Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2628 )

• 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

• A Bit of Amphetamine Turns Older Brains into Younger Brains.

  

  Fascinating. Garrett et al. show that raising dopamine levels with amphetamine (sold as the prescription drug Adderall, for ADHD), increases the brain wave... Read more

  Posted on 18 June 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brain Areas That Place Us in the Past, Present and Future.

  Here is an interesting bit of work from Kurczek et al. showing that thinking about the past and future requires activation of the hippocampus in the medial... Read more

  Posted on 17 June 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Constructing Rich False Memories of Committing Crime.

  Yet another study, from Shaw and Porter, demonstrating how flawed our memory systems can be. This sort of experiment explains in part the continuing parade of... Read more

  Posted on 17 June 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brain Markers of Psychopathy.

  Philippi et al. analyze 142 adult male prison inmates, and offer a detailed analysis showing that psychopathy can be correlated with altered connectivity in... Read more

  Posted on 16 June 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Sign Language as a Window on Universals in Linguistic Representation of Events.

  From Strickland et al., I've learned a new word - telicity: According to a theoretical tradition dating back to Aristotle, verbs can be classified into two broa... Read more

  Posted on 15 June 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Oxytocin Makes Formidable Men More Likeable.

  An interesting tidbit from Chen et al.: Physical size and strength are associated with dominance and threat. The current study tested (i) whether men’s... Read more

  Posted on 12 June 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Serotonin Deficiency Correlates with Stress Vulnerability.

  From Sachs et al., a statement of significance, followed by a more detailed abstract: Significance The biological factors that determine whether an individual... Read more

  Posted on 11 June 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Urge to Instruct.

  I thought I would pass on this humorous piece by Peter Funt on his review of YouTube videos on how to break in a new baseball glove. Read more

  Posted on 10 June 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The "Good Life"

  The previous post noting recent work by Dacher Keltner and collaborators prompted me to have another look at the website of "The Greater Good Science Center"... Read more

  Posted on 09 June 2015 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE