The best 'poker face' is probably not a neutral expression, but a happy one, as it led to a greater number of opponent mistakes in a study just published in PLoS One.The research looked at how poker playing was influenced by the emotional expression of opponents and discovered that blank and threatening expressions had little effect, but a positive expression tends to lull people into a false sen
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July 29, 2010
Poker face science
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June 15, 2010
Anthropology, Primatology, and the Definition of Culture: Reply to Sperber
Chimpanzees have culture (or not) depending on your definition.Image: Irish Wildcat / Creative CommonsAuthor's Note: The following is an expansion on my reply to anthropologist Dan Sperber on the PLoS ONE article "Prestige Affects Cultural Learning in Chimpanzees."Culture is like art or pornography, it's hard for people to define but everyone knows it when they see it. Cultural anthropologists h
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May 27, 2010
Exercise Appears To Reduce Cellular Aging Caused By Stress
Researchers in the US found that brief vigorous exercise can reduce cellular aging by preventing the shortening of telomeres due to stress. You can read about the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) study in a paper published online in the open access journal PLoS ONE on 26 May...
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October 27, 2009
Republican Losers Have Lower Testosterone
In a new understanding of the term power grab, researchers have shown that the supporters of a political candidate literally have their power taken from them after they lose an election. In a new study by Steven J. Stanton and colleagues in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, researchers asked 163 Republican and Democratic voters (57 of whom were men) to provide saliva samples both before and afte
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18 Vote(s)
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June 20, 2009
New Study Shows That In Horse Play, Adult-Young Ratio Is Key
Adults of many animal species play a crucial role in the social development of youngsters. A new study published March 18 in the online, peer-reviewed, open-access journal PLoS ONE, reveals that the ratio of adults to young plays a much more important role in social development than the mere presence of adults.
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New Study Shows That In Horse Play, Adult-Young Ratio Is Key
Adults of many animal species play a crucial role in the social development of youngsters. A new study published March 18 in the online, peer-reviewed, open-access journal PLoS ONE, reveals that the ratio of adults to young plays a much more important role in social development than the mere presence of adults.
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May 28, 2009
A gene for music?
Last week a paper was published in PLoS-ONE suggesting a relation between AVPR1A-Haplotypes and musical creativity. A group of Finish researchers analyzed 19 families with a total of 343 family members on their musical aptitude -using the Seashore test and a test developed by one of the authors- and their DNA profiles. They were able to show an association between these and related genes and lev
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