I’m always looking for another justification for going on vacation and leaving work behind. Fortunately, Jonah Lehrer, a fabulous science writer, has just given me another one: while away from the office in body and mind I’m more likely to solve difficult work-related problems. As Lehrer explains: “[P]erceptions of distance (and the distance can be [...]

Recently we noticed a lot of traffic to our informative page about autobiographical memory. We quickly realized this was a consequence a recent episode of 60 Minutes–a fascinating program called  “Endless Memory”. The episode profiles six people, including Taxi actress Marilu Henner, who can remember literally everything about their lives. Their talent has been labeled [...]

A common science trend is to study the connection between obesity and the brain, in hopes of discovering neuroscience-based therapies and treatments to help people lose weight. A new study has shown that people who are overweight or obese have a lower pleasure response to delicious foods like milkshakes, versus their normal-weight counterparts. Human and [...]

According to scientists at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, eye movement can teach you a lot more about politics than you might guess. These scientists studied how liberals and conservatives respond to “gaze cues,” and found dramatic differences. The short version: the liberals generally followed the cues, the conservatives did not. Read about the study here. [...]

I usually think of of physical pain and emotional pain as fairly separate phenomena. Physical pain is caused by certain things (like a wound), and cured by certain things (like a pain medication). Emotional pain is usually caused by a totally different set of things (like a bad breakup) and cured by different things (like [...]

There’s a lot of debate around the similarities and differences between humans and Neanderthals. Were Neanderthals truly a different species from humans, or a different type of the same species? Were they adaptive, cultural innovators like humans, or were they just the dumb cavemen often depicted? Their brains were big like ours… but did they [...]

We’re learning more about the long-term impact of brain injury and the importance of reducing the potential for repeated head injuries within a short time frame. Here are some concrete steps to take.

Tomorrow many of us will head out and hit the polls, if we haven’t already mailed in our absentee ballots. But what drives those of us who vote to do so, when we know our single vote is unlikely to make a difference and it takes time and effort on our part? This New York [...]

Last week I wrote about some very healthy, happy centenarians and talked about a recent study on people aged 100+ that found some commonalities across those living long and well. Today I saw that Dr. Mark Lachs has just come out with a new book called Treat Me, Not My Age which purports to give [...]

Last week, yet nother study showing the beneficial impact of playing video games appeared in the news.  Traci Sitzmann, as assistant professor of management at the University of Colorado, Denver, did a meta-analysis of a number of different studies to find out if training workers would improve performance on the job.  Her conclusion: … [she [...]