Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2661 )

• A Perky Bit of Piano - Haydn Fantasia in C Major, Glitches Included

  I've generated almost 5,000 posts since this blog started in 2016 (before the first iPhone was released in 2017!, seems an aeon ago. Read more

  Posted on 10 June 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• People Aged 95 and Older Show Stronger Brain Connectivity

  Jiyang et al. have used resting-state functional MRI to compare 57 individuals aged 95-103 years old with 66 cognitively unimpaired younger participants aged... Read more

  Posted on 09 June 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How Covid-19 Stress Scrambles Our Brains

  The pandemic is providing an opportunity for a massive, real-time experiment on stress.  Even mild stress can impair the activities of the prefrontal cortex... Read more

  Posted on 08 June 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Confront Your Decline Head On.

  I pass on another of Arthur Brook's biweekly essays in the Atlantic. This one notes that Much like contemplating death can neutralize the fear of it, it can hel... Read more

  Posted on 05 June 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Do You Really Want to Make Your Own Complex Medical Decisions?

  From Kassirer et al.:Over the past several decades, the United States medical system has increasingly prioritized patient autonomy. Read more

  Posted on 04 June 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Your Voice Carries Information About Your Upper Body Movements.

  Fascinating observation by Pouw et al.:SignificanceWe show that the human voice carries an acoustic signature of muscle tensioning during upper limb movements... Read more

  Posted on 02 June 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• An "Apostle's Creed" for the Humanistic Scientific Materialist?

  (Note: I have begun to slowly go though the posts on MindBlog, which began in Feb. of 2016, over 14 years ago. Here I repeat the post that appeared on March... Read more

  Posted on 01 June 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brain Connectivity Fingerprinting of Complex Human Personality Traits - Another...

  A group of researchers in the Department of Radiology, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China, find that resting-state functional connectivity patterns of... Read more

  Posted on 29 May 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• An Explanation for Human Synesthesia

  Fascinating work from Maurer et al.: Synesthesia is a neurologic trait in which specific inducers, such as sounds, automatically elicit additional... Read more

  Posted on 28 May 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Social Animals Need Connection for Health and Survival

  

  Snyder-Mackler et al. have reviewed the relationships between social environment and many aspects of health and well-being across nonhuman mammals and... Read more

  Posted on 27 May 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Obsolescence of Three Core Operating Systems That Have Shaped Civilization...

  I want to pass on a quotations from the beginning and end of Roger Cohen's essay on how honestly - on the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe ... Read more

  Posted on 26 May 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Rules for Identifying Your Life's Work.

  During this time of virtual or postponed college graduations, Arthur Brooks does a relevant installment in his bi-weekly series for Atlantic Magazine. Read more

  Posted on 25 May 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• AI for Social Good: Well Meaning Gobbledegook

  I pass on this link to a my-eyes-glaze-over open access perspective on international efforts to use artificial intelligence for social good. The effort is a... Read more

  Posted on 22 May 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Ketogenic Diet Enhances Brain Network Stability, a Biomarker of Aging

  Mujica-Parodi et al. make observations suggesting that diets that changes the predominant dietary fuel from glucose (from carbohydrates) to ketones (from fats)... Read more

  Posted on 21 May 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How Social Networks Are Destroying Democracy.

  In the December 2019 issue of The Atlantic Haidt and Rose-Stockwell offer a must-read article titled "The Dark Psychology of Social Networks. Read more

  Posted on 20 May 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Closing the Gap Between Mind and Brain - The Dynamic Connectome and Psilocybin

  Quiroga summaries elegant work by Kringelbach et al., ...who provide a framework for incorporating into the connectome the dynamic variations caused by... Read more

  Posted on 19 May 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Anti-Intellectualism, Populism, and Motivated Resistance to Expert Consensus

  I want to pass on the abstract from Eric Merkley's article in Public Opinion Quarterly. I fervently hope that the anti-intellectuals he describes do not form a... Read more

  Posted on 18 May 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Meet the Psychobiome

  Elizabeth Pennisi does a piece on the search for new brain drugs in human poop, generated by the ~ 2 kilograms of bacteria, fungi, viruses, and archaea that liv... Read more

  Posted on 15 May 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Arthur Brooks on "The Hero's Journey" and Retirement

  In the most recent installment of Arthur Brooks’ biweekly column in The Atlantic, which I suggest that you read, he talks about the classical hero's journey in... Read more

  Posted on 14 May 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Young Blood Plasma Reverses the Epigenetic Aging Clock.

  Perhaps the best molecular biomarker of aging at present is the epigenetic clock, developed by Horvath and others, based on measurements of DNA methylation. Jos... Read more

  Posted on 13 May 2020 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE