Favs, brain and anthro this week. Enjoy.
Top of the List
Jonah Lehrer, Don’t! The Science of Self Control
Lehrer delivers a great essay in The New Yorker, based primarily on the work of Walter Mischel and his studies with kids working at delayed gratification. Or if you want to see the marshmallow test in action, check out youtube videos: marshmellow struggles #1 and marshmellow struggles #2
Benedict Carey, Judging Honesty by Words, Not Fidgets
Finally someone who says that all the facial tick/eye movement stuff about lying is overblown. Focusing on content matters. Which actually sounds rather similar to good interviewing technique in ethnography.
Don’t miss the podcast, The Takeaway, which is embedded on the left side of the page (can’t find a link myself) – Carey explains the technique in more detail there, even showing it in action.
Tom Simonite, Innovation: Software to Track Our Emotional Outbursts
“Sentiment analysis” tools – analyzing the emotional content of what we write. I’m actually thinking this could develop into data analysis for social science researchers. In other words, we’re seeing the emergence of automated content analysis.
Daniel Brown, Nature Walk #4.4 – Plants and Fungi
Some beautiful photos from a recent walk by the man behind Biochemical Soul
Mark Hoofnagle, Obesity – A New Study and What It Means to Be a Healthy Weight
Really good overview of a recent meta-analysis. Gives a very clear outline of what science says about being overweight and health consequences. Basic conclusion – being morbidly obese is really bad, but most people will probably choose to live with the more minor consequences of being overweight.
NPR, “Self Comes to Mind”: Your Brain on Music
Hear the concert by Antonio Damasio and Bruce Adolphe!
Brain
Nagraj Sambrani, New Tree of Animals Suggests Nervous System Evolved Only Once in Animal History
Hoxful Monsters shares research on how we are all just like sponges
Neuroanthropology 