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" The 20s are like the stem cell of human development: the pluripotent moment when any of several outcomes is possible. Decisions and actions during this time have lasting ramifications. "

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" Biology sets the context, and that is critical, but obesity still boils down to whether a person eats too much or exercises enough. "

Robin Marantz Henig

Biology

Down

Enough

" Some people, no matter how robust their stock portfolios or how healthy their children, are always mentally preparing for doom. They are just born worriers, their brains forever anticipating the dropping of some dreaded other shoe. "

" Regret is a bitter emotion, so painful that the urge to avoid it often drives decision-making strategies. "

" I'm always made a little uncomfortable by studies that assert that Millennials are the most narcissistic generation in history. To me, being young has always meant being self-absorbed; in many ways, that's what youth is for. "

Robin Marantz Henig

Generation

History

" Elderly parents tend to think their relationship with their middle-aged children is smoother than the children do. Adult grandchildren, who have little stake in pulling away from their grandparents, tend to describe that relationship as less rose-colored than do Gram and Gramps. "

" Through social media, young people are constantly being pinged about a whole slew of potentially better matches or social activities. "

" The music that was popular in your youth seems to be the music you recall most vividly - and most nostalgically - for the rest of your life. But so is the music that was popular in your parents' youth. "

" The English language has 112 words for deception, according to one count, each with a different shade of meaning: collusion, fakery, malingering, self-deception, confabulation, prevarication, exaggeration, denial. "

" I'm a freelance writer, and I work alone at a big desk in the living room of my apartment. There are many days when I don't utter a single word to anyone but my husband. "

" Friends and relatives might be surprised that I think of myself as lonely. I'm married to a man I not only love but like, and we spend a lot of time together. If I feel like socializing, I can usually find someone to meet for coffee or a drink. "

" Beliefs about how lying looks are plentiful and often contradictory: depending on whom you choose to believe, liars can be detected because they fidget a lot, hold very still, cross their legs, cross their arms, look up, look down, make eye contact or fail to make eye contact. "

" Hardships of early human life favored the evolution of certain cognitive tools, among them the ability to infer the presence of organisms that might do harm, to come up with causal narratives for natural events and to recognize that other people have minds of their own with their own beliefs, desires and intentions. "

" The limbic system explodes during puberty, but the prefrontal cortex keeps maturing for another 10 years. "

" The essence of play is that the sequence of actions is fluid and scattered. "

" When a trait is universal, evolutionary biologists look for a genetic explanation and wonder how that gene or genes might enhance survival or reproductive success. "

" Parents bobble between a nostalgia-infused yearning for their children to play and fear that time spent playing is time lost to more practical pursuits. "

" The human brain has evolved the capacity to impose a narrative, complete with chronology and cause-and-effect logic, on whatever it encounters, no matter how apparently random. "

" Lies can be verbal or nonverbal, kindhearted or self-serving, devious or bald-faced; they can be lies of omission or lies of commission; they can be lies that undermine national security or lies that make a child feel better. And each type might involve a unique neural pathway. "

" As people construct a life narrative, researchers have found, they tend to remember more events from the teens and twenties than from any other time. It's called the 'reminiscence bump.' "

" In the modern world, the anxious temperament does offer certain benefits: caution, introspection, the capacity to work alone. These can be adaptive qualities. "

" Angels, demons, spirits, wizards, gods and witches have peppered folk religions since mankind first started telling stories. "

" The chance you passed up or missed could have had any number of different outcomes, and it's easy to fantasize about how much better every one of those outcomes would have been. "

" Many of us are tethered to bodies that sabotage us in our struggle to keep from getting fat, or to slim down when we do. "

" Scientists who study play, in animals and humans alike, are developing a consensus view that play is something more than a way for restless kids to work off steam; more than a way for chubby kids to burn off calories; more than a frivolous luxury. "

" Some of my happiest moments are the ones I spend with my husband, a few close relatives, and a handful of very good friends who know me well and like me anyway. "

Robin Marantz Henig

Good

Husband

" There's very little about being in a functional-M.R.I. scanner that is natural: you are flat on your back, absolutely still, with your head immobilized by pillows and straps. The scanner makes a dreadful din, which headphones barely muffle. "

" Anxiety is not fear, exactly, because fear is focused on something right in front of you - a real and objective danger. "

" In the womb, humans are free of microbes. Colonization begins during the journey down the birth canal, which is riddled with bacteria, some of which make their way onto the newborn's skin. "

" To me, it's always interesting to see what people end up regretting, as a way maybe to avoid such regrets in your own life. "

Robin Marantz Henig

Own

End

" Kids don't shuffle along in unison on the road to maturity. They slouch toward adulthood at an uneven, highly individual pace. "