Suppose that you are busy working on a project one day and you have no time to buy lunch. All of a sudden your best friend shows up with your favorite sandwich. He tells you that he knows you are busy and he wants to help you out by buying you the sandwich. In this case, you are very likely to appreciate your friend's help. However, if a stranger shows up with the same sandwich and offers it to you, you won't appreciate it. Instead, you would be confused. You would likely think Who are you, and how do you know what kind of sandwich I like to eat? The key difference between these two cases is the level of trust. You trust your best friend so much that you won't worry about him knowing you too well, but you certainly would not give the same level of trust to a stranger.

If you start collecting and analyzing data without first clarifying the question you are trying to answer, you're probably doing yourself more harm than good. You'll end up drowning in a flood of information and realize only later that most of that research was a waste of time. To avoid this problem, you should develop a problem-solving design plan before you start collecting information. In the design plan, you clarify the issues you are trying to solve, state your hypotheses, and list what is required to prove those hypotheses. Developing this plan before you start researching will greatly increase your problem-solving productivity. In addition, putting your plan down on paper will not only clarify your thoughts. If you're working in a group, this plan will also help your team focus on what to do and provide the starting point for your group brainstorming.

Human beings are driven by a natural desire to form and maintain interpersonal relationships. From this perspective, people seek relationships with others to fill a fundamental need, and this need underlies many emotions, actions, and decisions throughout life. Probably, the need to belong is a product of human beings' evolutionary history as a social species. Human beings have long depended on the cooperation of others for the supply of food, protection from predators, and the acquisition of essential knowledge. Without the formation and maintenance of social bonds, early human beings probably would not have been able to cope with or adapt to their physical environments. Thus, seeking closeness and meaningful relationships has long been vital for human survival.

Mammals tend to be less colorful than other animal groups, but zebras are strikingly dressed in black-and-white. What purpose do such high contrast patterns serve? The colors' roles aren't always obvious. The question of what zebras can gain from having stripes has puzzled scientists for more than a century. To try to solve this mystery, wildlife biologist Tim Caro spent more than a decade studying zebras in Tanzania. He ruled out theory after theory ― stripes don't keep them cool, stripes don't confuse predators ― before finding an answer. In 2013, he set up fly traps covered in zebra skin and, for comparison, others covered in antelope skin. He saw that flies seemed to avoid landing on the stripes. After more research, he concluded that stripes can literally save zebras from disease-carrying insects.

There is good evidence that in organic development, perception starts with recognizing outstanding structural features. For example, when two-year-old children and chimpanzees had learned that, of two boxes presented to them, the one with a triangle of a particular size and shape always contained attractive food, they had no difficulty applying their training to triangles of very different appearance. The triangles were made smaller or larger or turned upside down. A black triangle on a white background was replaced by a white triangle on a black background, or an outlined triangle by a solid one. These changes seemed not to interfere with recognition. Similar results were obtained with rats. Karl Lashley, a psychologist, has asserted that simple transpositions of this type are universal in all animals including humans.

When I was very young, I had a difficulty telling the difference between dinosaurs and dragons. But there is a significant difference between them. Dragons appear in Greek myths, legends about England's King Arthur, Chinese New Year parades, and in many tales throughout human history. But even if they feature in stories created today, they have always been the products of the human imagination and never existed. Dinosaurs, however, did once live. They walked the earth for a very long time, even if human beings never saw them. They existed around 200 million years ago, and we know about them because their bones have been preserved as fossils.

Acoustic concerns in school libraries are much more important and complex today than they were in the past. Years ago, before electronic resources were such a vital part of the library environment, we had only to deal with noise produced by people. Today, the widespread use of computers, printers, and other equipment has added machine noise. People noise has also increased, because group work and instruction are essential parts of the learning process. So, the modern school library is no longer the quiet zone it once was. Yet libraries must still provide quietness for study and reading, because many of our students want a quiet study environment. Considering this need for library surroundings, it is important to design spaces where unwanted noise can be eliminated or at least kept to a minimum.

Of the many forest plants that can cause poisoning, wild mushrooms may be among the most dangerous. This is because people sometimes confuse the poisonous and edible varieties, or they eat mushrooms without making a positive identification of the variety. Many people enjoy hunting wild species of mushrooms in the spring season, because they are excellent edible mushrooms and are highly prized. However, some wild mushrooms are dangerous, leading people to lose their lives due to mushroom poisoning. To be safe, a person must be able to identify edible mushrooms before eating any wild one.

Recent studies point to the importance of warm physical contact for healthy relationships with others. In one study, participants who briefly held a cup of hot (versus iced) coffee judged a target person as having a warmer personality (generous, caring); in another study, participants holding a hot (versus cold) pack were more likely to choose a gift for a friend instead of something for themselves. These findings illustrate that mere contact experiences of physical warmth activate feelings of interpersonal warmth. Moreover, this temporarily increased activation of interpersonal warmth feelings then influences judgments toward other people in an unintentional manner. Such feelings activated in one context last for a while thereafter and have influence on judgment and behavior in later contexts without the person's awareness.