Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:
If you’re after a level-headed discussion of the ‘contraceptive pill makes girls go for Mr Wrong’ story, Dr Petra has a great review.
SciAm Mind Matters has a great article by the Cognitive Daily duo on how tone deafness and bad singing may not go hand in hand.
A gentleman with extensive frontal lobe damage ‘loses’ his memory and identity, leading to a curious medical mystery – covered by Frontal Cortex.
ABC Radio National’s Health Report has a fantastic programme and video report on the ongoing problem of adolescent PTSD after the Bosnian conflict.
PsyBlog finds some vintage ‘candid camera’ TV footage illustrating social conformity with a too-good-to-be-true ending.
The burgeoning research on the use of psychedelic drugs in the treatment of medical conditions is covered by The Guardian – with brief podcast discussion.
Facial Frontier – sounds like the title of a porn movie but actually an article on the psychology of facial expression from The National Post.
The Guardian has a great podcast about music and the brain.
A number of new doom and gloom books about the effect of the internet on relationships, mind and brain and due out, report Wired. I predict many words, no hard evidence.
Live Science on a new study on how the ‘visual cortex’ is used in hearing and sound processing.
Another cool example of ‘hijacking intelligence‘ is covered by the Boston Globe that discusses the innovative use of CAPTCHs to solve difficult OCR problems.
We look at faces differently depending on our cultural background, according to new research covered by Wired Science. Full text of study in PLoS One.
The Times has a video of creepily lifelike avatar face animation which apparently ‘heralds new era for computer games’
Cool interactive brain games and learning suite from McGill University.
Science News on how dopamine has been a ‘forgotten’ neurotransmitter for sleep regulation. Forgotten? Huh? Amphetamine?
Levels of <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14563-aggression-written-in-the-shape-of-a-mans-face-.html
“>aggression can be partly predicted from face structure in ice hockey players, reports New Scientist.
MSN Lifestyle has a spectacularly bad and clich√©d article that is full of scientific misappropriation – rather ironically titled ‘The Male Brain, Explained’.
Mind Hacks 