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  • May 7, 2013
  • 07:01 PM
  • 52 views

In Your Face: soldiers' faces predict aggression, military rank and number of children | @GrrlScientist

by GrrlScientist in GrrlScientist

New research demonstrates that male soldiers' faces may predict their military rank and how many children they ultimately father... Read more »

  • May 7, 2013
  • 01:38 PM
  • 19 views

Why Are Children Given Antipsychotics?

by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic_Discover

Prescriptions of antipsychotic (aka neuroleptic) drugs in North American children and adolescents have been rising rapidly in recent years. But why? Gabrielle Carlson of Stony Brook Children’s Hospital offers her thoughts in a brief paper: The Dramatic Rise in Neuroleptic Use In Children: Why Do We Do It and What Does It Buy Us? Carlson [...]... Read more »

  • May 6, 2013
  • 02:21 PM
  • 1 view

See the Process and Not Just the Product in Deliberation

by Persuasion Strategies in Persuasive Litigator

By Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm: Over the weekend I gave a presentation at a law firm retreat in Palm Springs. The presentation drew from a recent mock trial in an insurance dispute and the deliberation video clips I was playing could've been seen as a parade of mistakes: jurors ignoring instructions, flagrantly applying their own experience and knowledge, and framing the dispute within their own terms instead of the frame provided by the presenting attorneys. After about an hour of this, one attorney in ........ Read more »

Leah Sprain and John Gastil. (2013) What Does It Mean to Deliberate? An Interpretive Account of Jurors' Expressed Deliberative Rules and Premises. Communication Quarterly, 61(2), 151-171. info:/

  • May 6, 2013
  • 09:44 AM
  • 57 views

The young and the restless

by neuroecology in Neuroecology

It struck me recently that one of the key differences between economists and neuroscientists studying decision-making is their interest in dynamics.  Economists seem more interested in explaining how behavior operates (or should operate) on average whereas neuroscientists would like to explain trial-to-trial variability.  Decisions are rarely made just once in a lifetime, but are instead made repeatedly. [...]... Read more »

  • May 5, 2013
  • 07:00 PM
  • 81 views

Social learning dilemma

by Artem Kaznatcheev in Evolutionary Games Group

Last week, my father sent me a link to the 100 top-ranked specialties in the sciences and social sciences. The Web of Knowledge report considered 10 broad areas[1] of natural and social science, and for each one listed 10 research fronts that they consider as the key fields to watch in 2013 and are “hot [...]... Read more »

Rendell L, Boyd R, Cownden D, Enquist M, Eriksson K, Feldman MW, Fogarty L, Ghirlanda S, Lillicrap T, & Laland KN. (2010) Why copy others? Insights from the social learning strategies tournament. Science, 328(5975), 208-213. PMID: 20378813  

  • May 5, 2013
  • 01:42 PM
  • 67 views

How Does Political Ideology Influence Views On Accountability?

by Eric Horowitz in peer-reviewed by my neurons

Accountability is all the rage these days, whether it’s with regard to schools, hospitals, government agencies, or the local Geico car insurance branch. But not all accountability is the same, and a thought-provoking new study led by Penn’s Philip Tetlock examines how political ideology and trust can influence support for various accountability systems. The study [...]... Read more »

Tetlock, P., Vieider, F., Patil, S., & Grant, A. (2013) Accountability and ideology: When left looks right and right looks left. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 122(1), 22-35. DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2013.03.007  

  • May 5, 2013
  • 07:43 AM
  • 51 views

Laboratory experiments in supply chain research

by Andreas Wieland in Supply Chain Management Research

Nobel laureates rarely publish articles in journals within the supply chain arena. Vernon L. Smith was awarded the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences “for having established laboratory experiments as a tool in empirical economic analysis, especially in the study of alternative market mechanisms”. In its recent issue, the Journal of Business Logistics had [...]... Read more »

  • May 5, 2013
  • 06:43 AM
  • 52 views

Creativity and color in academic ELF

by Ray Carey in ELFA project

I was recently addressing some common folk linguistic myths about English, especially the English used as a lingua franca (ELF) between its non-native speakers. One of these myths concerns “color”, or more often than not, “colour”, since it seems the British “owners” of English are the ones most preoccupied with this trait. More specifically, you [...]... Read more »

  • May 3, 2013
  • 11:00 PM
  • 60 views

Evolutionary economics and game theory

by Artem Kaznatcheev in Evolutionary Games Group

Like the agents they study, evolutionary economics is highly heterogeneous. Models are ad-hoc and serve as heuristic guides to specific problems. This is similar to theoretical biology, where evolutionary models are independent of each other. Even the general theory of inclusive fitness does not provide a non-controversial unifying framework. Although there is no single framework, evolutionary economists are united by four main assumptions about the world:... Read more »

  • May 3, 2013
  • 03:40 PM
  • 68 views

Why blogging science is rewarding!

by Ragothamanyennamalli in Getting to know Structural Bioinformatics

... Read more »

  • May 3, 2013
  • 09:40 AM
  • 18 views

The Inequality of Wedding Planning

by Tina Amirtha in Tina's Blog

In the 1991 film Father of the Bride, the bride falls into a day-long funk after what had ostensibly been weeks of joyful wedding planning. The father, played by Steve Martin, eventually discovered that his future son-in-law had given his daughter a blender as a wedding gift. Being the educated, professional woman that she was, Martin's daughter believed her gift to be an indication of her husband's expectations in marriage. Days of smoothie-making and reveling in a series of gifted home applian........ Read more »

