LOGO: Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines. A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman. Winner 2013 Webby Awards for Best Political Website
May 25, 2013

 Choose a size
Text Size

Trending:     chris hedges     economy     elizabeth warren     politics     robert scheer
Most Read

British Terror Attack Suspect Had Watched Friend Cut to Pieces

Three Questions Left Unanswered by Obama’s Counterterrorism Speech

Truthdigger of the Week: Medea Benjamin

How to Make a Million Dollars an Hour

Taking Gay Hypocrites to Task Over Bradley Manning

Most Comments
Most Emailed

Reports
 * NEW! * A Cooler Century? Wait and See

Ear to the Ground

A/V Booth

Arts & Culture
A Call to Action
Act of Congress

Digs

Truthdig Bazaar
Classics for Pleasure

Classics for Pleasure

By Michael Dirda

more items

 
Tags

Tag: Neuroscience


Patrick Hoesly (CC BY 2.0)

Obama’s Brain Plans

The same administration that brought you the “Disposition Matrix”—a blueprint for tracking, capturing or killing alleged terrorism suspects—is investing in a decade-long effort to build a comprehensive map of the human brain.

Posted on Feb 19, 2013 READ MORE



joethedork (CC BY 2.0)

The Brain-Vagina Connection

In the course of writing her new book, “Vagina: A New Biography,” author and activist Naomi Wolf discovered research in neuroscience that strongly suggests that “the vagina is not just a sex organ at all, but a powerful mediator of female confidence, creativity and the sense of the connections between things.”

Posted on Sep 8, 2012 READ MORE



Jon Olav (CC-BY)

Why They Won’t Listen

Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia, believes intuition—not reason—guides people’s behavior, and with his new book, “The Righteous Mind,” he wants to teach you how to better sell your politics.

Posted on Mar 24, 2012 READ MORE  |  19 COMMENTS



johnmmenchaca (CC-BY)

Flies, Too, Drink to Get Over It

While studying the relationship between stress and alcohol in fruit flies, a group of neuroscientists found that sexually frustrated male flies were more likely to prefer food spiked with alcohol than their carnally satisfied peers, suggesting that humans aren’t the only species to self-medicate.

Posted on Mar 15, 2012 READ MORE  |  3 COMMENTS



Culture or Neurons?

What accounts for our species’ self-consciousness and awareness of our mortality, for our impulses to create art, to cling to our memories of childhood, to believe in a deity? Two new books suggest distinct approaches to such elemental questions.

Posted on Mar 8, 2012 READ MORE  |  47 COMMENTS



John McNab (CC-BY)

Scientists List Their Favorite Discoveries of 2011

Increasingly chaotic weather, potentially habitable planets and closing in on the elusive Higgs boson are just a few of the developments observed and discoveries made by the scientific community in 2011. The editors at LiveScience asked university scientists to describe what they think were the most important advances of the year.

Posted on Dec 31, 2011 READ MORE  |  1 COMMENT



Obama Still of Two Minds on Gay Rights

While the Obama administration has spoken up for gay rights, it has yet to support gay marriage; Kevin Spacey has been heckling noisy audience members in his role as Richard III; meanwhile, L.A. and Occupy L.A. have come to a similar consensus about corporate personhood: It needs to go! These discoveries and more after the jump.

Posted on Dec 9, 2011 READ MORE



Wikimedia Commons / Museo del Prado

On Art and Lying

It’s been noted before, by the likes of Marlon Brando and others, that art might be a socially sanctioned form of lying—or confabulating, as neuroscientists might call it. Could this be true?

Posted on Jun 7, 2011 READ MORE  |  5 COMMENTS



nytimes.com

Beauty and the Brain

How’s this for a mental image? In an effort to make our synapses sexier to the general public, one enterprising neuroscience aficionado and Ph.D.-to-be cooked up a book of pretty pictures of the human brain as rendered from past to present.

Posted on Nov 29, 2010 READ MORE  |  3 COMMENTS


iPad birthday cake
Flickr / Extra Ketchup

Multitasking Our Way to Distraction

What do we stand to gain from all our gadgetry in this, our wired (not to mention wireless) era? Improved manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination? The ability to soundly defeat pixelated alien hordes via video games?

Posted on Jun 7, 2010 READ MORE  |  4 COMMENTS


cuddling man
Flickr / TheGiantVermin

Important News: Hormone Spray Makes Men Go All Cuddly

It’s an age-old complaint, at least judging by the highly scientific content found in women’s magazines: Men just aren’t snuggly enough and, what’s more, they don’t empathize enough either. Hmph! But a hormone-laced nasal spray might change all that for the better.

Posted on Apr 30, 2010 READ MORE  |  3 COMMENTS


neon brain
Flickr / dierk schaefer

Where Neuroscience Meets Literature

How about a little cognitive psychology with your English literature? Professors who normally spend their time thinking about Virginia Woolf’s characters and story structures are taking a page from scientific texts to add a new dimension to their exploration of fiction.

Posted on Apr 1, 2010 READ MORE  |  6 COMMENTS


junk food
flickr / mauricesvay

Junk Food Is the New Crack

Those who have ever suspected, after apparently taking leave of their reason in the face of their favorite junk food, that their guilt-inducing pleasure contained some highly addictive substance may not be too far off the mark, according to a new study.

Posted on Mar 29, 2010 READ MORE  |  13 COMMENTS


that's what she said
youtube.com

Tracing the Neural Circuitry of Humor

Everyone’s going nuts for functional MRI in research circles these days, it seems. Why, a bunch of wacky neuroscientists from Dartmouth College have even used the technology to study what happens when we humans find something funny.

Posted on Feb 8, 2010 READ MORE  |  4 COMMENTS


fish oil
Flickr / TheTruthAbout

Study Suggests Fish Oil Can Ward Off Psychotic Episodes

Schizophrenia is one of the most baffling of mental illnesses, but a group of scientists studying the phenomenon in Austria may have hit upon a significant discovery that could help young potential schizophrenics prevent the onset of full-blown psychosis, and the treatment comes in a familiar form: fish oil supplements.

Posted on Feb 2, 2010 READ MORE  |  8 COMMENTS


View the most popular tags overall?

Newsletter

sign up to get updates


 
 
 
 
Join the Liberal Blog Advertising Network
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
© 2013 Truthdig, LLC. All rights reserved.