Besides the normal, neuro (enhancing!) and anthro, there’s a round-up on stuff related to addictions – drug war controversy, video games, sex, social learning, and even some contingent incentives for treatment.

Top

The Neurocritic, The Neurology of Twitter
Oh you critic you! See, I did it in 140 characters. Well, less!

Christine Rosen, It’s Not Theft, It’s Pastiche
The Wall Street Journal reviews the new book, My Word! Plagiarism and College Culture, by my great colleague Susan Blum, on routine plagiarism by students and the college culture that helps make sense of that

Strange Maps, US States Renamed for Countries with Similar GDPs
Thanks to Paul Mason and his dad for this one. The US is 50 countries in one – and now there is a map that shows off the economics of it.

Eugene Raikhel, Ian Hacking on Commercial Genome-Reading
Somatosphere provides a good overview on an on-going Net discussion from some heavy hitters. And the NY Times just reported that Genes Show Limited Value in Predicting Diseases

American Anthropological Association, April AN Addresses Visual Ethics and Multisensory/Multimedia Anthro
The latest Anthropology News, and for once you can just get the pdfs online.

Neuro

Margaret Talbot, Brain Gain: The Underground World of “Neuroenhancing” Drugs
The New Yorker on this emerging synergy of demand, competition, self and neuro-medicine. For some good commentary, see Mind Hacks.

Continue reading “Wednesday Round Up #60”

Top

Tom Rees, The Problem with Studies on the Social Effects of Religion
Religion is often associated with positive effects – but correlation is not cause, what people say and do differ, and problems in defining “religion.” Nicely done.

Ritual Blogging, Week Five Recap
Great site providing summaries, powerpoints, links and discussion for an anthro class on Ritual in the Modern World. This week they covered political rituals, including some good YouTube clips.

Judith Harris & Jonah Lehrer, Do Parents Matter?
An interview at Sci Amer with the author of The Nurture Assumption, which argues that peers are more important than parents in shaping developmental outcomes. I’ve often wondered why anthropologists haven’t paid more attention to Harris’ work, it really is an argument for culture in one sense. Still, though Harris questions the role of parenting in good outcomes, she does seem to avoid the role that bad parenting can play in producing bad outcomes (e.g., family trauma).

SlowTV, The Brain: How It Can Change, Develop and Improve. Featuring Dr Norman Doidge
A video lecture by the author of The Brain That Changes Itself in Melbourne

Atul Gawande, Hellhole
“The United States holds tens of thousands of inmates in long-term solitary confinement. Is this torture?” The short answer is yes. A powerful piece from The New Yorker.

Anthro

Filip Spagnoli, Human Rights Facts (59): The Vicious Cycle of Poverty and Ill Health
Poverty traps, with the effects of poverty on health as one main engine – quite a good overview

Continue reading “Wednesday Round Up #59”

I’m feeling chaotic today…

Michael Merzenich, Brain Plasticity and Culture
Merzenich sits down to talk with Bruce Wexler, author of Brain and Culture, in this video

Sandra Aamot & Sam Wang, Computers vs. Brains
Key differences between the two, and why computers are not likely to “out think” humans as soon as some predict

Steve Ayan, How Humor Makes You Friendlier, Sexier
Scientific American on the benefits of humor and the latest scientific research on laughter

Pology Magazine – South America
Pology is an online magazine written by anthropologists acting much more as journalists. These are first-person snippets of fieldwork and local life from around the globe, as well as photo essays. While the whole world is covered, I picked the continent of Colombia to highlight.

Vaughan Bell, On the Frontiers with the Neural Gene Mappers
Mind Hack on the new Wired article – includes this great placement of research into context: “As far as we know, all learning in the brain happens through proteins, meaning that experience, learning, thought, motivation – or any other ‘psychological level’ process we can think of, acts through the many, complex and not fully understood regulation processes.”

Abnormal Interests, Follow the Leader
Chimpanzees versus humans – the importance of cultural imitation for us. Quite a good video. See also Afarensis, where there was some interesting discussion.

Continue reading “Wednesday Round Up #57”

I know things have been kind of sparse on my side of late; for those of you wondering, it’s just the time crunch. Three conferences in two weeks; teaching; funding to secure; and even more stuff. But Greg and I are excited about what’s to come, and soon we’ll be making a big announcement on the Neuroanthropology front.

