This week we have decision making, the brain and anthropology, plus this week’s top picks.
Top of the List
Eugene Raikhel, The Prevalent Placebo
Anthropology sheds light on the placebo. Somatosphere’s take on the recent report that 50% of US doctors give placebos to patients, with a consideration of both the placebo phenomenon and the literature surrounding it.
Deric Bownds, Arguing for Embodied Consciousness
Deric gives us some of the Harold Fromm Science review of the new book “What Science Offers the Humanities – Integrating Body and Culture” by Edward Slingerland. My Mind on Books give us more on Slingerland and his book.
The Banana Peel Project, Communities of Selves
A riff off Paul Bloom’s recent piece – a community of selves inside each of us, boosted by abundant new technologies of self, from drugs to avatars. Also see Bloom’s piece, First Person Plural
Neil Scheurich, Annals of the Prodigious
The bar-tailed godwit, the longest recorded flight, and a poem from Emily Dickinson
Scicurious, General Stuff I Blog About: Dopamine!
Your Neurotopia guide to dopamine, going from the chemical structure to brain structures. Quite an overview.
Decision Making
Neuronarrative, The Lucifer Effect: An Interview with Dr.Phillip Zimbardo
Making monsters out of decent young men – an interview with the psychologist behind the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment
Wray Herbert, A Recipe for Motivation
Getting people to exercise regularly – and the importance of understandable how-to instructions
Neuroanthropology 