The 28th edition of the Encephalon psychology and neuroscience writing carnival has just been published at Bohemian Scientist.
A couple of my favourites include a review of two new books on neuroplasticity and a discussion of art, context and the brain.
There’s plenty more diverse and in-depth articles, so head over for the best of the last fortnight’s mind and brain analysis.
Link to Encephalon 28 at Bohemian Scientist.
Philip Zimbardo, known for the Stanford prison experiment and recent book on the situational causes of ‘evil’, gives a revealing interview to ABC Radio National’s All in the Mind.
Zimbardo’s work has been getting a lot of exposure recently, largely because of the Abu Ghraib scandal and its seeming similarities to the prison experiment.
However, this interview is interesting because Zimbardo discusses his motivations for designing one of the most infamous studies in the history of psychology and reflects upon our understanding of institutionalised abuse and complicity, as well as his own role in creating a ‘petri dish prison camp’.
Stanford University is one of the most beautiful universities in the world and in that basement in the psychology department I created a mini-hell for all those students. This young woman, Christina Maslach, had just gotten a job as a psychology professor at Berkeley and we had just started dating. I looked up and in front of my door was the usual 10 o’clock toilet run, prisoners with paper bags over their heads, legs chained together and one arm on each other’s shoulder, marching blindly down the hall with guards yelling at them obscenely…and I looked up from whatever I was doing and said hey Chris, look at that. I said something like, ‘the crucible of human behaviour’. And she said, ‘I don’t want to see any more of this!’ And she ran out, and I ran after her and we had a big argument: what’s wrong with you, what sort of psychologist are you?
And she says to me, ‘I don’t want to hear about simulation, I don’t want to hear about the power of the situation. ‘It’s terrible what you are doing to those boys, they are not students, they are not prisoners, they are not guards, they are young men, what’s happening to them is terrible and you are responsible for it.’ That was the left hook, the right hook was, ‘You know, I’m not sure I want to continue dating you if this is the real you, this person is like a monster.’ There was like a cataract over my eyes, I was not seeing this most obvious thing that she coming down fresh in ten minutes looks at this and says it’s terrible.
Link to Zimbardo interview on All in the Mind.
This week’s Nature has an intriguing short paper by a team of neuroscientists who ‘awoke’ a man from a ‘minimally conscious state’ by activating a surgically implanted brain electrode.
Like a coma, ‘minimally conscious state‘ (MCS) occurs after severe brain injury, but is not a state of complete unconsciousness.
Instead, the patient seems mostly unresponsive but can occasionally produce simple responses to commands or prompts that suggest inconsistent consciousness, such as short purposeful actions, brief verbalisations or emotional reactions.
Like coma, MCS is not a caused by a specific type a brain injury. It’s a description of the person’s behaviour, so it could be caused by varying damage to a wide range of brain systems.
However, it is known that MCS can be caused by problems with arousal. In other words, the major brain systems of the cortex might be relatively intact, but the system that regulates how active they are might be damaged, meaning the person has trouble staying conscious, despite having the potential for possible quite complex mental processes.
The frontal lobes, the brain stem and the thalamus are known to be key parts of the arousal system.
The man in question had been in a MCS for six years after suffering an assault with a blunt instrument that caused haematoma – bleeding in the brain, and subsequently, hydrocephalus – a build up of cerebral spinal fluid. Both of which put pressure on the brain that deformed and damaged it.
Because the man in question could intermittently respond to commands and give verbal responses, the researchers thought this might be a case where impaired arousal might be responsible.
To try and boost the activity in his arousal system, the team implanted a deep brain stimulation device (DBS) that sent electrical pulses directly into the thalamus via two brain electrodes.
After the initial tests, just 48 hours after surgery, there seemed to be some minor improvement in responses and EEG patterns.
This was a good sign, but because this was a new technique and each patient’s pattern of brain injury is distinct, the researchers had to then begin experimenting with different stimulation patterns.
After 18 weeks of testing, they found what seemed to be the optimal stimulation programme.
The patient showed longer periods of eye-opening and increased responsiveness to command and better limb control. He began to name simple objects, chew his own food and could produce up to six-word sentences.
In terms of the patient’s pre-injury level of functioning, the results are modest, but as an improvement on MCS, largely thought to be untreatable after 12 months, it’s a remarkable achievement.
