Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2628 )

• The Paradoxical Role of Social Capital in the Coronavirus Pandemic

  I suggest you read an insightful article by Adam Gopnik in the New Yorker with the title of this post. He begins with an interesting comparison of the King Jame... Read more

  Posted on 10 August 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Working Memory Capacity Predicts Individual Differences in Social-distancing...

  Xie et al. suggest that non-compliance is associated with limitations in people's mental capacity to simultaneously retain multiple pieces of information in... Read more

  Posted on 07 August 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Coming De Facto World Government?

  David J. Lynch does a fascinating description, which I strongly suggest that you read, of How a little-known company kept Apple products on the market — and... Read more

  Posted on 06 August 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Cats Associated with Early Human Farming Long Before Their Domestication

  As the herd of Abyssinian cats in my has grown, now numbering two 12 year olds and two kittens, I've become more curious about the origins of this breed and of... Read more

  Posted on 05 August 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Conserved Aspects of Sex-biased Brain Development in Humans and Mice

  It is a pity that in our current political environment any scientist adding to the abundant evidence of brain differences between the sexes runs the risk of... Read more

  Posted on 05 August 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Robust Evidence for Bisexual Orientation Among Men

  It is interesting that debate over whether genuinely bisexual men actually exist has continued for so long. In the current issue of PNAS Jabbour et al. Read more

  Posted on 04 August 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Inflammaging and COVID-19

  I pass on the first paragraph from a Science Perspectives article by Akbar and Gilroy, and suggest that you have a look at the whole article. Read more

  Posted on 31 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Stepping Backwards Enhances Cognitive Control.

  From Koch et al., some interesting work on the role of body locomotion in the recruitment of control processes.: In the most fundamental and literal sense,... Read more

  Posted on 30 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Are You Holding Your Breath?

  Note; This is a repeat of a post that I did on Jan. 28, 2008. Its theme led me to develop a lecture titled "Are you holding your breath - Structures of arousal... Read more

  Posted on 29 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• “Design Fiction” Skirts Reality to Provoke Discussion and Debate

  I want to suggest that readers have a look at David Adams Science and Culture essay in the June 16 issues of PNAS. Here is its beginning: In October 2015,... Read more

  Posted on 28 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Dynamic Views of MindBlog

  In my review of old blog posts I've come across mention of a link I placed at the top right corner os this page...Dynamic Views of MindBlog, which disappeared a... Read more

  Posted on 27 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Followup on MindBlog's Istanbul Lecture on Our Subjective "I"

  

  Forgive me for inflicting my nostalgia trip on you as I do the following re-post from Oct. 18, 2010. 78 year old Deric is struck by the more grandiose professor... Read more

  Posted on 27 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Training Internal Resilience

  I want to point to an interesting article by Eva Holland on relieving trauma, which is very relevant to the potential mental0health fallout from living through... Read more

  Posted on 24 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How We Get Stronger.

  Gretchen Reynolds points to studies on weight lifting monkeys that show weight training initially prompts increases in muscle strength by increasing neural inpu... Read more

  Posted on 23 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Mindblog Does Another Anti-aging Experiment.

  This is a repeat of a MindBlog post done Oct. 10, 2010, encountered during an on-and-off review I'm doing of old blog posts. Five comments on the post can be... Read more

  Posted on 22 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Our Brain's Chemistry of Love Neutralizes Its Chemistry of Fear.

  Arthur Brooks, in his biweekly Atlantic Column, offers some very sane comments on the underlying fear that virtually all of us experience, especially in this... Read more

  Posted on 21 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Mindblog's Back Office Has Expanded

  

  I want to introduce two new young MindBlog editorial assistants, Markus and Martin, three month old Abbysinian kittens who are in training to be the next... Read more

  Posted on 18 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Benefits of Exercise on Aging Brain Obtained Without Exercise - by Plasma...

  There is a large literature on beneficial effects of exercise on brain health in agings adults such as improving memory and cognition. Mouse experiments by... Read more

  Posted on 17 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• We Navigate with Stereo Smell

  From Wu et al.: Significance The human brain exploits subtle differences between the inputs to the paired eyes and ears to construct three-dimensional... Read more

  Posted on 16 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Enlightenment Returns.

  OhMyGawd..... I just came across the following MindBlog post from March 31, 2009, celebrating Obama's statement on restoring government guided by rationality an... Read more

  Posted on 15 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE