Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2628 )

• How Stress Triggers Inflammation

  Acute stress seems to amplify inflammatory disease despite the fact many stress hormones such as cortisol actually suppress the immune system. Qing et al. Read more

  Posted on 14 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Gay Scientists Isolate Christian Gene.

  Another of my old posts, from March 18, 2009: My thanks to friend Mark Weber for bringing this satire to my attention. Read more

  Posted on 13 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Nearest Neighbors Shape Educational Attainment Regardless of Class Origin.

  From Hedefalk and Dribe: Significance Much neighborhood research has focused on contemporary and segregated cities in the United States, but less on small and... Read more

  Posted on 10 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• An Interlude of Grieg's Lyric Pieces

  Almost every afternoon around 4 p.m. I open up my Steinway B and read some piano scores stored on my iPad. It takes very little effort to do a video of the... Read more

  Posted on 10 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Lower Socioeconomic Status and the Acceleration of Aging.

  An analysis from Steptoe and Zaninotto, who show that lower wealth correlates with accelerated aging independently of the presence of health conditions:... Read more

  Posted on 09 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Exaggerated Meta-perceptions Predict Intergroup Hostility Between American...

  An interesting study from Moore-Berg et al. showing that Democrats think (have the meta-perception) that Republicans view them more negatively than they actuall... Read more

  Posted on 08 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brain Correlates of the Muting of Our Emotions as We Age.

  

  (This is a re-post of the MindBlog post of Oct. 1, 2008, as relevant today as then.) My boyfriend in the early 19980’s was a pharmacy graduate student whose... Read more

  Posted on 07 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• For a Tranquil Start to Your Week, Debussy with Flowers

  In my slow cruising through old MindBlog posts, I just came across the following post from Monday, March 2, 2009.....perhaps a faintly calming antidote to our... Read more

  Posted on 06 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Some Rambling on "Selves" and "Purpose"

  I've decided to re-post the following text from a MindBlog post of Oct. 9, 2007, which I found while cruising old posts. A bit terse and disjointed, but I like... Read more

  Posted on 06 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Which Way Are You Wagging Your Tail?

  

  Blakeslee writes a review (PDF here) of work by Vallortigara et al (PDF here) on emotional asymmetric tail wagging by dogs that is a further reflection of... Read more

  Posted on 03 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Response to Climate change...."Managed Retreat"

  This PNAS Core Concepts article by John Carey is worth a read. Here is its beginning: As climate change causes seas to rise and fuels ever-stronger storms and... Read more

  Posted on 02 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Five Epic Crises All at Once - David Brooks

  I've been preparing a few summaries for a meeting this coming Sunday of The Austin Rainbow Forum, a senior group that discusses current topics and ideas. Read more

  Posted on 01 July 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Feeling Bad is Not Bad.

  MindBlog is passing on the link to each of Arthur Brooks' biweekly articles in his series "How to Build a Life". This latest installment deals with negative... Read more

  Posted on 30 June 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• MindBlog's Half-sour Pickle Recipe

  

  This posting falls under the "random curious stuff" category mentioned in the title box of this blog. At the social/musical at my Twin Valley home on June 29*,... Read more

  Posted on 30 June 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Pandemic Has Put History on Fast-forward.

  Edited clips from Ross Douthat's NYTimes Op-Ed piece, suggesting that: ...when the coronavirus era finally ends, there will be a Rip Van Winkle feeling — a sens... Read more

  Posted on 29 June 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Vote-by-mail Has No Impact on Partisan Turnout Or Vote Share

  Some factual data from Thompson et al. which we can be sure will be ignored by those trying to suppress voting by opposing mail in ballots: Significance In... Read more

  Posted on 26 June 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The University Is Like a CD in the Streaming Age

  Having lectured in university classrooms for about 40 years, but not since 2005, I am blown away by changes in the academy that technology has wrought since... Read more

  Posted on 25 June 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• MindBlog Statistics.

  

  I'm a complete dunce at paying attention to or understanding the number of people who make use of Deric's Mindblog, which started in 2006. Read more

  Posted on 25 June 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Stephen Wolfram - Computation All the Way Down

  I not sure I really grok this, but if you want big thinking, here you go...... This edge.org link takes you to Wolfram's whole essay. Read more

  Posted on 24 June 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• 10 Reasons Why a 'Greater Depression' for the 2020s is Inevitable.

  Try to hang on to any threads of optimism you might still have as I summarize,from an article in The Guardian by Nouriel Roubini, 10 ominous and risky trends:... Read more

  Posted on 23 June 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE