How We Got To Now With Steven Johnson, Premieres Tonight.

HOW WE GOT TO NOW WITH STEVEN JOHNSON premieres Wednesdays, October 15, 9-11 p.m. and October 22-November 12, 10-11 p.m. ET on PBS. Get the companion book. 

Walter Mischel, The Marshallow Test, and Self-Control

Maria Konnikova, in The New Yorker, talks with Walter Mischel about his new book The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control:

Mischel believes that the skills which enable us to delay gratification are the same skills that allow us to make other good choices despite temptations to do otherwise. “We’ve found a way to really improve human choice and freedom,” he told me. “If we have the skills to allow us to make discriminations about when we do or don’t do something, when we do or don’t drink something, and when we do and when we don’t wait for something, we are no longer victims of our desires.” As Roy Baumeister, a professor of psychology at Florida State University who studies willpower, put it, self-control is like a muscle: the more you use it, the stronger it gets. Avoiding something tempting once will help you develop the ability to resist other temptations in the future.

The Alarming New Research on Perfectionism

Melissa Dahl in New York Magazine's Science of Us: 

In one 2007 study, researchers conducted interviews with the friends and family members of people who had recently killed themselves. Without prompting, more than half of the deceased were described as “perfectionists” by their loved ones. Similarly, in a British study of students who committed suicide, 11 out of the 20 students who’d died were described by those who knew them as being afraid of failure. In another study, published last year, more than 70 percent of 33 boys and young men who had killed themselves were said by their parents to have placed “exceedingly high” demands and expectations on themselves — traits associated with perfectionism.

Understanding Randomness

On the Inquiring Minds podcast they talk about randomness with science writer William Poundstone, author of the new book Rock Breaks Scissors.

Poundstone explains why we’re so terrible at trying to come up with random sequences ourselves—and how understanding these pitfalls can actually help you predict, with accuracy above chance, what someone else is going to do even when he or she is trying, purposefully, to act randomly.

How Do They Make Decaf Coffee?

Mental Floss kicks off a new series on You Tube The Big Question, and they start with "how do they make decaf coffee?"