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Monday, January 24, 2011

2011-01-14 Spike activity

A somewhat belated collection of quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:

All in the Mind host Natasha Mitchell has an insightful article on the perils of treating psychological distress after disasters in light of the devastation from the Australian floods.

Bullshit Blue Monday came and went – and this year was being used to promote a £40-60 an hour internet counselling service. Ironically, it has become one of my worst days of the year.

The New York Times covers an interesting project on the obsession with ‘stuff‘ and the homes and possessions of people with agoraphobia.

What if the very irrationality of psychoanalysis is its strength? One of many ace posts on Neuroskeptic this week.

Edge asks it’s annual question: What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit? 163 of the great and good give their answers.

Scientific American asks whether makeup is a hack for our evolved perception of skin colour and blushing. Baby, that red lipstick is really altering my perceptual heuristics.

There’s a stiff defence of evolutionary psychology over at The EP Blog sparked by bad tempered criticism of a recent Slate article on rape and evolution.

Newsweek has a piece on hacking intelligence, optimising the brain and boosting smarts. Can you build a better brain?

Our world is in dire need of a new organization, The International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment. In The News finds an inspiring speech from Martin Luther King to psychologists.

Read Write Web covers a new Pew study finding that the web is destroying social life as we kn… no wait, sorry, that web users are more socially involved that non-users.

How often are doctors tempted to prescribe what patients want, rather than what’s in the medical guidelines? Dan Ariely’s Irrationally Yours blog considers the psychology of patient power.

Science has a brief study on how writing about testing worries boosts exam performance in the classroom. ‘I must not wet myself during the test, I must not wet myself during…’

What makes revenge sweet? asks the BPS Research Digest.

Seed Magazine has a powerful piece arguing that for social science to deal with humanity’s most pressing problems, it must be restructured from the ground up.

Teaching style is key to promoting discovery in children finds an eye-opening study covered by the mighty Not Exactly Rocket Science

The Huffington Post has video of a 50s housewife tripping on LSD during an early research project.

Vintage Schneider Brain Wave Synchronizer Model MD-5. For Sale – on EBay. An awesome find from The Neurocritic.


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