The researchers note that this might not help all people with MCS, as this patient was specifically chosen because of his ‘widely preserved brain structure’, but, as with a previous treatment for coma we reported it’s more evidence that targeting the arousal system might be key in some cases.
In the same issue of Nature there’s an interesting (but closed access) commentary that makes some interesting points about what this tells us about consciousness, and particularly, the brain’s unconscious decision about when to rouse us into consciousness:
In essence, the brain does not process information in the abstract but instead consults information acquired through the senses and in memory insofar as it bears on the decisions made about potential actions and strategies. Our brains allow us to decide among possible options — that is, how and in what context to engage with the world around us. The brain makes many such decisions unconsciously. Indeed, the decision to engage at all is, in effect, an unconscious decision to be conscious. Thus, the brain of the sleeping mother queries the environment for the cry of her newborn. We suspect that the normal unconscious brain monitors the environment for cues that prompt it to decide whether to awaken and engage. This mechanism may be disrupted in various disorders of consciousness, including the minimally conscious state, hypersomnolence, concussion, abulia (lack of will) and possibly severe depression.
Previous theories of consciousness have relied on a central executive and magical physiological phenomena (for example, synchronized reverberations) to elevate the subconscious functions of the brain to consciousness. However, viewed as a decision to engage, consciousness can instead be studied in the same framework as other types of decision and the allocation of attention. Rather than a central executive, there seems to be a network of brain regions that organize the resting state and maintain overall orientation towards context. It is quite possible that they make decisions about whether or not to engage and in what way. They do what Sartre considered impossible: they choose whether to choose or not.
Link to Nature news story on the research (via Retrospectacle).
Link to summary of scientific paper.
Link to Nature commentary.
mp3 of Nature podcast discussion (starts 19 minutes in).
Link to write-up from ABC News.
Apologies if posts from me are a little irregular over the next week. I’m off to the SciFoo camp / conference / carousal to talk about, well, I’m not really sure.
I’m hoping to talk about cognitive neuropsychiatry, but then again, I’m always hoping to talk about cognitive neuropsychiatry (I’m available for weddings, funerals and Bar Mitzvahs).
The New York Times has a great article on how our actions and decisions can be subconsciously ‘primed’ by the world around us.
Priming is a well-established effect in psychology. It describes the effect whereby encountering one thing activates related mental concepts in the mind.
Because they’ve been activated, they influence other mental processes that happen to be occurring at the same time, influencing decision making and desire, even if we’re not aware of it.
New studies have found that people tidy up more thoroughly when there’s a faint tang of cleaning liquid in the air; they become more competitive if there‚Äôs a briefcase in sight, or more cooperative if they glimpse words like “dependable” and “support” ‚Äî all without being aware of the change, or what prompted it.
Psychologists say that “priming” people in this way is not some form of hypnotism, or even subliminal seduction; rather, it’s a demonstration of how everyday sights, smells and sounds can selectively activate goals or motives that people already have.
More fundamentally, the new studies reveal a subconscious brain that is far more active, purposeful and independent than previously known. Goals, whether to eat, mate or devour an iced latte, are like neural software programs that can only be run one at a time, and the unconscious is perfectly capable of running the program it chooses.
It’s great to see this article is largely based on published experiments.
Often, experiments tell their own stories and very little is needed to make them ‘accessible’ to the public. Just a bit of light and attention.
Link to NYT article ‘Who‚Äôs Minding the Mind?’.
The Washington Post has an article on a recent study suggesting that the pay disparity between men and women might be explained by the fact that women don’t ask for pay rises as much as men, and it may be because they’re worried about being seen as pushy and difficult.
Crucially, the research also indicates that women’s worries are accurate, especially where men are concerned.
The study, available online as a pdf file, was led by management researcher Prof Hannah Bowles.
It asked several groups of participants to evaluate candidates who were applying for a job, either from a transcript of their interview or from video tape.
Women marked down all candidates who tried to negotiate for a higher salary in their interview. So did men, but the effect was almost twice as strong for women who asked for more money than for men who did the same.
In a second experiment, participants were asked to go through a fake interview situation themselves.
Women were much less likely than men to ask for a higher salary if they thought a man was going to make the decision. When a woman was supposedly making the decision to employ, there was no difference between the sexes.
Although it may well be true that women often hurt themselves by not trying to negotiate, this study found that women’s reluctance was based on an entirely reasonable and accurate view of how they were likely to be treated if they did. Both men and women were more likely to subtly penalize women who asked for more — the perception was that women who asked for more were “less nice”.
