On St. Patrick’s day, pour yourself a green beer, not a green wine: wine and spirits cause more hippocampal volume loss than does beer (in chronic alcoholics, anyway). There are probably other good reasons for not drinking green wine, although…
Tag Archive for Antique scientific illustration
Obesity research: The French stop eating when they want to, Americans stop eating when others do
by swivelchair • • 2 Comments
The stereotype of overeating Americans is true. Americans stop eating meals based on external cues from others. The French stop eating when they themselves want to. Here’s from Wansink, Brian, Payne, Collin R., Chandon, Pierre, Internal and External Cues of…
Do Psychopaths Dream?
by swivelchair • • 2 Comments
Updated: 02.02.08 Did you every wake up and say, “Wow. That dream was so real.” My guess is that psychopaths — at least some — don’t do that. If you want to see if someone has psychopathic tendencies, maybe a…
Face perception in monkeys reared with no exposure to faces — Sugita, 10.1073/pnas.0706079105 — Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
by swivelchair • • 0 Comments
Face perception in monkeys reared with no exposure to faces — Sugita, 10.1073/pnas.0706079105 — Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Toddler monkeys who have never seen a human or a monkey face prefer to look at faces in photographs.
Obesity and genes: Extreme body mass associated with faulty gene processing
by swivelchair • • 0 Comments
People with extreme body mass index may have the right genes, that splice the wrong way. Here’s a press release, describing the work to date.The abstract, Goren, Amir, Kim, Eddo, Amit, Maayan, Bochner, Ron, Lev-Maor, Galit, Ahituv, Nadav, Ast, Gil…
From Proventia, “Does child abuse affect brain development?”
by swivelchair • • 3 Comments
In the ovarian lottery, we are born human babies ready to adapt to our surroundings. Dr. Vitelli at Proventia posted on how child abuse – sexual, physical, emotional, verbal, witnessing the abuse of others — affects brain development. (This was…
Hapmap update: Evolution speeding up; schizophrenia DNA very homozygous and looks like recessive selection
by swivelchair • • 1 Comment
Which is better, for genes to change or for them to stay the same? Is it better to evolve or devolve? According to new hapmap data, evolution is accelerating with increasing human density and migration. We are evolving more quickly…
White-collar psychopaths at The Top Two Inches
by swivelchair • • 0 Comments
Grandville, Metamorphosis, “Un mariage de raison…pour raison.” I’m always amazed that psychopaths get as far as they do in corporations, with no backstop. The Grandville cartoon is an illustration of my explanation: they make sure their watchdogs are lame. Multiple…
Weight Loss Meds Updates: New Phen-fens and leptin
by swivelchair • • 2 Comments
Happy pre-Thanksgiving! On that note, I thought I’d catch up on weight loss abstracts. 1. New Phen-fens without the side effects look good, and they may also be useful in treating diabetes. They may have an “anxiety” type side effect…
Fragile X research: A boy’s Fragile X gene reverts to normal and premutation carriers produce antisense DNA
by swivelchair • • 1 Comment
Imagine you are a 10 year old and your whole life you’ve lived with two mentally disabled brothers who have Fragile X. You are told you have the thing in your body that could make you have problems when you…