Loneliness is on the rise, and feeling lonely has been found to increase a person’s risk of dying early by 26%, but friendships can help.

There are a number of different tests, including those developed by experts and free tools you can access online.

“We are raising the anxious generation, and the conversation about the causes, and the potential cures, has just begun. In The Self-Driven Child, authors William Stixrud and Ned Johnson focus on the ways that children today are being denied a sense of controlling their own lives—doing what they find meaningful, and succeeding, or failing, on their own. Screen time, the authors say, is part of the problem, but so are well-meaning parents and schools, who are unwittingly taking from children the opportunities they need to grow stronger, more confident, and more themselves.”

‘The brain’s interpretation of the body signals is maybe more important than the body signals themselves’

According to psychological research, the anticipation of an event is almost always more emotionally powerful than the event itself. True confidence emerges when you consistently push-through things that suck. The longer you sit with the boredom, pain, and discomfort — and actually create something meaningful, the more confident and successful you will be.

Hence, Ryan Holiday explains in an interview with Lewis Howes: you are rewarded for the work you actually accomplish. Not the promises you make.

Doing the work is hard.

A new study, published in the journal Diabetologia, reveals even more bad news: even for those who do not suffer from type 2 diabetes—the 86 million prediabetics—high blood sugar level has been linked with cognitive decline. While the connection between sugar and Alzheimer’s disease is already understood, this new long-term study, conducted over the course of a decade, focuses on high blood sugar and general memory decline, covering the range of diseases of dementia.

Fantastic read on why decentralization is a fundamental concept of the disruptive force behind blockchain. Want to understand why? Dig in here!

“Centralized platforms have been dominant for so long that many people have forgotten there is a better way to build internet services. The lesson is that when you compare centralized and decentralized systems you need to consider them dynamically, as processes, instead of statically, as rigid products. Centralized systems often start out fully baked, but only get better at the rate at which employees at the sponsoring company improve them. Decentralized systems start out half-baked but, under the right conditions, grow exponentially as they attract new contributors.”

Giving constructive feedback that resonates is extremely difficult. You have to strike exactly the right chord for your words to cause change. Here’s the best advice we’ve seen on how to do that.

The Danish capital ranks high on the list of the world’s healthiest and happiest cities. With obesity and depression on the rise worldwide, here are its lessons for how to combat them culturally

“Second, the product strategy is the bridge between the business strategy and the product roadmap. The product strategy must support the business strategy, and the product roadmap is what describes your current plan of how you will get from where you are today, to the vision described in your product strategy.”

Google is proving more and more medical diagnoses can be done using machine learning. Its latest looks at cardiovascular risk, but experts say it needs further tests before it can be used in real life.

Thinking storing data on a USB thumbdrive is cool? How about DNA?

Microsoft Research adds the concept of random access to files stored in DNA.

“I first heard about “Big History” after Bill Gates recommended a book by the same title by Cynthia Stokes Brown, and I read about his interest in turning this field into a broader basis for the instruction of history itself. I read the book and was blown away.

Big History is essentially a perspective of examining history in the broadest context possible: that of the universe. It “begins” with cosmology, the Big Bang, and continues through the formation of stars and planets, to the Earth itself, and then to the formation of life, all the way up to mammals, humans and, eventually, ancient Egypt, Rome, the Titanic and Dancing With The Stars.”