Summer 2016

Ours is an era of seemingly limitless opportunities for fun: costumed bar crawls and bouncy castles, hoverboards and home brewing, blue-and-green mermaid hair, flash mobs, milkshakes adorned with donuts and rock candy. And yet, everyone seems perpetually stressed, overbooked, and uptight. Even kids seem busy these days, their afternoons packed with practices and lessons. In the words of Zippy the Pinhead, "Are we having fun yet?" Just what is fun, anyway? What happens in the brain when we have fun? Is there some evolutionary explanation of fun? And what happens if we don't get enough of it? These are tricky questions to pose to a scientist. / Johns Hopkins Magazine