Transporter of delight
Happiness is in your DNA; and different races may have different propensities for it
THE idea that the human personality is a blank slate, to be written upon only by experience, prevailed for most of the second half of the 20th century. Over the past two decades, however, that notion has been undermined. Studies comparing identical with non-identical twins have helped to establish the heritability of many aspects of behaviour, and examination of DNA has uncovered some of the genes responsible. Recent work on both these fronts suggests that happiness is highly heritable.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Transporter of delight”
From the October 15th 2011 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the edition
Electric vehicles also cause air pollution
Though fume-free, their brake pads and tyres disintegrate over time
AI models are helping dirty industries go green
Mining companies and steelmakers are feeling the benefits
Could data centres ever be built in orbit?
A startup called Starcloud has plans to do just that
The tricky task of calculating AI’s energy use
Making models less thirsty may not lessen their environmental impact
AI models can help generate cleaner power
Energy companies are using them to increase efficiency and spot problems
Researchers lift the lid on how reasoning models actually “think”
They plan sentences far in advance. They also bullshit themselves when reasoning out loud