2010-04-30 Spike activity

Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:

You could not ask for a better combination. Coverage of the mirror movement mutation in a piece from Not Exactly Rocket Science and an article on Neurophilosophy.

The Independent covers the frankly mind-bending news that David Cronenberg is to make a film on the relationship between Freud and Jung with Keira Knightley playing Jung’s lover. I would have gone for Bruckheimer for director myself.

Fantastic research on whether it is best to knap at your desk or in bed covered by the BPS Research Digest. Why can’t we have more research like this? An evidence-based approach on the best day to chuck a sickie is sorely needed.

The Psychologist has an excellent article on the ‘impostor syndrome‘ with some fantastic detective work which sheds some new light on the idea.

That’s it. The Matrix is here. Mind boggling video from BoingBoing. Red pills at the ready.

New Jersey Magazine reporter Mara Altman volunteers for a study on female orgasm in the brain scanner.

There’s coverage of an odd decision by the Minnesota Supreme Court that bong water should considered an illegal substance over at the excellent Addiction Inbox.

New Scientist has an interview with Anil Seth, director of the new Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science.

There’s an awesome and in-depth post on how three studies now refute the presence of the XMRV virus in patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) at Laika’s MedLibLog. See a previous Mind Hacks post for background on this controversial issue.

NPR has a fantastic brief segment on the discovery of laughing gas and why its pain killing properties were dismissed as unhelpful.

Should results from studies on suicide be kept out of the media to avoid prompting suicides? asks science writer Mun Keat Looi.

PBS has what looks like an awesome documentary on behavioural economics that’s only available online to people in the States. If it was to *cough* appear *cough* as a torrent though it would just be swell.

Dating by blood type in Japan is covered by BBC News. My blood was tested for the first time in my life the other week. It got an A+. I was very proud.

Neuroanthropology has an excellent essay about the attraction of negative news stories and the psychology of media fear-mongering.

What Happened When I Went Undercover at a Christian Gay-to-Straight Conversion Camp. A piece on AlterNet.

The Smithsonian Magazine have an archive of all their psychology and brain articles.

Darryl Cunningham’s awesome Psychiatric Tales graphic novel is out, details on his blog.

Wired notes that the US military has put out a tender for for a system to train soldiers based on their neural and cognitive responses.

Video from BBC News about a private clinic offering money to addicts to be sterilised – just arrived in the UK. Really quite screwed up.

BBC News quotes Dr Penelope Leach who says leaving babies to cry ‘harms their brains’. Talking shit apparently not a danger.

If you think she might have been taken out of context, here she is on YouTube hawking the same nonsense. ‘High cortisol’ apparently the danger. In which case, breast feeding would be ‘harming’ their brains too! No wonder my head hurts.

Salon has a review of a book on the neuropsychology of wisdom. Interesting, because wisdom is a strangely neglected topic in psychology.

Why Humans Have Sex. A podcast for the The New York Academy of Sciences oddly fails to mention wanting to check out people’s bookshelves. Maybe that’s just me?

Popular Science has a gallery of vintage robots. Old and rusty. As they should be.

Have you seen the Wiring the Brain blog? Bloody fantastic.

The New York Times publishes several letters responding to their recent article on standards in the US military’s war trauma units.

The Top 25 Psychiatric Prescriptions for 2009 are over at PsychCentral. Top 10 almost all anxiety and depression drugs. The non-specific malaise golden goose cashes in.

The New York Times has an intelligent piece by prominent psychiatrist Dan Carlat on the swing of the medication pendulum in American psychiatry.

A play about the ethics of brain scanning called Interior Traces is currently touring the UK.