Deric Bownds
These articles, from Deric's MindBlog at http://mindblog.dericbownds.net report new ideas and work on mind, brain, and behavior - as well as random curious stuff.
MY BLOGS
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Deric Bownds' MindBlog
http://mindblog.dericbownds.net/
This blog reports new ideas and work on mind, brain, and behavior - as well as random curious stuff.
LATEST ARTICLES ( 2497 )
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Genetic Risk Factors for Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia Predict Creativity.
As a follow up to my June 30 post on creativity and neurosis, I wanted to point to the following account by Power et al. (Numerous epidemiological studies have... Read more
Posted on 15 July 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Evolving Ourselves
I pass on a few clips from Xue’s review of “Evolving Ourselves: How Unnatural Selection and Nonrandom Mutation Are Changing Life on Earth” by J. Enriquez and... Read more
Posted on 14 July 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Embodied Cognition of Your Love Life.
MindBlog has done a number of posts on how physical changes in our bodies can influence social cognition (Holding a warm versus an iced cup of coffee makes you... Read more
Posted on 13 July 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Kinda Neat! - a Soft Jumping Robot
Using a multi-material 3D printer for manufacturing allowed Wyss Institute researchers (Bartlett et al.) to fabricate the jumping robot in one uninterrupted job... Read more
Posted on 12 July 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Why Don't the Poor Rise Up?
Thomas Edsall offers interesting comments on the seeming intractability of rising inequality in our society, and I pass on a few clips, continuing the MindBlog... Read more
Posted on 10 July 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Political Ideology, Self Control, and Belief in Free Will.
MindBlog has a thread of posts noting psychological studies on those who endorse traditional values and the status quo (conservatives) versus those who endorse... Read more
Posted on 09 July 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Caffeine as an Antidote to Depression Caused by Stress.
Kaster et al. do work that suggests adenosine A2A receptor (A2AR) antagonists might be therapeutic agents for relieving stress induced depression. Read more
Posted on 08 July 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Groups Are Better Lie Detectors Than Individuals.
From Klein and Epley: Significance Detecting lies is difficult. Accuracy rates in experiments are only slightly greater than chance, even among trained... Read more
Posted on 07 July 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Science of 'Instide-Out"'
Sure enough - after last Monday's post pointing to Anthony Lane's review of 'Inside-Out' and noting how accurately the movie's depiction of goings-on inside an... Read more
Posted on 06 July 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Smell of Happiness.
Here's an interesting bit. de Groot et al. obtained armpit sweat from 12 young Caucasian heterosexual men in three consecutive sessions (with fear-inducing,... Read more
Posted on 03 July 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Cat Videos Are Good for Your Health.
Why are there more than 2 million cat videos on YouTube with an average of 12,000 views per clip? Myrick surveyed ~ 7,000 internet users to find that in... Read more
Posted on 02 July 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Anti-ageing Pill Pushed as a Bona Fide Drug.
Amazing. Now we are going to start treating normal aging as a disease? Maybe not as crazy as it sounds. Some clips from a review by Hayden: Current treatments... Read more
Posted on 01 July 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Power of Positivity.
Ramirez et al. make the fascinating observation that depressive-like stress responses in mice can be acutely suppressed through artificial reactivation of a... Read more
Posted on 30 June 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Inside Out
I can't resist passing on a few selected clips from Anthony Lane's review of the new Pixar Movie, "Inside Out." Pixar writer and director Pete Docter, in... Read more
Posted on 29 June 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Neuroanatomical Correlates of the Income-achievement Gap.
The difference in academic achievement between students from higher- and lower-income backgrounds is substantial and growing. A group of collaborators from... Read more
Posted on 26 June 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Facebook Internal Research Shows Its Algorithms Enhance Political Polarization.
From the commentary by Lazer: Bakshy et al. examine... whether Facebook's curation of news feeds prevents the intersection of conflicting points of view. Read more
Posted on 25 June 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Acetaminophen - Over the Counter Relief from Both Pain and Emotions...
I've sometimes wondered why I feel a bit flat (anhedonic) after taking acetaminophen (Tylenol). Durso et al. show that it blunts sensitivity to both negative an... Read more
Posted on 24 June 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
How is Creativity Helped by Being Just a Little Bit Crazy?
Park et al. examine individuals with schizotypal personality disorder, which is characterized by need for social isolation, anxiety in social situations, odd... Read more
Posted on 23 June 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
A New Class of Anti-aging Drugs That Selectively Kill Senescent Cells.
From Brian Ray in the Editor's Choice section of the June 5 issue of Science, another approach to life-extension drugs (and, to possibly curb your enthusiasm... Read more
Posted on 22 June 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Ocytocin Reverses Amphetamine-induced Deficits in Social Bonding.
As a followup to yesterday's post on a positive effects of amphetamine on the cognition of aging adults, I thought it would be interesting to point out a dark... Read more
Posted on 19 June 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE