Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2628 )

• Age Related Cognitive Decline and the Gut Microbiome

  Haridy summarizes experiments by D'Amato et al. showing that fecal transplants from old mice to young mice result in the younger animals displaying learning... Read more

  Posted on 07 October 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Bodybuilding Supplement Promotes Healthy Aging and Extends Life Span

  ...at least in mice. I pass on clips from this piece by by Jocelyn Kaiser: A dietary supplement bodybuilders use to bulk up may have a more sweeping health... Read more

  Posted on 06 October 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Facing Major Changes That Are a Predictable and Integral Part of Life.

  I pass on clips from another of Arthur Brooks' biweekly articles on "How to Build a Life." Its discussion of major life changes begins with the obvious major... Read more

  Posted on 05 October 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Tipsy Microglia Binge on Synapses - Another Reason to Cut Down on the Booze

  Socodato et al. find that binge-level alcohol intake (about five drinks for an average person) over 10 consecutive days enhances Src-to–tumor necrosis factor... Read more

  Posted on 02 October 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Acetaminophen Increases Risk Taking

  From Keaveney et al.: Acetaminophen (Tylenol), an analgesic and antipyretic available over-the-counter and used in over 600 medicines, is one of the most... Read more

  Posted on 01 October 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• All of Us Are Racists in Our Early Infancy.

  Listening to a Sam Harris 'Making Sense' podcast interview of prolific black author John McWhorter - who describes 'The New Religion of Anti-Racism' - puts me i... Read more

  Posted on 30 September 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• What to Do When the Future Feels Hopeless

  In one of his biweekly 'How to bluild a life' essays Arthur Brooks offers advice on antidotes to feeling of helplessness in the face of the current pandemic. Read more

  Posted on 29 September 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Kitty See, Kitty Do: Cat Imitates Human

  

  I am immediately going to start trying this with my abyssinians! Cats have been notoriously hard to study, and this study reinforces, for example, that cats 0... Read more

  Posted on 28 September 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Perceptions of Family Social Status Correlate with Health and Life Chances

  A fascinating British twin study from Rivenbark et al: Children from lower-income households are at increased risk for poor health, educational failure, and... Read more

  Posted on 25 September 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Genes and Environments, Development and Time

  A special section of the Sept. 22 issue of PNAS offers a series of free online artices on biological embedding across timescales. Here is the abstract of the... Read more

  Posted on 24 September 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Inflammaging - Another Reason Seniors Don't Want to Catch COVID-19

  I imagine myself to have a very robust immune system because I very seldom catch a flu or cold, take Vitamins C and D, exercise, am not overweight, ran around... Read more

  Posted on 23 September 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The 2020 Ig Nobel Prizes - Research on Knives Made of Feces.

  A piece in Science Magazine gives the highlights of this year's Ig Noble prize s published in the Annals of Improbable Research. Read more

  Posted on 22 September 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brain Circuits Signaling the Absence of Emotion in Body Language

  Sokolov et al. show that modulation of the reciprocal effective connectivity between the amygdala and insula during processing of neutral and emotional body... Read more

  Posted on 21 September 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Another Big History - Why the West is WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized,...

  Alas, I usually end up reading reviews of books rather than the books themselves. Here I want to pass on clips from Shulevitz's review in The Atlantic: of Josep... Read more

  Posted on 18 September 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Ethnic Antagonism Erodes Republicans’ Commitment to Democracy

  Bartels does a survey (open source) that provides numbers and graphs on what is obvious from current news sources - the frailty of public commitment to... Read more

  Posted on 16 September 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Disagreeable People Are Not More Likely Than Agreeable People to Obtain Power...

  An interesting study from Anderson et al.: Does being disagreeable—that is, behaving in aggressive, selfish, and manipulative ways—help people attain power? Read more

  Posted on 15 September 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• "Us" Versus "Them" in 17 Month Old Infants.

  Jin and Baillargeon make observations that suggest an early origin of the 'us and them' perspective being taken to extremes in our current polarized political... Read more

  Posted on 14 September 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Cognitive Control Increases Honesty in Cheaters but Cheating in Those Who Are...

  Abe discusses work of Speer et al. that probes: ..a long-standing paradox concerning the cognitive nature of honesty: Is it a matter of “will” or “grace”? Read more

  Posted on 10 September 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Origins of Human Music - Two Perspectives

  Because I wrote an article in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (coauthored with Vadim Arshavsky), that was published in 2010, I receive the journal's calls for... Read more

  Posted on 09 September 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Science of Inequality.

  Economic inequality is a continuing focus of political debate, and I think a re-post of a brief MindBlog item from 6/2/2014 is relevant: The May 23 issue of... Read more

  Posted on 08 September 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE