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Friday Weird Science: What’s your fart volume?
Have you ever wondered just HOW much you fart per day? Like…would it fill a soda can? A soda bottle? And would you be willing to stick a tight fitting tube up your rectum and wear it around all day to find out? If not, that’s ok! They already wrote a paper on it. Head [...]
An Interview with Don McLeroy, Part IV
This is the fourth is a series of posts analyzing the claims of DonMcLeroy, former chairman of the Texas School Board of Education and young Earth creationist. I recently interviewed Don on the SGU about his successful insertion into the Texas science textbook standards language requiring books to address stasis and suddenness in the fossil record [...]
Understanding How Color Is Perceived in the Brain
Scientists have examined the effects of language on categorical color perception — the idea that color perception is affected by how it is described in language — with behavioral research. Meanwhile, other scholars have looked into this phenomenon using neuroimaging techniques in an attempt to get a better look at the neural processes underlying these [...]
An Interview with Don McLeroy, Part III
This week I am posting a discussion with Don McLeroy, a young Earth creationist and former chairman of the Texas Board of Education during the recent controversy over the science textbook standards. This is a follow up to an interview I did with him on the SGU. Don has been traveling a bit this week, [...]
Did the eyes really stare down bicycle crime in Newcastle?
This is the first fortnightly column I’ll be writing for The Conversation, a creative commons news and opinion website that launched today. The site has been set up by a number of UK universities and bodies such as the Wellcome Trust, Nuffield Foundation and HEFCE, following the successful model of the Australian version of the […]
The squeaky wheel gets the grease…
…and the squeaky rat pup gets all the attention! Sci is at Neurotic Physiology today talking about rat pup squeaking, and what it means for mom’s attention. Head over and check it out.
What RDoC Research Might Look Like
The month of May is a violent thing In the city their hearts start to sing Well, some people sing, it sounds like they're screaming I used to doubt it, but now I believe it Month Of May ------ The Arcade Fire Today is Mental Health Month Blog Day, sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA). Show More Summary
A world of swearing
The Boston Globe has a short but fascinating interview on the history of swearing where author Melissa Mohr describes how the meaning of the act of swearing has changed over time. IDEAS: Are there other old curses that 21st-century people would be surprised to hear about? MOHR: Because [bad words] were mostly religious in the […]
An Interview with Don McLeroy, Part II
In part I of my analysis of a recent interview with Don McLeroy on the SGU I discussed his assertion that those of faith are more free to accept or reject the evidence for evolution, while strict materialists can only accept it as it is the only materialist option. I mentioned in that post that [...]
Psychopharmacological Drug Development in A Depression?
“If you are a mouse and suffer from depression, we can cure you!”. You may have heard similar statements for other diseases, which is a general reflection on the current state of drug development. After spending billions of dollars in pharmaceutical drug development only about 30 new drugs reached the market last year — a [...]
The ‘unnamed feeling’ named ASMR
Here’s my BBC Future column from last week. It’s about the so-called Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, which didn’t have a name until 2010 and I’d never heard of until 2012. Now, I’m finding out that it is surprisingly common. The original is here. It’s a tightening at the back of the throat, or a tingling […]
An Interview with Don McLeroy, Part I
On the SGU this week we did an interview with Don McLeroy, the former chairman of the Texas School Board of Education, famous for his (successful) attempts to insert wording into the science textbook standards that would open the door for creationist arguments. The interview was very enlightening. In my opinion it was an excellent [...]
Growing old with NF-kB
Aging happens. As you get older, your body slows down, eventually your brain slows down, too. Some things go gradually, and some go suddenly. To many people, this might seem like a pretty random process. We used to think of aging this way, as just…well cells get old, which means we get old, too. DNA [...]
Disaster response psychology needs to change
I’ve got an article in today’s Observer about how disaster response mental health services are often based on the erroneous assumption that everyone needs ‘treatment’ and often rely on single-session counselling sessions which may do more harm than good. Unfortunately, the article has been given a rather misleading headline (‘Minds traumatised by disaster heal themselves […]
Teaching the Brain to Calm Itself
Estimates of combat-related Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in U.S. veterans since the Vietnam War ranges from approximately 2& to 17%. Additional studies of combat veterans of more recent wars places the range of Iraq War returnees who suffer from PTSD between 4% and 17%. Currently, there is no one form of treatment that has been [...]
Horror on Seymour Avenue
As we get ready to celebrate Mother’s Day this weekend, we have been greeted with news of the liberation of three young women who were held in captivity for nearly 10 years in a ramshackle house located in a rundown neighborhood of Cleveland. Michelle Knight, Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry, along with her six year [...]
Friday Weird Science: Are Boobs Better Bouncing and Braless?
Sci is at Neurotic Physiology today for Friday Weird Science, talking about boobs. And bras. Do bras really help prevent sagging? Or is braless better? And what does it mean when the science saying so hasn’t been published yet? Head over and check it out.
Separation of Church and State
A comment on my recent post about Backdoor Creationism calls into question the premise that the US Constitution demands separation of church and state, and therefore religious beliefs cannot be taught in public schools. The comment reads: The first amendment states that the federal government can neither (sic) or prohibit the exercise of religion. “separation [...]
Nocebo Mass Delusion
Expectation bias cuts both ways, for positive and negative expectations. Expectation bias, the tendency to perceive and accept data that reinforces your expectation, is one of the m any contributors to placebo effects (the illusion of a positive benefit that derive from something other than an active treatment). It is also, however, part of nocebo [...]
Alzheimer's Disease: Gammagard Fails
From the company press release: Baxter Announces Topline Results of Phase III Study of Immunoglobulin for Alzheimer's Disease DEERFIELD, Ill., May 7, 2013 - Baxter International Inc. (NYSE:BAX) today announced that its Phase III clinical...Show More Summary