  • May 3, 2013
  • 03:04 AM
  • 63 views

Online reviews and movie critics are fantastic – so why do we ignore them??

by Stuart Farrimond in Dr Stu's Science Blog

The carpet is sticky and the smell of hotdogs mingles with sweet popcorn. The trailers are rolling. Even though person’s knee from the seat behind jabs into my back, I don’t care. The summer blockbuster is about to start and I’ve heard great things about it… But two hours, a bursting bladder and numb bottom … Continue reading »... Read more »

  • May 2, 2013
  • 03:29 PM
  • 76 views

Gender, language and economic power: another spurious correlation

by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0

A recent paper finds a correlation between speaking a language with grammatical gender distinctions and the economic empowerment of women. Is this another case of a spurious correlation caused by historical accident?... Read more »

Victor Gay, Estefania Santacreu-Vasut and Amir Shoham. (2013) The Grammatical Origins of Gender Roles. Berkeley Economic History Laboratory (BEHL) Working Papers. info:/

  • May 1, 2013
  • 09:27 AM
  • 74 views

The Craptastic Conversations of the Black Rhinoceros

by Miss Behavior in The Scorpion and the Frog

What are you saying with your smells? Image by freedigitalphotos.net.Animals communicate in all kinds of ways: with vocalizations, body language, vibrations, and even odors. In fact, compared to most species, we are pathetic in our abilities to communicate with body odor. With just a whiff of eau de crotch, many animals can decipher that individual’s species, sex, age, health status, reproductive status, emotional state, and dietary history. Some species can go so far as to make out that indiv........ Read more »

  • April 30, 2013
  • 12:30 PM
  • 56 views

The Climatic Origins of the Malaysian Nipah Virus Outbreak

by Rebecca Kreston in BODY HORRORS

One of the hardest questions to answer in an infectious disease outbreak investigation is "Why?"

Why then? Why there? These questions can be almost impossible to answer - not only because of their heady metaphysical nature but also because of the difficulty of assessing the minute interactions between microbe, environment and human host. Public health officials are often left shrugging their shoulders, half-heartedly admitting to an unsatisfied public that they just don't know ........ Read more »

  • April 30, 2013
  • 09:30 AM
  • 76 views

Are Vocal Homophobes Really Just Homosexuals in the Closet?

by Ryo in Skeptikai

Homophobic protestors of gay rights assert things like "homosexuality will lead to the breakdown of civilization," and other such notions. But research is finding that some of these avid protestors are homosexuals themselves. Why is that?

Recent research looks at how cultural influences regarding homosexuality affect the psychology of homosexuals who are "in the closet." A new study is contrasted with information on pornography consumption, showing widespread hypocrisy throughout the world.... Read more »

  • April 29, 2013
  • 09:08 AM
  • 72 views

Twitter Maps the Mood of the UK

by Kate Blanchfield in United Academics

Researchers have mapped the moods of Twitter users from the UK and found that they follow a daily pattern of anger, fear, joy and sadness.

The research paper, posted online last week, was based on approximately 120 million tweets collected during the summer and winter of 2011.

The researchers counted the number of times a tweet expressed anger, fear, joy or sadness and normalised this by the total number of tweets in that hour. This corrected for the inevitably higher use of Twitter during........ Read more »

Vasileios Lampos, Thomas Lansdall-Welfare, Ricardo Araya, & Nello Cristianini. (2013) Analysing Mood Patterns in the United Kingdom through Twitter Content. Social and Information Networks. arXiv: 1304.5507v1

  • April 29, 2013
  • 01:51 AM
  • 56 views

School Choice Is Associated With More Student Engagement

by Eric Horowitz in peer-reviewed by my neurons

One thing I harp on a fair amount is that it’s a shame the concept of school choice has been bound to divisive rhetoric about competition and free markets. Every student is different, and therefore the presence of more choices always makes it more likely that a student will find a school that meshes with [...]... Read more »

  • April 27, 2013
  • 11:09 AM
  • 92 views

He’s Climbing In Your Windows; He’s Snatching Your People Up

by Jesse Marczyk in Pop Psychology

One topic that has been addressed by evolutionary psychologists that managed to draw a good deal of ire was rape. Given the sensitive nature of the issue, the criticisms that the theorizing about it brought were largely undeserved, reflecting, perhaps, … Continue reading →... Read more »

Felson, R., & Cundiff, P. (2012) Age and sexual assault during robberies. Evolution and Human Behavior, 33(1), 10-16. DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2011.04.002  

  • April 27, 2013
  • 09:20 AM
  • 20 views

The (sigh) Psychopath Brain

by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic_Discover

Neuroscience has revealed that Lady Gaga’s song Born This Way is probably about a psychopath. Or something. HuffPo says - Psychopathic Brain ‘Lacks Basic Hardwiring’ To Feel Compassion, Research Suggests Meanwhile, the Daily Mail report - Is this proof evil killers are born not made? Psychopaths’ brains ‘lack basic wiring that triggers empathy’ Last week [...]... Read more »

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