Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2628 )

• Are Rich People Really Less Generous Than Poor People?

  Here is a ‘fact’ (that rich people are less generous than poor people) that I had locked into mind that turns out to be wrong. They are not less generous, contr... Read more

  Posted on 20 May 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Like the Emperor’s New Clothes, DNA Kits Are a Tailored Illusion

  I recommend reading this article by George Estreich. Here are a few clips: Most people remember the emperor: a vain ruler, swindled into paying for a nonexisten... Read more

  Posted on 17 May 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Father's Physical Activity Directly Enhances Offspring's Brain Physiology and...

  Experiments on mice suggest that human kids of athletic fathers might have more smarts than kids of couch potatoes. From McGreevy et al. Read more

  Posted on 15 May 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Ready to Pounce - Cat Smarts Get Some Attention

  

  I live in a symbiotic relationship with my two Abyssinian cats, and so was gratified, given that canine social cognition is the subject of dozens of scientific... Read more

  Posted on 13 May 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Want to Escape Your Liberal Bubble? Try This.....

  I have a recommendation for MindBlog readers like myself who are concerned about their immersion in the liberal bubble of the New York Times, Washington Post an... Read more

  Posted on 10 May 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Case for Doing Nothing

  An article by Olga Mecking fits so well with my increasing allergic reaction to making myself busy all the time that I have to pass on a few edited and... Read more

  Posted on 06 May 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Same-sex Marriage Legalization Reduced Implicit and Explicit Antigay Bias

  Interesting work from Ofosu et al. shows how government legislation can inform individuals’ attitudes, even when these attitudes may be deeply entrenched and... Read more

  Posted on 03 May 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Why Are Some People More Anxious Than Others? Brain Correlates of Trait Anxiety.

  Why does trait anxiety (the stable tendency to attend to, experience, and report negative emotions such as fears, worries, and anxiety across many situations)... Read more

  Posted on 02 May 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Is Superintelligence Impossible?

  Andy Clarke does an interesting and concise commentary on a discussion between Daniel Dennett and David Chalmers. I pass on the final two paragraphs of Clark's... Read more

  Posted on 01 May 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Digital Addiction and the Attention Economy.

  Jia Tolentino's "What It Takes to Put Your Phone Away" is a broad essay on our digital addictions that focuses on two recent books: Cal Newport's “Digital... Read more

  Posted on 30 April 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Bit of Digital Detox - Rehearsing a Mendelssohn Piano Trio

  

  I have been fortunate to find in Austin TX two accomplished string players, violinist Andrea Gore and cellist Karen Foster Cason, who join me in sight reading... Read more

  Posted on 29 April 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Bringing Dead Brains Back to Life.

  Work by Vrselja et al. on restoring brain function in pigs four hours after death has been extensively covered by the popular press. Read more

  Posted on 26 April 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Factfulness - Rosling's Instinctual Mental Errors - Destiny, Single...

  

  This is the final installment of several posts for my own benefit - making brief clips from the Rosling "Factfullness" book to encapsulate what he calls our 10... Read more

  Posted on 25 April 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Factfulness - Rosling's Instinctual Mental Errors - Fear, Size, Generalization

  

  I'm continuing posts for my own benefit - making brief clips from the Rosling "Factfullness" book to encapsulate what he calls our 10 'basic instincts' -... Read more

  Posted on 24 April 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Factfulness - Rosling's Instinctual Mental Errors - Gap, Negativity, Straight...

  

  I'm doing this and a few subsequent posts for my own benefit - making brief clips from the Rosling "Factfullness" book described in the previous post to... Read more

  Posted on 23 April 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Factfulness - Hans Rosling - Introduction

  

  I have just had a read through the book “Factfulness” written by Hans Rosling together with his son and daughter, published in early 2018, very much in the... Read more

  Posted on 22 April 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Return of the Oppressed.

  

  An article written by Peter Turchin in 2013 notes that inequality moves in cycles, from the Roman Empire to our own Gilded Age, and he gives a chilling... Read more

  Posted on 19 April 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• New Microscopy Technique Sees Thousands of Cells and Their Activity Deep in the...

  

  Weisenberger et al. manage the amazing feat of imaging and recording activity of ~12,000 neurons in the mouse cortex. Here is their abstract and a clip from... Read more

  Posted on 18 April 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• McMindfulness - How Capitalism Captured the Mindfulness Industry

  A great piece in The Guardian by David Forbes, an extract from his forthcoming book "Mindfulness and its Discontents" from which I further extract a few... Read more

  Posted on 17 April 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The New York Times Privacy Project

  Many MindBlog readers are probably aware of the NYTimes series of articles on privacy, but I point to it for those who may not be. Read more

  Posted on 16 April 2019 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE