Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2628 )

• The 8 Second Attention Span.

  Wow, Egan notes that our average attention span has fallen to eight seconds, down from 12 in the year 2000. (That makes it gratifying that the average amount... Read more

  Posted on 01 February 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Fourth Industrial Revolution?? Maybe Not.....

  Just after starting my second slog through Schwab's 'the fourth industrial revolution' noted in yesterday's post, I see Paul Krugman's review of 'The Rise and... Read more

  Posted on 29 January 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Predicting the Future: The Fourth Industrial Revolution

  Klaus Schwab, the guy who runs the annual Davos Switzerland World Economic Forum of "very important people" in the world, has generated a book with the title... Read more

  Posted on 28 January 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Ascendant Candidacy of Donald J. Trump

  

  You should check Steven Rattner's interesting commentary asking what we owe to those on the losing end of globalization: Percent change in number of US employee... Read more

  Posted on 27 January 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• On Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks.

  Metcalfe et al. find that older healthy adults not only are better than young adults at answering general-information questions in the first place, but also,... Read more

  Posted on 22 January 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Several Perspectives on the Valuation of Outgroups.

  A recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science has two relevant articles: Keelah et al. show that Americans' stereotypes about racial... Read more

  Posted on 21 January 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Paying Attention to Your Body Can Increase Resilience to Stress

  Resilience is the ability to rapidly return to normal, both physically and emotionally, after a stressful event. Reynolds points to work by Haase et al., who... Read more

  Posted on 20 January 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Biochemical Individuality Obsoletes Many Dietary Recommendations and the Glycemi...

  An important paper by a Weizmann Institute group has been languishing in my list of potential posts, and Murphy's summary of their work now prods me to pass... Read more

  Posted on 19 January 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Posthumanism - the Quantification Craze and the Death of Beauty

  An eloquent recent essay, " Among the Disrupted" by Leon Wieseltier (pointed to by a Brooks Op-Ed piece), is worth your attention. It opens with a screed on... Read more

  Posted on 18 January 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Another Installment on Anti-aging Chemistry - Pterostilbene

  

  I thought I would report on my recent meandering into recent work on the putative anti-aging compounds Resveratrol and Pterostilbene, which are found in some... Read more

  Posted on 15 January 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Homosexuality as a Discrete Class.

  Norris et al. contribute to previous work engaging the question of whether homosexuality has a taxonic structure of categories of individuals with distinct... Read more

  Posted on 15 January 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How to Be Bad Together - Punishing Pro-social Behavior.

  I pass on part of a brief essay by Gloria Origgi noting the work of Gächter and Herrmann, who examined positive and negative reciprocity in different groups... Read more

  Posted on 14 January 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Purity, Disgust and Donald Trump

  

  Following the thread of the past few posts (on the partisan divide and empathy), I want to pass on this must-read article by Thomas Edsall, who summarizes work... Read more

  Posted on 13 January 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Our Strongest Prejudice - Partisan Hostility

  Jonathan Haidt points to the fascinating work by political scientists Shanto Iyengar and Sean Westwood, titled " Fear and Loathing Across Party Lines: New... Read more

  Posted on 12 January 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How Our Brains Change During the Day.

  I am reminded what a rigid daily schedule my body keeps and expects every time I vary my routine slightly (changing a meal time, exercise, happy hour,... Read more

  Posted on 07 January 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Nature's Warning System.

  A colleague in my Chaos and Complexity discussion group at the Univ. of Wisconsin passed on this Atlantic article in which my Zoology colleague Steve Carpenter... Read more

  Posted on 06 January 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Positive Tonic: Human Progress Quantified

  Edge.org has just posted responses to its 2016 question of the year "What do you consider the most interesting recent [scientific] news? What makes it... Read more

  Posted on 04 January 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Boosting Our Brain Plasticity.

  Wow, this study by Forsyth et al. makes me want to run out and buy a bottle of D-cycloserine, which they show enhances experience-dependent learning, i.e.... Read more

  Posted on 01 January 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Dorsal and Ventral Right Brain Pathways for Prosody

  Sammler et al. show that analysis of the emotional content, or vocal tone, of our speech is processed in dorsal and ventral streams of the right hemisphere... Read more

  Posted on 30 December 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brain Mitochondria Function Links Anxiety with Social Subordination.

  Hollis et al. make the fascinating observation that position in the social hierarchy of rats (dominant versus submissive) can be enhanced or diminished by... Read more

  Posted on 29 December 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE