Whenever I watch game shows and they ask people inane questions and they can’t get them, I never assume they’re idiots. Plenty of people have a hard time remembering things under pressure. Now we know that people have a hard time remembering things in most social situations.
Researchers from Indiana University found that people in a group setting exposed to brand information - such as an ad for Pizza Hut — have a hard time recalling the brand’s competitors. In other words, being around friends when deciding where to order takeout might cause you to forget completely about that local pizza place you’ve been wanting to try.
Being Around Friends Can Impair Your Memory
Even though EEGs (electroencephalogram) aren’t that much use to medical science, I’ve always wanted one. They’re smaller & easier to use than fMRI machines. EEGs work by reading the electrical activity on your scalp which, believe it or not, registers some brainwave activity. EEGs are where we get the terms “alpha waves” and “delta waves” which correspond to different levels of consciousness (I mean sleep, not some foofy new-age thing). By the time you reach delta waves, most of the brain you can read from an EEG is firing in sync so you get these nice big slow waves. This contrasts with the frenetic & chaotic pattern associated with waking life.
The OpenEEG Project gives anyone the means to make a DIY home EEG machine with just a few simple household items… well, okay not just a few simple household items, but it’s still cheaper than an MRI and it should look at least half as professional as Jim Carrey with a colander on his head.
read: Welcome to the OpenEEG project
Since I’m devilishly handsome and there’s nothing I can do about that, my usual pickup line of “Wanna see my yacht” may actually backfire long-term since it turns out that women don’t think men who are both handsome and rich are good husband material. Go figure.
We asked females to rate a number of different males in terms of attractiveness as a long-term partner. Females were presented with attractive, average and unattractive male faces paired with lonely-hearts advertisements implying high, medium or low socio-economic status. Highest ratings were consistently given to attractive males of medium status rather than high status. We suggest that females see physically attractive, high status males as being more likely to pursue a mating strategy rather than parenting strategy. Under particular circumstances, high socio-economic status in males can be subtly counter-productive in terms of attractiveness as a long-term partner.
read: Too good to be ‘true’? The handicap of high socio-economic status in attractive males (via BPS Research Digest)
(Perhaps someone needs to tell this short film maker. And these Lesbians.)
It’s official, a mid-afternoon nap could be the difference between life and death. In a study of 23,681 healthy adults aged between 20 and 86 for an average period of 6.32 years, they found that the more you napped, the lower your risk for heart disease and stroke.
They found that those who napped systematically during the day, that is slept for at least 30 minutes three times a week or more, had a 37 per cent lower risk of coronary mortality than those who did not sleep during the day.
read: Day Time Napping Linked To Healthier Heart And Longer Life
This is just way too freaking awesome.
read: Japanese Human Vending Machine - Gizmodo
Suicide is a weird, taboo subject, which may be why studies on suicide are so rare. A few researchers took this opportunity to put several women who have documented attempts at suicide and compare them with healthy women & non-suicidal depressive patients.
Suicidal patients had smaller right and left orbitofrontal cortex gray matter volumes compared with healthy comparison subjects. Suicidal patients had larger right amygdala volumes than non-suicidal patients. Abnormalities in the orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala in suicidal patients may impair decision-making and predispose these patients to act more impulsively and to attempt suicide
While I hesitate to interpret that for fear that my knowledge of neuroscience is too shaky and I might get it wrong, what strikes me is that there is a difference. A physiology we can point to and say “this influences behavior.”
Molecular Psychiatry - Abstract of article: Fronto-limbic brain structures in suicidal and non-suicidal female patients with major depressive disorder
The NY Times has an article on Daniel Tammet, autistic savant, subject of the documentary Brainman and author of the book Born on a Blue Day.
Recently, some friends warned him that in his eagerness to make eye contact, he tended to stare too intently. “It’s like being on a tightrope,” he said. “If you try too hard, you’ll come off. But you have to try.”
Those if you with Real Player can watch a multimedia slideshow that demonstrates what schizophrenia is like.
Janssen Pharmaceutica, a company that makes a drug treatment for schizophrenia, has created a multimedia simulation that it says lets a participant see the world through the eyes and ears of a person with schizophrenic illness. Janssen created the simulation as an education tool for doctors and others who want a more visceral understanding of the illness.
NPR : The Sights and Sounds of Schizophrenia
A recent report published by the UN says that Britian and the United States of industrialized nations, the US and Britain are the two worst places to raise children.
The study found there was no consistent relationship between a country’s wealth, as measured in gross domestic product per capita, and a child’s quality of life.
Perhaps it’s time we switched to a Gross National Happiness measure, like in Bhutan. The government of Bhutan makes decisions based on how much happiness it will bring their citizens, not how much money it will bring in to the nation.
Maybe we should all follow Joel Johnson’s advice and Stop buying this crap. Just stop it. and go about living our lives.
One of the earliest experiments on the brain involved hooking rats up to an electrode that directly stimulated the “reward” center of the brain. When given the choice to press a lever that would give them food, or a lever that gave them a direct reward, they chose the reward every time and eventually died of starvation.
Some Parkinsons Disease patients also have an electrode hooked up to their brain. The tiny electrical shock in just the right place helps calm the tremors associated with Parkinson’s. Well, at least one patient has a choice of areas to stimulate, and can select a more “calm” are or a more “revved-up” area depending on the mood she wants to have that day.
Science is just that much closer to creating a box so addictive that we’d do anything to get our hands on it, or implanting electrodes in our brain that can alter personalities. The implications are both fascinating and terrifying.
How To Change a Personality.
