Sunday, January 27, 2019

The Rise of Pseudomedicine for Dementia and Brain Health

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The Rise of Pseudomedicine for Dementia and Brain Health. Joanna Hellmuth, Gil D. Rabinovici, Bruce L. Miller. JAMA, January 25 2019, doi:10...
Saturday, January 26, 2019

Theories of God: Explanatory coherence in religious cognition

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Theories of God: Explanatory coherence in religious cognition. Andrew Shtulman, Max Rattner. PLOS, December 26, 2018. https://doi.org/10.137...

Testosterone doesn't impair mens' cognitive empathy: Evidence from two large-scale randomized controlled trials

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Does testosterone impair mens' cognitive empathy? Evidence from two large-scale randomized controlled trials. Amos Nadler, David Zava, T...

Penis size over-reporting is more prevalent among experienced college men than in less experienced ones; may be due to a greater sense of masculinity & sexual competence and prowess by experienced men

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Social Desirability and Young Men’s Self-Reports of Penis Size. Bruce M. King, Lauren M. Duncan, Kelley M. Clinkenbeard, Morgan B. Rutland &...

Women high on narcissism were more likely to engage in blatant lying, machiavellianism predicted blatant lying & lying to avoid confrontation; primary & secondary psychopathy predicted self-serving deception

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Dark triad traits and women's use of sexual deception. Gayle Brewer, Demi De  Griffa, Ezgi Uzun. Personality and Individual Differences,...

Unlearning implicit racial and gender biases during sleep: A failure to replicate Hu et al. (2015)

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Unlearning implicit social biases during sleep: A failure to replicate. Graelyn B. Humiston, Erin J. Wamsley. PLOS January 25, 2019. https:/...
Friday, January 25, 2019

Delivery of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur to the silicate Earth by a giant impact

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Delivery of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur to the silicate Earth by a giant impact. Damanveer S. Grewal, Rajdeep Dasgupta, Chenguang Sun, Kyus...

“Forward flow”: A new measure to quantify free thought and predict creativity

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Gray, K., Anderson, S., Chen, E. E., Kelly, J. M., Christian, M. S., Patrick, J., . . . Lewis, K. (2019). “Forward flow”: A new measure to q...
Thursday, January 24, 2019

We consider public debt from a long-term historical perspective, showing how the purposes for which governments borrow have evolved over time

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Public Debt Through the Ages. Barry J. Eichengreen,Asmaa A ElGanainy,Rui Pedro Esteves,Kris James Mitchener. IMF Working Paper No. 19/6, htt...

Tradeoff between robustness and efficiency across species and brain regions can contribute to differential cognitive functions between species & to fragility underlying human psychopathologies

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A Tradeoff in the Neural Code across Regions and Species. Raviv Pryluk et al. Cell, Volume 176, Issue 3, p597-609.e18, January 24, 2019. htt...

Recent reports are conflicted about whether adult neurogenesis occurs in humans; discrepancies could arise from species differences in neurodevelopmental timing and differences in subject ages

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Recalibrating the Relevance of Adult Neurogenesis. Jason S.Snyder. Trends in Neurosciences, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2018.12.001 Hig...

Promoting subjective well-being is not only desirable per se, but it is conducive to higher productivity and improved countries’ economic performances

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Happiness Matters: Productivity Gains from Subjective Well-Being. Charles Henri DiMaria, Chiara Peroni, Francesco Sarracino. Journal of Happ...

The Bitter Pill: Cessation of Oral Contraceptives Enhances the Appeal of Alternative Mates

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The Bitter Pill: Cessation of Oral Contraceptives Enhances the Appeal of Alternative Mates. Gurit E. Birnbaum, Kobi Zholtack, Moran Mizrahi,...

Allow Fracking To Avoid An Energy Crisis: Nuclear is not being modernized & tankers/pipelines will fail some day and the uproar will left us with no spare capacity

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We Need To Allow Fracking To Avoid An Energy Crisis. Stephen Glover, Daily Mail, January 24 2019. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/articl...

Rolf Degen summarizing: Default manipulations, the magic bullets of the "Nudge" approach for improving decision making, work the least well when individuals care deeply about the choice

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When and why defaults influence decisions: a meta-analysis of default effects. Jon M Jachimowicz et al. Behavioural Public Policy, https://d...

