Developments in Our Understanding of Procrastination

“Procrastination is not a time-management problem, it’s an emotion-management problem,” Tim Pychyl, an associate professor of psychology at Carleton University, explains in Solving the Procrastination Puzzle. Numerous studies now reveal that troubles with mood and emotion-regulation trigger procrastination. As Sam Kemmis-Zapier explores for Fast Company, data-driven techniques can then be used to counteract these effects—like considering a project as a series of small actions rather than …

MIT Scientist’s Quest For a Bot That Can Smell As Well As a Dog

“We have $100 million worth of equipment downstairs. And the dog can beat me?” MIT scientist Andreas Mershin asks. “That is pissing me off.” Mershin aims to develop a bot that detects an antigen that can be an indicator of prostate cancer. It’s one that properly trained dogs can sniff out with 90% accuracy. The physicist’s lab, Label Free Research Group, is attempting artificial olfaction, …

Link About It: This Week’s Picks

Designing an Italian icon, a mirrored hot air ballon, 3D-printed organs and plenty more inspiration and oddities

The Impending Death of the Password Thanks to companies like MobileIron, device passwords (believed to date back to the 1960s, thanks to an MIT time-shared computer) may be on their way out once and for all. Since most people use weak passwords for the majority of their logins and companies oftentimes offer flawed storage and security systems, the default security option isn’t the most intelligent …