The compulsive browser: nature vs nurture

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On the island of Jamaica is Accompong, a town founded by former slaves known as the Maroons. This group had fought a fierce war with the British to earn its emancipation. The Maroons owe their lineage to West African warrior tribes from where the fittest of their ancestors had been captured and brought to work on plantations. Jamaica is also home to many of the world's best sprinters and the Maroons do not hesitate to claim both Usain Bolt and Veronica Campbell Brown as members of their lineage.

Interestingly, Jamaicans and many who owe lineage to Western and Central Africa, have naturally low haemoglobin levels thanks to a unique gene mutation that possibly evolved as a natural resistance to malaria. This mutation also resulted in creating fast twitch muscle fibres that do not depend on oxygen to create the energy required to excel in short distances like 100 metres.

In

The Sports Gene: Talent, Practice and the Truth About Success, David Epstein tracks the work of researchers  across disciplines who are trying to unravel the mystery of how Nature and  nurture combine in unique ways to deliver the best results in sport.  Along the way, we learn that instinct honed by years of practice rather than reflexes matters when a batsman is facing a fast ball. We also learn more about the controversies surrounding sex determination tests in sport, the truth about the

10,000- hour rule popularised by Malcolm Gladwell that contends it is the number of hours of practice that distinguishes the best from the mediocre, the importance of choosing the right sport (remember Bolt wanted to be a cricketer!) and that when it comes to training or even working out for weight loss, no programme ever fits!

Ever been scared to deliver a speech before an audience? Then

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain is for you and me. Cain explains how we are hardwired to be either an extrovert or an introvert, and how the latter type is often undervalued by a society that equates extroversion with intelligence, creativity and leadership. And yet Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein and Bill Gates were introverts. There would be no Google, Chopin's Nocturnes, the theory of gravity, E.T. or Harry Potter if it were not for their introvert creators. Cain, who started her career as a corporate lawyer, soon found that she was different from others of her profession who seemed to enjoy the spotlight. And yet she found that her natural introversion helped her excel in building loyal alliances, asking the right questions and listening to opposing views that are key elements of a successful negotiation. She combines the knowledge derived from medical and psychological studies to define the character traits of introverts and explain how they can be properly nurtured through parenting and education and best utilised at work. She also offers practical advice on how to cope with the downside of introversion while handling public speaking and managing relationships.

Man has a lot in common with apes as we share nearly all of their DNA. But according to Ian Leslie in Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends On It, what distinguishes us from apes is the ability to ask the question 'Why?'

We are all born curious but most of us lose the habit of learning and exploring new things as we grow older. Like introversion, we have a legacy of viewing curiosity as something bad for society. Yet Leonardo da Vinci, Einstein, Walt Disney and Steve Jobs would not have achieved all that they did without being curious.  Leslie explains the different kinds of curiosity - diversive, epistemic and empathic.

The latter two forms are the subject of this book. While the diversive manifests itself in our hunger for novelty and entertainment and is superficial, the epistemic which involves hard work and discipline, leads us to a quest for knowledge that results in discovery and innovation, while the empathic helps us see things from others' perspective.  Leslie critiques the modern world where our education system trains people to be specialists and Google and Wikipedia give us a sense of knowing everything and thus hinders epistemic curiosity. At the same time, he is not on the side of the educationists who promote the creation of an environment where children teach themselves through discovery.

Citing studies from cognitive science he argues that both acquiring knowledge through schooling and the development of memory are crucial for nurturing the right curiosity. He also discusses the role of parents in either curbing or promoting a child's natural curiosity and suggests strategies to stay curious throughout our life.

The first European to land in North America was not Christopher Columbus but, according to recent evidence, Leif Eriksson, a Norse explorer who established a settlement near present- day Newfoundland. If the Norse sagas are to be believed, Eriksson was tipped off  by a merchant ship Captain Bjarni Herjolfsson whose vessel was blown off course, a result of which he discovered the new continent but chose not to explore it.  As Leslie concludes, we all have the choice to explore the worlds of knowledge that present themselves to us or like Bjarni , turn our face from the beauty and the mystery, and head for our next appointment!