Big Lies and the Boogie Man
In May 1983, Oregonian mom Diane Downs pulled up to a Springfield emergency room entrance with her heavily bleeding three young children in the back seat of her car. The tale she told sent police on a...
View ArticleWho am I? Where am I From? My DNA Ancestral Analysis
Born and raised in India, I have always considered myself of Asian Indian heritage. My answer to the oft-asked question “where are you originally from” has always been India. Motivated by watching...
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Time is Money - Or is Time Perspective Money?
In the early 1970s, Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel conducted a series of uniquely simple studies on deferred gratification where, after winning in a simple quiz, 4 year-olds were given the choice...
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Heavy: Uneasy Lies the Fat that Wears a Crown
Overweight or obesity is an excess accumulation of fat. The greater the amount of fat, the worse the level of obesity. Other than an excess accumulation of fat, as I have said in my last blog entry,...
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You're Still Single and Don't Know Why
Hate that you're still single? "F.E.A.R." could be sabotaging your love life and you don't even know it. When anxiety, fear, or "ghosts of relationships past" get in they way of finding love, it's...
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How Stores Trick Our Senses to Make Us Buy More: Smell
(Read the previous posts in this series: taste, sight, and touch).Grocery shopping is a real chore (at least, in my mind).It takes planning, list-making, and coupon clipping. One spends an hour ambling...
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What is Schizophrenia?
Many people think people with schizophrenia have a ‘split personality’. Perhaps this comes from Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novel, ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’, in which the sane and upright doctor,...
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What You Should Look For In a Self-Help Book
Self-help books are popular, but how useful and scientifically accurate are they? A study published in Professional Psychology, Research and Practice sought to answer this question. The authors of the...
View ArticleWhy Revenge Does Not Satiate
What is motivation? At Harvard four generations of psychologists said that motivation is about needs and instincts. At Yale the Hull-Spence psychologists – my academic parents, so to speak -- said it...
View ArticleFive Ways to Tame Your Wild Side
You may think that being spontaneous and acting on impulse makes you more fun to be around. Unfortunately, being impulsive can also get you into trouble. How many times have you regretted a decision...
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Fragile men
It’s almost a stereotype – the silent guys who may never run from a fight but will sprint away from a conversation especially if it involves their emotions. Men who do the Mars man-cave thing – hole up...
View ArticleFrom Matter to Mattering: The Origin of Life's Meaning
In my last article I argued against the counter-intuitive conventional wisdom in science these days which treats any physical change as information. I argued that information emerges with life, and I...
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Porn Study: Does Viewing Explain Doing—Or Not?
A new Dutch study ("Does Viewing Explain Doing? Assessing the Association Between Sexually Explicit Materials Use and Sexual Behaviors in a Large Sample of Dutch Adolescents and Young Adults") finds...
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Guide to Baby Sleep Positions: Co-Sleeping or No Sleeping
The number of sleep deprivation comments heard by a family about to welcome their fist baby soars into the trillions. Everyone told us that our newborn would be telling us when he would be sleeping or,...
View ArticleI Almost Forgot the Crystal Skulls.
I had almost forgotten the Crystal Skulls!In this week’s Skeptical Inquirer (Vol.37 No.3) there is a report of an archeologist suing the makers of the Indiana Jones movies for a piece of their...
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10 Ways to Express Love
Love is a choice as much as it is a feeling or a decision. Those who give love receive love. This month we have seen research talking about conflict resolution and conflict recovery in terms of lasting...
View ArticleThirteen Gold Monkeys: Bringing Conservation to the Public
Scientists invariably write essays about their research programs they try to publish in peer-reviewed journals or academic books that are read predominantly by their colleagues. Many also write books...
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The Epidemic of Crude Darwinism
Some rats are unfortunate enough to find themselves in a scientific laboratory, racing around a spinning wheel, going nowhere whether they realize it or not. We might have ourselves a laugh or a...
View ArticleStand By Your Man? What Hillary Clinton Advised Her Aide
Does Hillary regret standing by her man?The power couple are back in the news: Huma Abedin (former deputy chief of staff of state to Hillary Clinton) and her husband, Anthony 'The Sexting Rep' Weiner,...
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