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Infants Can Tell If You’re a Reliable Informant
It’s hard to know how babies think, since they’re still getting a handle on language skills. One strategy that researchers use to gain some insight is eye tracking, which allows them to see where babies direct their gaze and for how long. In light of research suggesting that children trust other people’s testimony based on prior experience with them, psychological scientist Kristen Swan Tummeltshammer of the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development at Birkbeck, University of London and colleagues conducted two experiments to determine whether infants could discern a person’s trustworthiness and act on this knowledge — a crucial skill for successful learning.
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Nel cervello c’è una “centralina” per le calorie del cibo (In the brain there is a “controller” for the calories of the food)
La Stampa: Il cervello è naturalmente dotato di una “centralina” per calcolare le calorie degli alimenti che elabora insieme ai dati nutrizionali, secondo uno studio basato su immagini di risonanza magnetica. La ricerca, realizzata dall’équipe guidata da Alain Dagher dell’Istituto neurologico di Montreal, è pubblicata su Psychological Science. Gli studiosi hanno presentato a 29 volontari immagini di una cinquantina di alimenti differenti, conosciuti da tutti i partecipanti. E hanno chiesto loro di classificarli su una scala con 20 “gradini”, a secondo della voglia di mangiarli. E di stimarne, poi, il tenore calorico.
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Let the Body Rest, for the Sake of the Brain
The Atlantic: I’m sure a lot of subway riders are skilled nappers, but this car seemed to be particularly talented. Going over the Brooklyn Bridge on a recent morning, just as the sun was coming up, a row of men in nearly identical black suits held on to the straps with their eyes closed. Their necks were bent at the slightest of angles, like a row of daisies in a breeze, and as the car clanged over the tracks and the sun pierced through the grimy train windows, it finally dawned on me they were all sound asleep. Not even the bumps and the light could stop them from sneaking in 15 more minutes of shut-eye before work.
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The subliminal fountain of youth
The Boston Globe: How can Medicare boost the health of the elderly? Maybe it should consider cutting a deal with the FCC to broadcast subliminal ads, given new research out of Yale University. Once a week for several weeks, elderly individuals viewed positive-age-stereotype words that were flashed subliminally on a screen. In subsequent weeks, these individuals reported more positive stereotypes and self-perceptions of aging—and, even more amazingly, they exhibited improved physical function—compared to those who viewed subliminally flashed neutral words.
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There’s a surprisingly strong link between climate change and violence
The Washington Post: Earlier this year, when a study came out suggesting global warming will increase the rates of violent crimes in the United States -- producing "an additional 22,ooo murders, 180,000 cases of rape," and many other crime increases by the year 2099 -- it drew widespread criticism. "This ... is what people who are losing the argument look like," noted the conservative publication National Review. One study may seem easy to dismiss. But the combined results of 56 of them? Not so much.
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The debate about spanking children is over. It’s just wrong.
The Washington Post: U.S. sports continue to struggle with the controversies surrounding Ray Rice’s domestic violence case, and the arrest of Slava Voynov on suspicion of domestic violence. But what has not been a matter of debate is where the line is for men hitting women. The media and the public have been nearly uniform in rallying around the idea that no man should ever hit a woman, including Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr, who wrote: So this is not just about Palmer, but about all our mothers, sisters, daughters, lovers and friends and the violence against them that is still too common and too commonly ignored.