“What we found across all the studies is men were always less willing to work with a woman who had attempted to negotiate than with a woman who did not,” Bowles said. “They always preferred to work with a woman who stayed mum. But it made no difference to the men whether a guy had chosen to negotiate or not.”
Link to WashPost article ‘Salary, Gender and the Social Cost of Haggling’.
pdf of research paper.
Ben Goldacre has found a so-awful-lets-hope-it’s-a-hoax article that suggests that people with Down Syndrome and people from Asia might be genetically similar, because, well, they do similar things.
Strictly speaking, of course, they’re quite right. In fact, apart from an extra 21st chromosome, most people, no matter where they come from, are genetically similar to people with Down’s.
So why are Asian people singled out in particular? Ah, because apparently, they like similar sorts of arts and crafts:
The tendencies of Down subjects to carry out recreative-reabilitative activities, such as embroidery, wicker-working ceramics, book-binding, etc., that is renowned, remind the Chinese hand-crafts, which need a notable ability, such as Chinese vases or the use of chop-sticks employed for eating by Asiatic populations.
The original grammar is left intact so you can fully appreciate the theory in all its glory.
Still not convinced? Well, there’s also the fact that both Asian people and people with Down Syndrome “adore having several dishes displayed on the table and have a propensity for food which is rich in monosodium glutamate”. Uncanny isn’t it?
The article is published in the journal Medical Hypotheses which was founded by the late Dr David Horrobin. Horrobin had a theory that schizophrenia might be linked to the metabolism of Omega-3 fatty acids, and these could be used to treat the disorder.
Initially, the idea was laughed at, although now, some limited evidence exists for its role in mental illness.
Reflecting on his experiences, Horrobin founded Medical Hypotheses, a journal where researchers could publish any ideas, no matter how far-out, to encourage creative thinking in medicine.
You could tell that Horrobin got up people’s noses, because when he died, a famously bitchy obituary was published in the British Medical Journal. So bitchy, in fact, that for the first time, an apology was printed the week after.
True to its mission, Medical Hypotheses remains the eccentric uncle of academic medicine.
The trouble with eccentric uncles though, is that sometimes they get pissed at family gatherings and embarrass themselves.
This is exactly what seems to have happened on this occasion as the article incoherently rambles about something we can’t quite make out, but we know is likely to offend if it keeps going on about it.
Luckily, one of the comments from the Bad Science post links to a much more entertaining Medical Hypotheses article:
Is there an association between the use of heeled footwear and schizophrenia?
See what you’re missing?
Link to Bad Science on embarrassing MedHyp article (with full-text).
Link to abstract of footwear / schizophrenia article.
ABC Radio National’s The Philosopher’s Zone just had an edition on how philosophers through the ages have made sense of that most intense of human emotions, love.
The guest on the show is philosopher Dr Linnell Secomb who’s the author of the new book Philosophy and Love from Plato to Popular Culture (ISBN 0748623671).
Secomb talks about how love has been understood by thinkers through the ages, from Socrates to Bartes, but also looks at how it has been represented in pop culture, arts and literature.
I particularly liked the discussion about the significance of love in the Frankenstein books and films:
I think what you’re raising there is this really interesting issue of how difference and sameness affects the love relation as well, and in the book I reflect on that quite a bit in different ways. But it’s the creature’s difference, his monstrosity that frightens people and undermines the possibility of love.
But I wonder also whether this sense that love works better between people who have a lot in common also undermines the possibility of the sort of adventure of discovering otherness, or discovering difference, and this is something that Nietzsche talks about and I bring Nietzsche together with the Frankenstein story because Nietzsche has really interesting little reflections on both love and friendship.
But what he seems to be indicating is that for him, a more genuine or authentic love would involve a search for the beyond, you know, beyond our own experience, so that we’d be challenged by the difference of the other. So this is something that I wanted to point out in that chapter as well.
Link to audio and transcript of TPZ on love.
My last place of work blocked huge swathes of the web, meaning I’m discovering I’ve missed some blog posts recently, including this wonderful Neurophilosophy article on the rise and fall of prefrontal lobotomy.
It’s a fantastic tour through the history of how the procedure was developed, popularised and abandoned.