Men in the short-term mating context allocated more points to bodily traits, but only when in the low budget condition—in the high budget condition, men showed more interest in facial traits

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Mate-by-Numbers: Budget, Mating Context, and Sex Predict Preferences for Facial and Bodily Traits. Carin Perilloux, Jaime M. Cloud. Evolutio...
Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Raising mice in an enriched environment (better opportunities for social interaction, voluntary physical exercise & explorative behaviour) boosts cortical plasticity & now ocular dominance plasticity

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Transgenerational transmission of enhanced ocular dominance plasticity from enriched mice to their non-enriched offspring. Evgenia Kalogerak...

Fake News & Ideological (a)symmetries in Perceptions of Media Legitimacy: Partisans are motivated to believe fake news & dismiss true news that contradicts their position as fake news

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Harper, Craig A., and Thom Baguley. 2019. ““you Are Fake News”: Ideological (a)symmetries in Perceptions of Media Legitimacy” PsyArXiv. Janu...

There were to Neanderthals two effective methods of minimizing C vitamin loss and prevent scurvy: eating meat raw (fresh or frozen); and eating the meat after it has been putrefied

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Neanderthals, vitamin C, and scurvy. John D.Speth. Quaternary International, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2018.11.042 Abstract: This pap...

Many animals show evidence of culture (innovations in multiple domains whose frequencies are influenced by social learning), but only humans show strong evidence of complex, cumulative culture. Why?

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Teaching and curiosity: sequential drivers of cumulative cultural evolution in the hominin lineage. Carel P. van Schaik, Gauri R. Pradhan, C...

Short periods of unoccupied waking rest can facilitate consolidation in a manner similar to that proposed to occur during sleep

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Memory Consolidation during Waking Rest. Erin J. Wamsley. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2018.12.007 Abstrac...
Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Emotion Perception in Members of Mensa: Better at differentiating emotion, above all anger; the positive manifold extends also to social cognition, & runs counter to the concept of a cost to giftedness

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Emotion Perception in Members of Norwegian Mensa. Jens Egeland. Front. Psychol., Jan 23 2019, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00027 Abstr...

Supermarket Access and Childhood Bodyweight: Supermarket openings reduce the weight of low-income children, although by little

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Supermarket Access and Childhood Bodyweight: Evidence from Store Openings and Closings. Di Zeng et al. Economics & Human Biology, https:...

Sexual arousal was associated with reduced disgust & reduced judgments of disease risk, & with enhanced willingness to have sex with all (risky & non-risky) targets; trait disgust was a predictor

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The Role of Disgust in Male Sexual Decision-Making. Megan Oaten et al. Front. Psychol., Jan 22 2019, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.0260...

Mistaken belief that genetic influence implies genetic essentialism, and is therefore tantamount to prejudice, is raised as possible reason why heritability is often ignored in the social sciences

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Nature vs. nurture is nonsense: On the necessity of an integrated genetic, social, developmental, and personality psychology. Fiona Kate Bar...

Monty Hall Dilemmas in capuchin monkeys, rhesus macaques, and humans

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Monty Hall Dilemmas in capuchin monkeys, rhesus macaques, and humans. Watzek, Julia, Whitham, Will, Washburn, David A, Brosnan, Sarah. Inter...

On the associations between indicators of resting arousal levels, physiological reactivity, sensation seeking, and psychopathic traits

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On the associations between indicators of resting arousal levels, physiological reactivity, sensation seeking, and psychopathic traits. Nich...

Extensive comparison 22 kHz vocalizations in rats with human cry: 76% of common features; vocalizations may be an evolutionary vocal homolog of human crying, expressing anxiety, not depression

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Emission of 22 kHz vocalizations in rats as an evolutionary equivalent of human crying: Relationship to depression. Stefan M. Brudzynski. Be...
Monday, January 21, 2019

In Canada, the gap in Atheism prevalence of men and women is widening

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The evolution of the gender religiosity gap among the Canadian-born. Maryam Dilmaghani. Review of Social Economy, https://doi.org/10.1080/00...

