Author Archive
acupuncture
Treating Sciencephobia – Or, how to read real science without getting a nervous breakdown.
For reasons that drive scientists close to despair, many media writers get science stories wrong. They make small advances look like Great Leaps Forward, and when really big steps take place they usually miss the real story. ...
beauty and esthetics
Women not to blame for obesity – but estrogens might be.
Around the world it is estimated that 1.4 BILLION individuals are overweight — a previously unknown problem in history, when food deprivation, famine, and day-long physical work were much more common. But why is...
archeology of mind
The Kim Kardashian hypothesis of beauty.
Here is a response I just wrote to a new article by Leonid Perlovsky, “Aeshetic emotions, what are their cognitive functions?” (See here, here, and here). Perlovsky raises the classical question, “Why do we fe...
biology of language
Is ROBO2 really a language gene? Hmmm…
The popular science media are wondering whether a genetic language code has just been discovered (near the gene ROBO on chromosome 3) … based on a correlation between a human gene variation and the number of words spoke...
Brain infection
Cat bug changes behavior – NY Times Science Section
From the NY Times Science Section: Toxoplasma Gondii — a popular bacterium that gets to humans by way of cats — has been shown to manipulate brain states. Infections have previously been known to cause brain damage...
coma
Be nice to your Precuneus – it might be your real self…
The hardest thing about the brain is learning the labels. Let’s take the Precuneus as example. It’s one of the most important parts of our brains, so much that we would be totally lost without it (Literally). In ...
acupuncture
Acupuncture triggers neurotransmitters in the body
It’s been thirty years since Western medicine started to take Chinese acupuncture seriously, as a direct result of President Nixon’s “opening to China” in the 1970s. American doctors who visited hospit...
Darwinism
Flatworm ejaculation is triggered by dopamine… a lesson in ultraconservation.
In biology, “ultraconservation” does not mean wanting to go back to the Dark Ages. Instead, it’s a remarkable fact about remotely related species — say, the round worm C elegans and your aunt Molly ̵...
aging
Turn the lights off when you sleep: Melatonin and cancer treatment.
A spectacular study by Dauchy (et al, 2014) shows that sleeping in total darkness makes a big difference in anti-cancer treatment. The drug tamoxifen is widely used to treat breast cancer. But tamoxifen interacts with the body...
attachment
You couldn’t be cuter — the power of the baby schema.
Facebook has it figured out: Baby faces make us feel good, they draw our attention. (Plus pictures of ladies with physically impossible breasts, judging by how often we see them in Facebook and the like). Baby faces have certa...