In Ranta's case, a novelty change purse that said "weed money"—but never contained weed found in a car search may have been what landed him in an interrogation room.
For some, the sheer novelty changed the way they approached the task: "If I was asked to write another reflective essay, it would be like a broken record in terms of assignments this year.
The origin of floral novelties (changes in the floral design, display, flowering time, chemistry and/or reward type) can therefore be considered as an important driving force in the diversification of flowering plants.
In a study using male mice transplanted with an androgen-responsive mammary tumor, Weinberg and Emerman showed that socially isolated animals, additionally exposed to acute daily novelty stress (changes in housing conditions), exhibit a marked increase in tumor growth as compared with group-housed animals [ 73].
American culture, with its pursuit of novelty and change, provides fertile ground for technological disruption.
To find out, take the quiz, from Winifred Gallagher, author of the book, "New: Understanding Our Need for Novelty and Change,".
"Nothing reveals your personality more succinctly than your characteristic emotional reaction to novelty and change over time and across many situations," Ms. Gallagher says.
A show that should be a required course in every New Yorker's education: our cosmopolitan tradition, our appetite for novelty and change spring partly from seeds planted a century ago in Berlin.
In her survey of the recent research, "New: Understanding Our Need for Novelty and Change," the journalist Winifred Gallagher argues that neophilia has always been the quintessential human survival skill, whether adapting to climate change on the ancestral African savanna or coping with the latest digital toy from Silicon Valley.
Winifred Gallagher, a behavioral science writer and the author of a coming book, "New: Understanding Our Need for Novelty and Change," described the town houses as shown on Mr. Drake's site as statement homes, saying they were "strong expressions of identity and very strong signifiers of status".