It aptly illustrates that medical history has been driven as much by personalities as by evidence, something which has only seriously been addressed in the last half-century by systematic trials and evidence reviews, largely due to the work of Archie Cochrane.
The article does have one quirk, where it equates early antipsychotic drug chlorpromazine with ‘psychosurgery gone wrong’.
Despite some serious and unpleasant side-effects (including movement disorders, sedation, weight-gain and dizziness), there is a large amount of evidence for its effectiveness in schizophrenia, and, in fact, was the first effective treatment for psychosis.
Even ignoring the brutal nature of the procedure, lobotomy was not even proven to be a useful ‘treatment’ by anything that would be accepted as reliable evidence today.
It is, however, an important chapter in the history of neuroscience, not least for what it tells us about how individuals can have such an influence on mainstream practice.
Link to article ‘The rise & fall of the prefrontal lobotomy’.
Dr Petra Boynton has written a fascinating article on sex surrogacy, the controversial practice of using ‘hands on’ tutoring as part of therapy for sexual disorders.
‘Sex therapy’ is an umbrella term for a number of established psychological and behavioural treatments for sexual difficulties.
Most commonly, it involves a therapist working with a couple to discuss the problem, work out what might be going wrong, and then asking the couple to try a number of approaches to improve their relationship, communication and lovemaking.
These three approaches are key as, despite what the drug adverts might imply, many sexual problems arise from anxiety, mismatched expectations, and unhelpful learnt responses, rather than simply physical problems with the sexual organs.
This can be true for a wide range of problems, including erectile dysfunction (not being able to get or keep it up), vaginismus (where the muscles of the vagina involuntarily tighten to prevent penetration), early or absent orgasm, or loss or lack of sexual interest.
A common approach is to initially ask the couple not to have sex and simply focus on touching and intimacy (an approach known as sensate focus).
This takes the pressure off, reduces anxiety, and once the couple start feeling more connected, therapy focuses on introducing sexual activities or exercises for the couple to try at home to help deal with the remaining difficulties.
Similarly, the therapist might ask the couple to try new ways of communication, and consider how they understand their partner, both sexually and in everyday life.
You’ll notice this is very couples focussed, as is most sex therapy, potentially limiting the options for someone whose sexual problems are preventing them from getting a partner.
One option is to use a ‘sex surrogate’, someone who is employed by the sex therapist to practice sexual exercises with the patient.
It was pioneered in the UK by the now retired therapist Dr Martin Cole, who became a controversial figure in the 60s and 70s media for advocating, even at the time, quiet radical views on sexual freedom and treatment.
His clinic provided, amongst a range of other treatment and advice services, sex therapy using surrogates and even managed to get public money for his clinical work.
Surrogate therapy is rarely used in mainstream clinics these days, largely because of the difficulty of getting competent and responsible surrogates, getting suitable referrals, and dealing with the ethical dilemmas and media interest.
However, surrogate therapy is still being researched and has been found to be effective in limited trials.
For example, a study published earlier this year in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found surrogate therapy was significantly more effective than couples therapy alone in treating vaginismus.
Nevertheless, the use of surrogates in sex therapy has received very little attention from researchers, and is poorly regulated, meaning its not clear how effective involving a surrogate in therapy might be.
Petra Boynton discusses the state of modern surrogate therapy, what’s involved, and gives some advice if you’ve considered it as an option.
It’s probably worth remembering that many sexual problems can be successfully treated on the NHS where you’ll get therapy from qualified and experienced psychologists and psychotherapists who don’t use surrogates, so it’s always worth enquiring with your local services.
For private therapy, it’s always worth checking that the person is fully qualified and accredited by recognised national associations.
Link to Dr Petra Boynton ‘ Spotlight on Sex Surrogacy’.
I’ve just finished reading Kay Redfield Jamison’s book Night Falls Fast (ISBN 0375701478), a remarkably sensitive exploration of the difficult subject of suicide.
Unlike Jamison’s better known books, An Unquiet Mind and Touched with Fire, you rarely see it in bookshops.
It’s probably her least successful book, not least, I suspect, because of the subject matter. Nevertheless, I think it’s her best and most important.
Jamison is one of the world’s leading researchers into manic depression and has the condition herself. As a result, she’s experienced periods of intense psychosis and made a near-fatal suicide attempt.
Originally, the term ‘manic depression’ was coined to describe the whole spectrum of mood disorders, but is often used these days to refer to bipolar disorder, where mood cycles between crushing depression and exuberant, or even psychotic, highs.
