Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:
HBO launches the awesome Alzheimer’s Project online. Video, documentary, facts, stories. Very nicely put together.
Teen mental health and mindfulness are the focus of a recent ABC Radio National Health Report.
The LA Times has more on the ongoing <a href="Psychiatrists rewriting the mental health bible
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-mental-disorder26-2009may26,0,3081443.story”>revision of the psychiatrists diagnostic manual, the DSM.
God bless ’em. The British Journal of Psychiatry publish a letter (scroll down) in which I complain about people ignoring research when talking about ‘internet addiction’ and other fictional monstrosities. The original authors write a lovely reply and I feel a bit sheepish.
The BPS Research Digest has a great post on simulating déjà vu in the lab.
If you haven’t seen it somewhere else, the excellent Mary Roach does a fascinating TED talk on ’10 things you didn’t know about orgasm‘ (although she doesn’t mention that the case of toothbrushing triggered orgasm was due to epilepsy).
People are universally optimistic according to a survey of over 140 countries reported in Science Daily. “At the country level, optimism is highest in Ireland, Brazil, Denmark, and New Zealand and lowest in Zimbabwe, Egypt, Haiti and Bulgaria.”
New Scientist has an interesting ‘science of the female orgasm’ series but drops the ball (if you’ll excuse the pun) with a ‘brain shuts down during female orgasm because I can’t critically evaluate the results of brain imaging studies’ piece.
There’s an interesting discussion on differing conceptions of the self, Jekyll and Hyde, and the modern of historical concept of criminal responsibility on ABC Radio National’s The Philosopher’s Zone.
New Scientist has an excellent article on eight ancient writing systems that still haven’t been cracked. Where’s Fairlight when you need them?
An article on how meditation alters brain activity and structure appears in Scientific American.
Frontier Psychiatrist has an excellent piece on the concept of a rational suicide.
It’s raining fantastic essays on mind, brain and culture over at Neuroanthropology!
The New York Times has an article on the recent ‘super-recogniser‘ research on people who have spectacularly good memory for faces.
Graph theory slinging, network mongering, sociologically inclined mathematician Steven Strogatz has an excellent short piece in The New York Times on the mathematics of love.
New Scientist reports on a twin study that suggests intellectual confidence is inherited, predicts grades, and is independent from IQ.
The better trust and communication style between father and daughter, the better it is likely to be between the daughter and her partner, according to research reported by the new-to-me but seemingly excellent Child Psychology Research Blog .
The Times Higher Education Supplement notes concerns over the falling numbers of UK medical students who start training to be psychiatrists.
A big budget TV drama series about psychiatrists called ‘Mental‘ has just launched and you can watch the first episode online. Apparently being filmed in Bogot√°, Colombia.
Scientific American has another Jesse Bering column, this time on adolescent girl social aggression, or, in more colloquial terms, bitchyness.
Women are more likely than men to suffer feelings of inadequacy at home and at work and have perfectionist tendencies, according to a US study reported by BBC News.
Cerebrum, Dana’s excellent neuroscience magazine, has a great piece on the limits of neuroimaging.
Replicant Roy Kurzweil furiously responds to recent Newsweek article that apparently contained inaccuracies over his predictions, opinions, incept date.
Advances in the History of Psychology discovers that Harvard psychologist Dan Wegner has posted an electrogroove mashup that incorporates sampled snippets of the recordings of Stanley Milgram‚Äôs famous obedience experiments of the early 1960s. Like a disturbing social psychology 70’s porn soundtrack.
Mind Hacks 