Friday, November 29, 2019

The real cost of texting and tweeting.

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Agnes Callard, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, crystallizes some fascinating points in an NYTimes Op-Ed p...
Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Cognitive and noncognitive predictors of success.

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An interesting bit of work from Duckworth et al. When predicting success, how important are personal attributes other than cognitive abil...
3 comments:
Monday, November 25, 2019

How trance states might have forged human societies

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I want to pass on a series of clips I have made for my own use from an intriguing article by Mark Vernon in Aeon : With anatomically modern...
Friday, November 22, 2019

Evidence for premature aging caused by insufficient sleep.

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I have come to realize in the past year or so that my physical and mental robustness require getting at least seven, and preferably eight, h...
Wednesday, November 20, 2019

A "Department of the Attention Economy"

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Popping up on my daily input stream (in this case the Google News aggregator - which knows more that I do about what I might like to see) is...
Monday, November 18, 2019

Social class is revealed by brief clips of speech.

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Kraus et al. - a collective modern version of Professor Henry Higgins in George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion - offer a detailed analyt...
Friday, November 15, 2019

Explaining the puzzle of human diversity in the Christian world

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Fascinating work by Schulz et al. is reviewed by both Gelfand and also Zauzmer . Schultz et al. show how the specific practices of Mediev...
Wednesday, November 13, 2019

New work on how and why we sleep.

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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...
Monday, November 11, 2019

Why we can't tell the truth about aging.

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I've enjoyed reading the New Yorker essay by Arthur Krystal titled "Why we can't tell the truth about aging," which poi...
Friday, November 08, 2019

World wide movement of people into cities is degrading the human microbiome

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From the Oct. 25 issue of Science Magazine: Sonnenburg and Sonnenburg review how the shift of recent generations from rural, outdoor enviro...
Wednesday, November 06, 2019

How human breeding has changed dogs’ brains

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Hecht et al. have identified brain networks in dogs related to behavioral specializations roughly corresponding to sight hunting, scent hun...
Monday, November 04, 2019

A triple drug combination increases lifespan by 48%

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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 ...
Friday, November 01, 2019

Skill development - the intelligence vs. practice debate reframed

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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: ...
Wednesday, October 30, 2019

The miracle cure - just move

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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 tha...
Monday, October 28, 2019

Feeling grateful - a shortcut to virtuous behavior.

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Psychologist David DeSteno, in an Aeon essay , summarizes his experiments suggesting that moving towards a more virtuous life might accompl...
Friday, October 25, 2019

Five myths about aging.

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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 agin...
Wednesday, October 23, 2019

The Metamorphosis of the Western Soul

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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...
1 comment:
Monday, October 21, 2019

Shape of your heart is determined by whether you run or sit.

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Shave et al. show that endurance runners and farmers have larger, elongated left ventricles with thin walls (traits that help pump large vo...
2 comments:
Friday, October 18, 2019

The default mode network represents esthetic appeal.

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Vessel et al. note another role for the default mode network of our brain: Significance Despite being highly subjective, aesthetic exp...
Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Cross-national negativity bias in reacting to news

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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...