The name ‘bipolar’ is a bit misleading, as it suggests that mood is either high or low, when in fact it is possible to feel wired and depressed at the same time – a so-called ‘mixed state’.
These ‘mixed states’ are particularly dangerous and are perhaps one of the reasons that bipolar disorder is one of the leading causes of suicide.
It’s by no means the only cause, however, and there are a range of factors that make suicide among the top 10 causes of death in every country, and one of the three leading worldwide causes of death in the 15 to 35-year age group.
Jamison’s book is not only a comprehensive exploration of the psychology and neuroscience of suicide, but also weaves in insights from the arts and literature, as well as personal stories of suicides and their impact.
The book is emotionally difficult at times, and I often found myself having to pause and reflect mid-paragraph, but it does an admirable job of demystifying and discussing a subject that is woefully ignored in public life.
The New York Times has a brief excerpt and Jamison was interviewed about the book on the Charlie Rose show, the video of which is available online.
Link to book details.
Link to factsheet on suicide from mental health charity Mind.
Link to video of Kay Redfield Jamison interview.
Link to excerpt of Night Falls Fast.
I leave Dublin today after working in the Fair City since spring.
Many thanks to the psychologists I’ve worked with and learnt so much from, and the people of Dublin for their kind hospitality.
The picture is taken from Sandycove Harbour, looking out across Dun Laoghaire and Dublin Bay.
Only a few hundred yards from where this photo was taken is a tower where James Joyce stayed for several nights until his medical student housemate, Oliver Gogarty, shot at him with a gun.
The tower sets the scene for beginning of Joyce’s novel Ulysses, known for its ‘stream of consciousness’ narrative – a technique first borrowed from psychology by writer May Sinclair.
The July 23rd edition of The New Yorker has an article by Oliver Sacks on people who suddenly experience a passion and irresistible urge to listen to music after brain injury. The article itself is only available online as a brief summary, but there’s a freely available podcast where Sacks discusses the topic in more detail.
The article has some fascinating examples of how people have, literally, been struck by the condition:
A neurologists’s notebook about Tony Cicoria, who after being struck by lightning became obsessed by piano music. In 1994, when Tony Cicoria was forty-two, and a well-regarded orthopedic surgeon, he was struck by lightning. He had an out-of-body experience. “I saw my own body on the ground. I said to myself, ‘Oh shit, I’m dead.’ …Then‚Äîslam! I was back.” Soon after, he consulted a neurologist‚Äîhe was feeling sluggish and having some difficulties with his memory. He had a thorough neurological exam, and nothing seemed amiss.
A couple of weeks later, Cicoria went back to work, and in another two weeks, his memory problems disappeared. Life had returned to normal, seemingly, when “suddenly over two or three days, there was this insatiable desire to listen to piano music.” This was completely out of keeping with anything in his past. He started to teach himself to play piano. And then, he started to hear music in his head. In the third month after being struck, Cicoria was inspired, even possessed, by music, and scarcely had time for anything else.
The article and podcast are in lieu of a new book by Sacks, entitled Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain due out on October 17th.
Link to article summary.
Link to page with Oliver Sacks podcast (thanks Justin!)
Scientific American have just released one of their special editions of collected articles. This one is on ‘the early years’ and looks at the psychology and neuroscience of children, from infancy to the teenage years.
The SciAm specials are just collections of their previously published articles, but put in one themed issue with no adverts.
The printed edition of this new edition can be bought on newstands at the moment, or it can be bought online as a DRM-free PDF file for $4.95.
It follows on from a previous (and equally good) special issue on ‘The Child’s Mind’.
There’s a full content’s list on the issue’s webage but I’ve noticed that several of the articles are already freely available online, so have a search if you want to get a feeling for the theme.
Link to SciAm special edition on ‘The Early Years’.
Slate has an article by a psychologist and a psychiatrist who argue that addiction is not a ‘brain disease’, contrary to much of the recent rhetoric about drug abuse. This is one side of the debate that is driving our attempts to understand addiction.
The ‘brain disease’ concept (also known as the ‘disease model’) is one that is often thrown around in debates about mental distress or behavioural problems, but it is far from the neutral, scientific term that many of its supporters might believe.
In a sense, every problem of mind and behaviour is a ‘brain disease’, because we’ve identified it as a problem and it involves the brain, as does everything else related to thought or action.
