Wired For Leadership?
When participants in a trial at Arizona State University were asked to think about the future, levels of brain activity varied significantly between those considered visionaries and non-visionaries. Visionaries showed much higher levels of brain activity than non-visionaries in areas of the brain associated with visual processing and organization of information. The visionary leaders had more effi... posted on Oct 01 2007, 2,270 reads

Health Through Friendship
According to research at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., having close friends you can count on has far-reaching benefits for your physical and mental health. A strong social network can be critical to helping you through the stress of tough times, whether you've had a bad day at work or a year filled with loss or chronic illness. Dr. Edward T. Creagan is a cancer specialist at the Mayo Clinic... posted on Sep 20 2007, 3,219 reads

Language: A Window to Human Nature
In "The Stuff of Thought," celebrated Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker sets out to explain how language reveals our inner nature. Terming us "verbivores, a species that lives on words," Pinker argues that our verbivorous, highly biased perception of reality differs radically from the findings of science yet allows us to thrive in a complex universe. The meanings of words matter profoundly, for w... posted on Sep 17 2007, 2,509 reads

Yawning: A Sign of Empathy
A susceptibility to contagious yawning may actually be a sign of a high-level of social empathy. Although many species yawn, only some humans and possibly their close animal relatives find yawning infectious, suggesting the reason is psychological. "Contagious yawning is a very interesting behavior," said Dr Catriona Morrison, a lecturer in psychology who is leading the work."You don't need a visu... posted on Sep 12 2007, 1,970 reads

The Science Of Sleep and Scent
Scientists studying how sleep affects memory have found that the whiff of a familiar scent can help a slumbering brain better remember things that it learned the evening before. The smell of roses -- delivered as people studied and, later, as they slept -- improved their performance on a memory test by about 13 percent. The results of this rigorous new study, whether or not they can help students ... posted on Sep 09 2007, 3,236 reads

Why Old Habits Die Hard
Habits help us through the day, eliminating the need to strategize about each tiny step involved in making a frothy latte, driving to work and other complex routines. Bad habits, though, can have a vise grip on both mind and behavior. Notoriously hard to break, they are devilishly easy to resume, as many reformed smokers discover. A study led by Ann Graybiel of MIT now shows why. Important neural ... posted on Aug 16 2007, 3,075 reads

The Brain Is A Muscle
Stanford's Carol Dweck has found that individuals succeed or fail based on how they think about intelligence, and she says people have one of two mind-sets on the matter. People with a fixed mind-set believe that intelligence is static. The second group, Dweck says, are those with a growth mind-set, who see intelligence to be much like a muscle. Earlier this year, Dweck and two colleagues ran an e... posted on Aug 12 2007, 3,129 reads

The Healthiness of Giving
When he was sad as a boy his mother would say, 'Well, Stevie, why don't you go out and help somebody,' " Dr Post recalls. "I would go out and rake leaves or help a neighbor put canvas over a boat." He still remembers those small moments vividly because they gave him the impression that helping others was rewarding. Now he knows it for sure. For the past five years, Dr. Post has been funding resear... posted on Aug 06 2007, 4,512 reads

The Power of Paying it Forward
Because so much of human life is about giving, receiving, and repaying, gratitude is a pivotal concept for our social interactions. The famed sociologist Georg Simmel declared that gratitude is "the moral memory of mankind." If every grateful action, he went on to say, were suddenly eliminated, society would crumble. After years of ignoring gratitude -- perhaps because it appears, on the surface, ... posted on Jul 16 2007, 2,578 reads

What Makes Us Laugh & Why?
What does it take to be funny? The question is simple, but the answer is not, as attested to by legions of scientists trying to pinpoint the brain's "laugh zone" and decipher how wit works. Humor research remains a fast-growing area of inquiry, with neurologists mapping areas of the brain that oxygenate to register and respond to puns, slapstick and other forms of wit. The solution potentially car... posted on Jul 15 2007, 2,908 reads