li>
<li>Cold heartedness (who switched off you are from other people's suffering)</li>
<li>Fearless dominance (being less susceptible to fear, stress, and anxiety)</li>
</ul>

Psychopathic Traits

Men tend to score higher than women on psychopathic traits (self-centered impulsivity, cold-heartedness, and fearless dominance).
In addition to this, people who are in managerial positions also score higher in general along with those who hold far-right beliefs or racist views.

Statistical Summary of the Population That Score High

Fearless dominance (being less susceptible to fear, stress, or anxiety) is incredibly useful in certain lines of work from surgeons, special forces, elite sports, or political leadership.
Psychologists call these successful psychopaths.

Successful Psychopaths

Could I be a psychopath and not know it? Absolutely! With the help of an expert psychologist, find out why that might not be a bad thing.

Could I be a psychopath and not know it?

Many people feel uncomfortable when they hear their own voice in audio recordings. 
Your voice sounds deeper and richer when you speak but thinner and higher on recordings. The reason for the variance is this:
<ul>
<li>When listening to a recording of your voice, the sound travels through the air and into your ears. </li>
<li>When you speak, some sound travels through the air, but much of the sound is internally conducted through your skull bones and boosts the lower frequencies.</li>
</ul>

Your strange voice on a recording

Your voice on a recording really is a new voice. Because your voice is an integral part of self-identity, the mismatch between the voice you know and the voice you hear can be disturbing. You realise other people know your voice as something else.
Researchers found that patients with voice problems tended to rate the quality of their recorded voice more negatively than clinicians. If your inner self is criticising your voice on a recording device, you're probably judging yourself too harshly.

Your recorded voice is a new voice

Does my voice sound different to others? | Popular Science

<ol>
<li>Start with an incredibly small habit, one that is easy enough that you don't need motivation to do it</li>
<li>Increase your habit in very small ways - start small and gradually improve</li>
<li>As you build up, break habits into chunks</li>
<li>When you slip, get back on track quickly.</li>
</ol>

How to Build a New Habit

"Success is a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day."

According to researchers at Duke University, habits account for about 40 percent of our behaviors on any given day. 1 Understanding how to build new habits (and how your current ones work) is essential for making progress in your health, your happiness, and your life in general.

How to Build New Habits: This is Your Strategy Guide

We understand success as something relative to others and not something by itself. Status, power, wealth and position is by default a relative rank to the rest of the contenders of society. This constant comparison is designed for unending misery for all rank holders, from the first to the last.
Real success is individual, and true happiness comes from identifying and cultivating your own inner strength and contentment.

Real Success Is Individual

We naturally seek validation from external sources like friends, family and social media (number of likes), but fail to realize that true happiness comes from within us, and real freedom is when we focus on ourselves, not others.
If we only strive for external validation we are simply giving control of our happiness to others. Antidote: Look yourself in the mirror daily and say ‘I Love You’.

Seeking External Validation

Most people live and become their job roles. We simply don’t understand that we are more than just our work, and wake up in the morning as employees, not human beings on this beautiful planet.
When we are done with our lives, we will regret that we were only working the whole time and didn’t live our precious life. We would give everything we have to live just one more day with the people we love.
Relationships and connections are a bigger source of happiness than status.

Overidentifying With Your Career

Instead of constantly comparing ourselves with others(a surefire recipe for a miserable life) we need to compare ourselves with the person we were before, like a year or five years ago. We need to grow, evolve, blossom and make ourselves better and wiser in every sphere of life.Everybody is running their own marathon. Train hard and only compete with yourself.

Comparing Yourself To Others

Defining success wrong hurts our happiness

Introversion is how you’re wired, whereas social anxiety is something that is holding you back due to fear instead of a choice you're making.
Non-anxious introverts are very happy to leave a party early, but people with social anxiety often leave because they feel so worried and want relief.

Introversion and social anxiety are separate

"We have to put action before feeling confidence because when we see ourselves doing challenging things, we start to believe we can."

Clinical psychologist Ellen Hendriksen is the author of the new book How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety. She talks to us about most helpful techniques to combat social anxiety, daring to be average, and why most people's social skills are just fine.

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Ira Varma
@iravarma

The surprising psychology of fonts

Marie Curie: the power of sharing radical ideas with the world

The science behind how parents affect child development

Get 10 Interesting Facts About the Element Oxygen, the Breath of Life

How to develop your self-authorship

Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

Ira Varma@iravarma

The surprising psychology of fonts

Marie Curie: the power of sharing radical ideas with the world

The science behind how parents affect child development

Get 10 Interesting Facts About the Element Oxygen, the Breath of Life

How to develop your self-authorship

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Ira Varma
@iravarma