However, a comprehensive explanation requires not only neuroscience, but also psychology and social factors to make it complete and meaningful.
Calling a mental problem a ‘brain disease’ often implies that these other factors aren’t important, and, most tellingly, suggests that the person isn’t responsible for the effects of the disorder, and, consequently, their actions.
The level of personal influence varies by condition, but, importantly, psychologists now know that the effects of all illnesses, from Alzheimer’s disease to the common cold, can be influenced by how we understand them and what we believe about our own ability to influence the effects.
There is no doubt that genetics and the development of nervous system significantly influence the risk of becoming an addict, but addiction, perhaps more than many other disorders, is amenable to personal choice, albeit to varying degrees at various stages of its course.
Theodore Dalrymple (the pen name of psychiatrist Anthony Daniels) noted in The Wall Street Journal that many people are quite able to choose to give up their addiction when sufficiently motivated and argues, in his usual provocative style, against the excess medicalisation of substance abuse:
It is not true either that addicts cannot give up without the help of an apparatus of medical and paramedical care. Thousands of American servicemen returning from Vietnam, where they had addicted themselves to heroin, gave up on their return home without any assistance whatsoever. And in China, millions of Chinese addicts gave up with only minimal help: Mao Tse-Tung’s credible offer to shoot them if they did not. There is thus no question that Mao was the greatest drug-addiction therapist in history.
However, we shouldn’t forget that there is now a large body of evidence highlighting the importance of inheriting a vulnerability to become addicted, and the most addictive drugs tend to modify exactly the bits of the brain that are involved in desire and wanting, making them less amenable to ‘will power’.
This research was recently highlighted by a Time magazine article on the neurobiology of addiction and Dr Nora Volkow’s recent radio interview on the drugs and the brain.
Both spin the ‘brain disease’ angle, and many argue that this reduces stigma. The trouble is, research has found that purely biological explanations of mental problems tend encourage stigma in the public, patients and mental health professionals.
One of the key findings of these studies is that purely biological explanations of mental disorders imply that people are less in control of their actions.
Psychological therapies are known to be effective treatments for drug addiction and one of the key components is to boost the patients ‘self-efficacy’ – that is, their belief that they can take control of their life.
We know that self-efficacy, essentially a scientific term for a sense of personal responsibility and control, is one of the most important predictors of recovery from addiction.
Genetic research has shown us that some people, through no fault of their own, have inherited an increased risk for addiction. Neurobiology has shown us that drug use modifies the brain to make resisting temptation harder.
Nevertheless, describing addiction as purely a ‘brain disease’ is neither useful nor meaningful, and may actually reduce the likelihood that someone will overcome their difficulties.
We need to understand addiction as a problem of mind, brain and society, and make sure everyone knows they play an important role in overcoming problem drug use, whether it occurs in each of us individually, or in the neighbourhood that we live in.
Anti ‘disease model’:
Link to Slate article on addiction.
Link to Theodore Dalrymple article in WSJ.
Pro ‘disease model’:
Link to Time article ‘The neurobiology of addiction’.
Link to Dr Nora Volkow radio interview
Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:
Lifting someone’s mood makes them more likely to believe in the supernatural, reports the APA.
New Scientist reports on research presented at a conference suggesting an oxytocin spray can boost the effect of cognitive therapy treatment for anxiety disorders.
A website called We Feel Fine tracks the <a href="http://www.wefeelfine.org/index.html
“>mood of the internet.
Spatial brain circuits are used to track references during conversation, according to a new study published in Neuroreport.
How we know where our lost keys are. Scientific American investigates new findings on memory.
BBC News reports that the prescription of antidepressant drugs to children soars in the UK.
Obese girls less likely to attend college but weight and body size does not influence college attendance in boys, finds study published in Sociology of Education.
Another good obituary for cognitive therapy pioneer Albert Ellis, this time in the LA Times.
BBC News reports that a study on the health effects of mobile phone masts finds (wait for it) no link between emissions and symptoms (just like all the others).
Scientific American reports obesity more common in people with obese friends, and study finds the strength of friendship seems to be key.
The Guardian has an interesting piece on the difficulty of applying population-derived violence predictions to individuals. Original study abstract here.
New Scientist has a story on a poker playing computer that only narrowly lost to two pros.
Stephen Pinker writes in defense of dangerous ideas.
Mind Hacks 