Culture and Biology Interact

Seed Magazine, Interview with Lambros Malafouris
Podcast with the archaeologist studying material culture, our “extended mind,” and neuroarchaeology. For more, see Mind Hacks.

Jeremy Hsu, The Secrets of Storytelling: Why We Love a Good Yarn
Scientific American on this human universal, including how narrative helps to organize emotion and empathy

Seed Magazine, Interview with Heejung Kim
Podcast with geneticist whose work illuminates the “competing yet complementary influences of genes and culture”

Drake Bennett, How Magicians Control Your Mind
Highlights from recent research on the cognitive neuroscience behind magicians’ tricks

Jonah Lehrer, Obesity and Food Culture
Eating habits, mixed-race adults, and obesity—some musings

Robert Krulwich, Virgina Woolf, At Intersection of Science and Art
The great writer, conveying our sense of the flow of ordinary sensations

Brain

The Neurocritic, Broken Social Scene
Individuals with Williams syndrome and autism (hyper vs. hypo sociality) and their reactions to pictures of social scenes—eye gaze and the importance of our social faces

Natalie Angier, The Nose, An Emotional Time Machine
Smell memories and becoming a better nose hound

Benedict Carey, You’re Checked Out, But Your Brain Is Tuned In
The science of boredom

Tara Parker-Pope, Learning to Be Your Own Best Defense in a Disaster
Having a clue vs. crowd dynamics and irrational collecting

Neurophilosophy, Skin Cells from an 82-yr.-old ALS Patient Reprogrammed to Form Neurons
Steps toward cell replacement therapies

Mental Illness

Vaughan Bell, Trapped: Mental Illness in America’s Prisons
Jean Ackerman’s documentary and America’s default treatment “facility”

Patient’s Voices: Parkinson’s Disease
The NY Times brings us seven individuals telling us their stories

John Grohol, Psychiatrists Doing 35% Less Psychotherapy
Medications up, psychotherapy down over the past 10 years

Anthropology

Antropologi, Anthropologist Explores Heavy Metal in Asia, South America and the Middle East
Heavy metal cultures around the world

Anthropology.Net, Paleoanthropologist Louise Leakey’s TED Talk
Louise Leakey shares her intimate history of human fossil hunting

Andrew Revkin, Trove of Endangered Gorillas Found in Africa
Good news, but look at their habitat—forest swamp