Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2628 )

• New Work on How and Why We Sleep.

  The fact that I'm finding the quality of my sleep to be central to my robustness and well-being makes me want to pass on descriptions of four pieces of work... Read more

  Posted on 13 November 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Why We Can't Tell the Truth About Aging.

  I've enjoyed reading the New Yorker essay by Arthur Krystal titled "Why we can't tell the truth about aging," which points to and discusses numerous recent (as... Read more

  Posted on 11 November 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• World Wide Movement of People into Cities is Degrading the Human Microbiome

  From the Oct. 25 issue of Science Magazine:Sonnenburg and Sonnenburg review how the shift of recent generations from rural, outdoor environments to urbanized an... Read more

  Posted on 08 November 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How Human Breeding Has Changed Dogs’ Brains

  Hecht et al. have identified brain networks in dogs related to behavioral specializations roughly corresponding to sight hunting, scent hunting, guarding, and... Read more

  Posted on 06 November 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Triple Drug Combination Increases Lifespan by 48%

  In Drosophila flies, to be sure, but the nutrient sensing pathways that are the target of the drugs are common to all animals. Here is the abstract from open... Read more

  Posted on 04 November 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Skill Development - the Intelligence Vs. Practice Debate Reframed

  Vaci et al. note that what is often overlooked in the nature vs. nurture debate is the fact that both factors interact with each other: The relative importance... Read more

  Posted on 01 November 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Miracle Cure - Just Move

  A summary from the editor of the British Medical Journal of work by Ekelund et. al.: As miracle cures are hard to come by, any claims that a treatment is 100%... Read more

  Posted on 30 October 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Feeling Grateful - a Shortcut to Virtuous Behavior.

  Psychologist David DeSteno, in an Aeon essay, summarizes his experiments suggesting that moving towards a more virtuous life might accomplished by simply... Read more

  Posted on 28 October 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Five Myths About Aging.

  I want to pass on a few clips from this piece by William Mair, who researches the biology of aging at Harvard: MYTH NO. 1 Biological aging can't be slowed. The... Read more

  Posted on 25 October 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Metamorphosis of the Western Soul

  I want to point to an article by Will Storr "The Metamorphosis of the Western Soul" that has been languishing for over a year in my list of references that migh... Read more

  Posted on 23 October 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Shape of Your Heart is Determined by Whether You Run Or Sit.

  Shave et al. show that endurance runners and farmers have larger, elongated left ventricles with thin walls (traits that help pump large volumes of blood for a... Read more

  Posted on 21 October 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Default Mode Network Represents Esthetic Appeal.

  Vessel et al. note another role for the default mode network of our brain: Significance Despite being highly subjective, aesthetic experiences are powerful... Read more

  Posted on 18 October 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Cross-national Negativity Bias in Reacting to News

  There seems to be a world-wide anxiety industry of media that find maximum profits in presenting mostly negative news - in a way similar to the drug companies... Read more

  Posted on 16 October 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• An Update on the Science of ‘free Will’

  I want to point to an excellent article by Gholilpour in the Atlantic Magazine that describes a reinterpretation of experiments by Libet taken to suggest that... Read more

  Posted on 14 October 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• More Critique of Work Linking Loving Kindness Meditation and Cellular Again

  In my Sept. 23 post, "Loving kindness meditation slows cellular aging?", I gave a few of the reasons that the article triggered my bullshit detector. A email... Read more

  Posted on 11 October 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Psilocybin + Mindfulness Meditation Change Brain Connectivity - Lasting...

  Dolan points to work by Smigielski et al.: Both psychedelics and meditation exert profound modulatory effects on consciousness, perception and cognition, but... Read more

  Posted on 09 October 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Mindfulness Doesn't Reduce Impulsive Behavior.

  Korponay, Davidson and colleagues present results of a study that were contrary to their expectation that the practice of mindfulness meditation would... Read more

  Posted on 07 October 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Gender and Race Stereotypes - What's in a Name...

  Eaton et al. give us more data on the application of gender and race stereotypes in academia: The current study examines how intersecting stereotypes about... Read more

  Posted on 04 October 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

  I want to point the subset of MindBlog readers interested in brain-behavior correlations to the journal “Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience,”... Read more

  Posted on 02 October 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• People of Color - Getting Quantitative About Police-involved Deaths

  From Edwards et al.: Significance Police violence is a leading cause of death for young men in the United States. Over the life course, about 1 in every 1,000... Read more

  Posted on 30 September 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE