Mass hysteria and not leaked chemicals was the likely cause of the symptoms experienced by those exposed in 16 per cent of hundreds of chemical leaks recorded in England and Wales between January 2007 and April 2008. That's according to an analysis by Lisa Page and colleagues at the Institute of Psychiatry of 280 chemical leaks recorded by the Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Haza
10 Vote(s)
July 30, 2010
Endocannabinoids and the runner's high
Throughout most of human history, our hunter-gatherer ancestors had to engage in physical activity to obtain food. But nowadays we can drive to the supermarket, briefly walk through its aisles, check-out, then drive back home. This may seem like a luxury, but evolution hasn't prepared us for such a drastic shift in behaviour.A possible explanation for the "runner's high," a feeling of intense eup
11 Vote(s)
11 Vote(s)
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…Happiness, Fatness, and Pizza
I’ve always wanted to create a meme. Something that I can just devise, and watch it spread like a virus. And I didn’t realize it until recently (though it was lurking in the back of my mind) that I’m fascinated by networks – how information is spread from person to person, and how each person [...]... James H. Fowler, & Nicholas A. Christakis. (2009) Cooperative Be
6 Vote(s)
6 Vote(s)
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Booty calling
Someone, somewhere, can look you straight in the eye and say "I've got a PhD in booty call research".A new study just published online in the Journal of Sex Research investigates where the booty call falls on the spectrum of relationships.Positioning the Booty-Call Relationship on the Spectrum of Relationships: Sexual but More Emotional Than One-Night StandsPeter K. Jonason; Norman P. Li; Jessica
17 Vote(s)
17 Vote(s)
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The experiment requires that you continue
Spanish daily El País recently published an article on psychologist Stanley Milgram which had this amazing photo of the young conformity researcher where he looks surprisingly beatnick.Sadly the photo isn't dated but it makes quite a contrast to the better known photos where he looks much more like the typical professor of the age.He looks both wonderfully creative and slightly haunted, which see
11 Vote(s)
11 Vote(s)
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Monogamy evolves
Polygamy is pretty popular. Most pre-industrial societies were polygamous in some way, and there are increasing pressures in the west for polygamy to be legallised. After, it's surely just a matter of personal freedom of expression. If homosexuality and other forms of sexual expression are legal, then why not polygamy. Polygamy never hurt anyone, right?Well flat wrong, actually, if the evidence p
17 Vote(s)
17 Vote(s)
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July 29, 2010
Global vs Local Cognitive Style in Autism: Central Coherence
The cognitive style known as central coherence is receiving increased attention across a variety of clinical neuroscience disorders. I had not been familiar with this concept of central coherence. Essentially, central coherence describes a style of thinking on a spectrum. On one end of the spectrum, you have individuals who tend to think globally or using a gestalt perspective.
16 Vote(s)
16 Vote(s)
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The Left Hand of Obama
Voters in the 2008 Presidential election didn't have a meaningful choice. Whichever box they ticked, they were voting for a lefty.Yes, Obama and McCain are both sinistral, a rather unlikely occurrence since just 7-10% of adults are left handed. Netherlands-based neuroscientists Casasanto and Jasmin decided to make use of this coincidence to test the hypothesis that people tend to make "good" gest
18 Vote(s)
18 Vote(s)
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From on hayo
An amazing passage about the use of coca among of the indigenous Kogi and Ika people of Colombia, taking from p24 of anthropologist Wade Davis' magical book on the ethnobotany of ceremonial chemicals, One River.In a sacred landscape in which every plant is a manifestation of the divine, the chewing of hayo, a variety of coca only found in the mountains of Colombia, represents the most profound ex
15 Vote(s)
15 Vote(s)
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Plastic punk
Some awesome geek moves from the science of phonetics, as applied to the new wave punk classic 'Ça Plane Pour Moi' previously and falsely believed to have been sung by Plastic Bertrand.From the AV Club report:A staple of any new-wave dance night (ask a white person), "Ca Plane Pour Moi" made a chart-stopping star out of Belgian singer Plastic Bertrand (né Roger Jouret) and provided him with his m
9 Vote(s)
9 Vote(s)
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