Arthur C. Brooks Voluntarily sacrificing pleasurable things resets your senses and makes you master of yourself. We have just entered the season of Lent, a time to pray and fast to commemorate Jesus’s 40-day sojourn into the desert at the beginning of his public ministry. About a quarter of Americans—including 61 percent of Catholics—typically observe Lent through voluntary sacrifice, fasting, almsgiving, and prayer. Many religions have similar ascetic traditions, such as Yom Kippur in Judaism and Ramadan in Islam, in which believers repent and reflect on their need for improvement. Lent is intended as a somber period, not one typically…

In the late 1960s, Nasa faced a decision that could have shaped the fate of our species. Following the Apollo 11 Moon landings, the three astronauts were waiting to be picked up inside their capsule floating in the Pacific Ocean – and they were hot and uncomfortable. Nasa officials decided to make things more pleasant for their three national heroes. The downside? There was a small possibility of unleashing deadly alien microbes on Earth. A couple of decades beforehand, a group of scientists and military officials stood at a similar turning point. As they waited to watch the first atomic…