So with that opening, let’s get down to business – the top, mental health, anthro and the brain.

Top of the List

Mouse Trap, Self Relevance and the Reality-Fiction Blur
Sandy’s useful summary and reflection on a new PLoS article, Reality = Relevance? Insights from Spontaneous Modulations of the Brain’s Default Network when Telling Apart Reality from Fiction. Neuronarrative also summarizes and reflects on the success of reality TV. My take – it means self-reference and specific memories can make even imaginary things “real”, and that’s a big step towards culture.

Sue Sheridan, Very Funny
The Onion Video: Experts Agree Giant, Razor-Clawed Bioengineered Crabs Pose No Threat

Brian Crecente, Maria Montessori: The 138-Year-Old Inspiration Behind Spore
Learning as exploration and growth in imagination, and how that inspired a modern-day video game that is sort-of about evolution

Archaeoastronomy, An Astronomical Experiment YOU Can Contribute To
A worldwide study of light pollution and why we don’t see the sky at night like we once did. Hurry to participate – the deadline is March 28th!

Supercourse: Epidemiology, The Internet, and Global Health
More than 3000 lectures from world experts, delivered in 26 different languages. Wow.

Mental Health

David Dobbs, Soldiers’ Stress: What Doctors Get Wrong about PTSD
Scientific American article on overdiagnosis and mistaking adjustment back to civilian life as dysfunction. David provides some great follow-up and engages readers over at Neuron Culture, beginning here, with sources and links, and debate on war and medicalization, and finally David responding forcefully to a snarky critique.

Continue reading “Wednesday Round Up #56”

I’m off to a conference, so you’re getting the Wednesday round up a day early. The typical stuff on brain and anthro, plus some happiness, eating and other stuff thrown in. Enjoy!

Top of the List

Mo Costandi, Experience Induces Global Reorganization of Brain Circuitry
Plasticity in action, now showing that small changes can produce bigger changes elsewhere

Hugh Gusterson, Empire of Bases
The global reach of the US military. It’s no longer the military-industry complex, it’s just the military complex. It’s hard to fathom, and all that money that might be spent differently…

Dave Munger, Training in Working Memory Can Improve Preschoolers’ Performance in a Variety of Tasks
The title says it all. Train visual working memory, get benefits elsewhere.

Brian McKenna, How Anthropology Disparages Journalism
A call for anthropology to engage what could be one of its closest allies, as well as to take on what journalism offers for getting our message beyond the Ivory Tower

Gary Sherman and Gerald Clore, Clean and Virtuous: When Physical Purity Becomes Moral Purity
Scientific American: “How “embodied” metaphors, rooted in our physical understanding of abstract concepts, shape our view of the world.”

Brain

Deric Bownds, The Myth of Language Universals
Deric is as intrigued by this new Behavioral and Brain Science target article as I am, The Myth of Language Universals: Language diversity and its importance for cognitive science

Continue reading “Wednesday Round Up #55”

Top of the list, depression, anthropology, brain, philosophy and digital things this week. Enjoy.

Top of the List

Stefano Ghirlanda et al., Chickens Prefer Beautiful Humans
The title and research made me laugh – but this pdf does help skewer the “face adaptation” notion of evolutionary psychology. Those chickens are checking us out!

Michael Pollan, Michael Pollan Wants Your Food Rules
The writer and food reform advocate wants your insights – how can accumulated wisdom of cultural and family traditions help us to a healthier way of growing and consuming our food. Let him know by leaving a comment.

John Tierney, Rappin’ for Science
Get your Evo Devo and Hox genes on!

Comparative Humanities Program, From the Brain to Human Culture: Intersections between the Humanities and Neuroscience
Program for this 2007 conference that I wished I had attended. Lots of people I didn’t know about doing interdisciplinary work.

Ed Yong, East Meets West: How the Brain Unites Us All
New Scientist article on culture and cognition research. Good at critiquing the East/West generalizations and advocating a more localized view. Mind Hacks provides a favorable reaction, Mouse Trap a critical one.

Continue reading “Wednesday Round Up #54”