As the Thirty Years' War between Europe's ruling dynasties dragged on during the 17th century, soldiers suffered through the coldest few decades Europe had experienced for some time. Far to the east, armies from Manchuria (present day northern China) swept down from the snowy north and breeched the Great Wall of China. Not long after, a plague swept Europe. Why so much tumult? A controversial new study suggests that most of humankind's maladies—from wars to epidemics to economic downturns—can be traced to climate fluctuations.

Besides having basal ganglia that crave stimulation at a higher rate than others, creative people such as technologists also have higher short-term memory buffers, Hanson says. The brain of a stimulation-seeking, innovation-craving technologist is literally like a RAM drive with a larger buffer than most. The novelty-shy portion of the population gets easily flooded by incoming data. They need to slow down the incoming stream so as to process new information before moving it into the brain’s long-term storage, whereas the brain of an innovation-prone technologist handles data streams with greater speed and greater ease.

That doesn’t mean you’re smarter, but it does mean you’re prone to be innovative—innovation being equated with the stimulation brought by new things....