A French TV documentary features people in a spoof game show administering what they are told are near lethal electric shocks to rival contestants. Those taking part are told to pull levers to inflict shocks - increasing in voltage - upon their opponents. Although unaware that the contestants were actors and there was no electrical current, 82% of participants in the Game of Death agreed to pull the lever.

In each of five experiments the method of inducing a powerful feeling, and the method of determining moral double standards was different, but in every one the results were the same. Powerful people judge others more harshly but cheat more themselves. But what’s especially interesting is his last experiment where distinguishing between legitimate power and illegitimate power garnered the opposite results.

There is a rule of thumb that says in any company, 20 percent of the employees will give you 80 percent of the top-notch work. Which means the other 80 percent of us are just a waste of company money and vending machine sandwiches.

So why do so few of us really excel at our jobs? Well, science says...

Where people are hungry, it is because of war (Somalia, Ethiopia) or government policies that, in the name of modernization and industrialization, penalize farmers by taxing them at prohibitive rates (e.g., Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya), not because population is exceeding the natural limits of what the world can support.

In every region investigated, researchers have found that as pornography has increased in availability, sex crimes have either decreased or not increased.

Scientists have identified areas of the brain that, when damaged, lead to greater spirituality. The findings hint at the roots of spiritual and religious attitudes, the researchers say. Self-transcendence "reflects a decreased sense of self and an ability to identify one's self as an integral part of the universe as a whole," the researchers explain.