Is Meat Sexy? Meat symbolizes status both evolutionarily & in modern times; men’s sexual motivation system might increase preference for meat; women, when are sexually motivated, might have less meat

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Is Meat Sexy? Meat Preference as a Function of the Sexual Motivation System. Eugene Y.Chan, Natalina Zlatevska. Food Quality and Preference,...

Demographic, phenotypic, and genetic characteristics of centenarians in Okinawa and Japan: Part 1—centenarians in Okinawa

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Demographic, phenotypic, and genetic characteristics of centenarians in Okinawa and Japan: Part 1—centenarians in Okinawa. Bradley J. Willco...

Republicans have greater longevity compared to Democrats, adjusting for demographics; partly explained by Republican's higher socioeconomic status, & partly by their personal responsibility ethos

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Political parties and mortality: The role of social status and personal responsibility. Viji Diane Kannan et al. Social Science & Medic...

Sexual Activity the Night Before Exercise Does Not Affect Various Measures of Physical Exercise Performance; the more pleasurable the orgasm, the lower the systolic blood pressure on the day after

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Zavorsky GS, Vouyoukas E, Pfaus JG. Sexual Activity the Night Before Exercise Does Not Affect Various Measures of Physical Exercise Performa...
Sunday, January 20, 2019

From 2018: Predicting sex from brain rhythms with deep learning

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Predicting sex from brain rhythms with deep learning. Michel J. A. M. van Putten, Sebastian Olbrich & Martijn Arns. Scientific Reports, ...

Cruelty against minorities, in writing, in a public forum: Calling them uneducated minds (???)

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As a comment to this question ( https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/01/is-female-brain-diffrent-from-males-and.html ), someone says: h...

Is the female brain diffrent from male's ? and which gender is more likely to have a psychological disorder

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Someone asked: Is the female brain diffrent from male's ? and which gender is more likely to have a psychological disorder (statisticly ...

Conservatives prefer political ideas that connect to the past; the preference is so strong, that they can be convinced of any idea, including liberal ones, if framed to connect to the past

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Political conservatism as preference for the past.  Joris Lammers, Matt Baldwin. 51. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Psychologie, Fr...

In comparatively religious counties religious individuals (i.e., persons buried in graves with religious imagery) lived longer than non-religious individuals did; no such an effect in comparatively secular counties

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What the dead tell us about the living: Regionally varying associations between religiosity and longevity based on gravestone inscriptions. ...

An Evolutionary Perspective on Why Food Overconsumption Impairs Cognition

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An Evolutionary Perspective on Why Food Overconsumption Impairs Cognition. Mark P. Mattson. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, https://doi.org/10...

The Psychology of Morality: A Review and Analysis of Empirical Studies Published From 1940 Through 2017

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The Psychology of Morality: A Review and Analysis of Empirical Studies Published From 1940 Through 2017. Naomi Ellemers et al. Personality a...
Saturday, January 19, 2019

Patients who lost their ability to retrieve episodic facts (severe head injury, Alzheimer’s, stroke) were able to describe their traits despite inability to remember their lives' details

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Robinson, M. D., & Sedikides, C. (in press). Personality and The Self. In P. Corr & G. Matthews (Eds.), Cambridge University Press h...

Other consequences of mindfulness in the moral domain: Attenuated repair intentions after having read a scenario in which participants caused harm to a friend & attenuated intentions to change bad eating habits

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Potential negative consequences of mindfulness in the moral domain. Simon Schindler, Stefan Pfattheicher, Marc-Andre Reinhard. To appear in ...

Political ideology shapes the amplification of the accomplishments of disadvantaged vs. advantaged group members

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Political ideology shapes the amplification of the accomplishments of disadvantaged vs. advantaged group members. Nour S. Kteily, Matthew D....

Removing Hand Information Specifically Impairs Emotion Recognition for Fearful and Angry Body Stimuli

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Ross, Paddy, and Tessa Flack. 2019. “Removing Hand Information Specifically Impairs Emotion Recognition for Fearful and Angry Body Stimuli.”...
Friday, January 18, 2019

Massive redundancy: The great majority of nerve cells in the intact brain are permanently silent, in inhibited state at high energetic costs, until stress and disease attack, developing psychiatric symptoms

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The dark matter of the brain. Saak V. Ovsepian. Brain Structure and Function, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00429-019-01835-7 ...