-
When Power Goes To Your Head, It May Shut Out Your Heart
NPR: Even the smallest dose of power can change a person. You've probably seen it. Someone gets a promotion or a bit of fame and then, suddenly, they're a little less friendly to the people beneath them. ... But if you ask Sukhvinder Obhi, a neuroscientist at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada, he might give you another explanation: Power fundamentally changes how the brain operates. Obhi and his colleagues, Jeremy Hogeveen and Michael Inzlicht, have a new study showing evidence to support that claim. Obhi and his fellow researchers randomly put participants in the mindset of feeling either powerful or powerless.
-
Infused with faith: Religious ritual and hope for peace
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks begin this week, and it’s fair to say that attitudes range from guardedly hopeful to sneeringly cynical. After all, this conflict has been going on since the mid-20th century, with a lot of dashed promises along the way. It was just a year ago that missiles from Gaza were raining down daily on Israel. All of the final status issues are on the table, both sides agree—land, borders, settlements, Jerusalem. It’s widely assumed that the animosity and conflict between Palestine and Israel are fueled by these geopolitical issues, rather than by clashing religious values.
-
Afraid to Get Tested? Slow Down and Think About It
The New York Times: Many patients are eager to search bottomless troves of health information on the Internet. But when it comes to learning whether they are at risk for certain diseases by getting a medical test, millions would rather just not know. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in three patients infected with H.I.V. do not get tested in sufficient time to benefit from existing treatments. The research literature is rife with studies of low rates for colonoscopies, mammograms and an array of genetic testing. ...
-
Trading Places
Hide-and-seek: child’s play, or an important developmental tool that teaches children how to work together? British scientists Alex Gillespie and Beth Richardson think it might be both. Gillespie, at the University of Stirling, and Richardson, at Lancaster University, are interested in perspective exchange — switching social positions as children do when they play hide-and-seek; as a game of hide-and-seek progresses, seekers become hiders, and hiders become seekers. Perspectives switch. The researchers think perspective exchange might play an important role in cooperative activities that require people to work together across distinct points of view and distinct social demands.
-
Science Explains What Your Desk Says About You
Fast Company: Does every object on your desk have its proper place? Do you keep your pencils sharpened to the exact same length and dust regularly between your computer keys? Or maybe there’s so much junk on your desk that you can’t even see the surface. Maybe all that crap looks like it’s levitating. It turns out, there are benefits to both types of work spaces. A recent study published in Psychological Science, found that subjects who worked in a clean room were more likely to make charitable donations and eat healthy foods than those who worked in a messy room. For example, when participants in the clean room were offered chocolate or fruit, they chose the fruit.
-
Scientists trigger ‘out-of-body’ experience using heartbeats
The Telegraph: Seventeen volunteers were fitted with head cameras and shown a live video of themselves from behind. Some of the volunteers were shown images which flashed in time with their own heartbeat. The scientists found that those who were in effect watching their own heartbeat began to identify with their "virtual self" more than their own body. The researchers claim this shows the experience had altered their "self-location" and had in effect produced an "out of body experience".
