Back from vacation – so better late than never. Had a great time camping, by the way.

Top of the List

Vaughan Bell, How Long Is a Severed Head Conscious For?
One of those morbid questions we often ask – well, here’s the answer.

Jerry Coyne, Creationism for Liberals
The dismantling of Robert Wright’s new book The Evolution of God over at The New Republic. Wright responds to Coyne here.

Clarence Gravlee, New TAPS Paper in Current Anthropology
Godoy et al. paper on changes in well-being over time in the Bolivian Amazon. Data come from the Tsimane’ Amazonian Panel Study (TAPS), which uses a longitudinal approach not often seen in anthropology. Plus get Lance’s forthcoming paper, Methods for collecting panel data.

Christopher Kuzawa & Elizabeth Sweet, Epigenetics and the Embodiment of Race: Developmental Origins of US Racial Disparities in Cardiovascular Health
Pdf of a 2009 article – “The model outlined here builds upon social constructivist perspectives to highlight an important set of mechanisms by which social influences can become embodied, having durable and even transgenerational influences.”

Ed Yong, Confirming Aesop – Rooks Use Stones to Raise the Level of Water in a Pitcher
And see the video too!

Anthropology

Mark Flinn, Why Words Can Hurt Us: Social Relationships, Stress and Health
Pdf of the very accessible chapter on stress in the recent volume Evolutionary Medicine and Health

Arthur Kleinman, Anthropology in the Clinic: The Problem of Cultural Competency and How to Fix It
PloS Medicine open-access article by the renowned medical anthropologist and one of his rising students

Paul Farmer et al., Structural Violence and Clinical Medicine
PLoS essay arguing for a social approach in medicine, and for including how societal forces shape bad health outcomes.

Greg Laden, Alain de Botton: A Kinder, Gentler Philosophy of Success
TED video of the author of the recent book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work

Steve Lohr, For Today’s Graduate, Just One Word: Statistics
From studying Mayan archaeology to working for Google

Shafeen Charania, Erudite
Reflections on American culture, through a look back at Dick Cavett’s interview with Richard Burton

Joseph Tabbi, On Reading 300 Works of Electronic Literature: Preliminary Reflections
Looking at scholarship as it goes online, and how it changes the established academic approach

John Jackson, Birth Certificates to Beer Summits: It’s a Baudrillard World!
Simulacra rule!

The Mind

Wray Herbert, I Learned It at the Movies
Are movies effective teaching tools? The results are in.

Research Digest Blog, Kids with Invisible Friends Have Superior Narrative Skills
Harvey?

Errol Morris, Seven Lies About Lying (Part 2)
Wonderfully illustrated, and a provocative argument too. “Lies are effective because we are insecure about many of our beliefs and are quite vulnerable to the suggestion that those beliefs might be false. And they work because we might be predisposed to believe them already… And there is another dirty little secret about lying — in the pursuit of truth, some lying is invariably necessary.”

Dr. Shock, Teaching Psychotherapy: The Y Model
An integrated, evidence-based model to teaching psychotherapy that focuses on common factors and skills

Vaughan Bell, The Whole Body Nervous Scan Is Here
And it looks brilliant.

Charles Quoi, Goody-Goody Hormone Now Linked to Envy, Gloating
Oxytocin reconsidered – touchy-feely becomes just plain touchy

Sandra Kiume, Neurolaw
Neuroethics and the law in a ground-covering video over at Channel N

Jonah Lehrer, The Truth about Grit
When the going gets tough, the tough get going – through persistence and long-term goals