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A Maternal Link to Alzheimer’s
The Wall Street Journal: People with an immediate family history of Alzheimer's disease are four to 10 times as likely to contract the condition. A new study now suggests the chances of getting Alzheimer's are higher if your mother had it than if your father had it. Jeffrey Burns, the director of the University of Kansas Medical Center's Alzheimer's and Memory Program, said the findings don't mean that children of mothers with Alzheimer's disease will develop the condition. "It's not clear on an individual basis how much this risk applies," he said. Read the whole story: The Wall Street Journal
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Men who glare angrily when someone spills their pint are ‘reverting to their caveman instinct’
The Daily Mail: Men who stare angrily when someone spills their pint are reverting to a caveman instinct to dominate, according to scientists. They are more likely to glare when they feel hard done by rather than seek to calm things down, a study said. And to avoid trouble, it is probably better to buy them a drink than get involved in a staring match. Read the whole story: The Daily Mail
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Why we can’t stop spending
Canadian Business: The dangerous paradox: Policy-makers have encouraged Canadians to keep spending, while decrying rising debt levels. Read the whole story: Canadian Business
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Full Bladder, Better Decisions? Controlling Your Bladder Decreases Impulsive Choices
What should you do when you really, REALLY have to “go”? Make important life decisions, maybe. Controlling your bladder makes you better at controlling yourself when making decisions about your future, too, according to a study to be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Sexual excitement, hunger, thirst—psychological scientists have found that activation of just one of these bodily desires can actually make people want other, seemingly unrelated, rewards more. Take, for example, a man who finds himself searching for a bag of potato chips after looking at sexy photos of women.
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Is That What You Think? My Brain Agrees
Have you caught yourself conforming to your friends’ opinions? A new study published in Psychological Science found conformity to social norms happens even in our brains! When people change their opinions to conform to social norms, the parts of their brains associated with rewards are engaged, giving us added incentive to fit in. Psychological scientists at Harvard University asked male volunteers to rate the attractiveness of 180 digitized female Facebook photos on a scale from 1 to 7. They were then told that many other men had also rated the same photos—some of those “peer” ratings were higher than the participant’s, some were lower, and some were the same.
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Mean Girls: The Science Behind the Silver Screen Hit
No one likes to be excluded, women especially. A study published in Psychological Science found that when females feel a threat of social exclusion, they are more likely than males to respond by forming other cliques and alliances to prevent their own exclusion. To investigate how men and women respond when faced with a social threat, psychological scientist Joyce F. Benenson of Emmanuel College and Harvard University, along with her colleagues, asked volunteers to play a game against two hypothetical partners in which they accumulated points for money.
