"At the widest-angle view, one can see a whopping difference across the millennia that separate us from our pre-state ancestors... quantitative body-counts... suggest that pre-state societies were far more violent than our own."
(Incredibly, he's even including all the wars and genocides of the 21st century in that body count)
And now we come full circle. fMRI -- the ubiquitious (and some would say, shark-jumping) brain-imaging technique that lets scientists map mental function by watching different parts of the brain "light up" -- may help explain how we, yes, lighten up.
NYU's study found that optimism emanates from an unlikely source. It turns out that the amygdala, mainly associated with negative emotions like fear and depression, may also be the seat of our inner Stuart Smalley.
