Can the World’s Fisheries Survive Their Appetite?

Boris Worm, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University in Canada, made a startling prediction in the pages of Science in 2006: if overfishing continued at then-current rates, he said, the world would essentially run out of seafood by 2048. Worm’s bold analysis whipped up controversy in the usually pacific world of marine science — one colleague, Ray Hilborn of the University of Washington, called the Science study “mindbogglingly stupid.” But Worm held fast to his predictions: that the oceans had limits, and that marine species were declining so fast that they would eventually disappear.

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Yes, I Suck: Self-Help Through Negative Thinking

In the last 50 years, people with mental problems have spent untold millions of hours in therapists’ offices, and millions more reading self-help books, trying to turn negative thoughts like “I never do anything right” into positive ones: “I can succeed.” For many people — including well-educated, highly trained therapists, for whom “cognitive restructuring” is a central goal — the very definition of psychotherapy is the process of changing self-defeating attitudes into constructive ones. But was Norman Vincent Peale right Is there power in positive thinking A study just published in the journal Psychological Science says trying to get people to think more positively can actually have the opposite effect: it can simply highlight how unhappy they are

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Commentary: Obama has to be more than the ‘un-Bush’

At every stop during his recent trips abroad, President Obama went out of his way to assure observers that he is the un-Bush: a pragmatist rather than an ideologue, with both his feet firmly planted in the reality-based world. (CNN) — At every stop during his recent trips abroad, President Obama went out of his way to assure observers that he is the un-Bush: a pragmatist rather than an ideologue, with both his feet firmly planted in the reality-based world

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Cows With Gas: India’s Contribution to Global Warming

Indolent cows languidly chewing their cud while befuddled motorists honk and maneuver their vehicles around them are images as stereotypically Indian as saffron-clad holy men and the Taj Mahal. Now, however, India’s ubiquitous cows — of which there are 283 million, more than anywhere else in the world — have assumed a more menacing role as they become part of the climate change debate.

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