An against-the-grain top, then the brain, science and teaching, and anthropology.
Top of the List
The Neurocritic, Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience
Edward Vul and those too remarkable correlations in brain scans make their best appearance yet, along with Sponge Bob and voodoo dolls. A great read.
Philip Dawdy, Study: Psychiatrists Try To Explain Away Huge Placebo Effect In Child Depression Trials
Give drugs to 10 kids to affect just one: “It’s time for researchers and clinicians to face facts: the day of using anti-depressants in kids is drawing to a close and continued use of these drugs in kids and teens must cross some high hurdles or you are coming damn close to engaging in malpractice.”
Jonah Lehrer & Javier Zarracina, Hack Your Brain: How to hallucinate with ping-pong balls and a radio
Why should those brain training folks have all the fun?
Greg Laden, Autism Study Examines Cause of Apparent Rise in Rate
Environmental causes get indirect support in some of the latest research on what explains the rise in autism. Greg provides some extended commentary on science, policy and what data mean.
LiveScience, Study: Exercise Won’t Cure Obesity
Dietary intake matters more than energy expenditure – some of the latest research
Brain
John Tierney, Anti-Love Drug May Be Ticket to Bliss
The simple equation, drug=love=marriage. Somehow the real world of relationships got lost along the way. But don’t tell Larry Young and his prairie voles. He’s hooked on oxytocin in a scientific way.
Neuroanthropology 