Placebo effect is real
Spinal-cord neural activity found when individuals were convinced that their pain would be alleviated by a cream treatment, irrespective of whether the cream was real or a placebo. From Smartplanet.com:
Placebo effect not all in your head
By Dana Blankenhorn | Oct 16, 2009
Emotion sensor to keep your cool
Want to avoid rash decisions you later regret? Bracelet warns you when you are too emotional/stressed. Designed for traders, but I could think of some others that should be wearing it. 
From The Economist Oct. 15th, 2009 edition:
Emotions and investing
Gutted instinct
A new device to prevent irrational online trades
The nature of wealth
Financial assets are a claim on real wealth, not outright wealth. From the October 8th 2009 edition of The Economist:
Buttonwood
The nature of wealth
The world confused financial assets with real ones
Suffering leads to belief in god
It seems misery loves supernatural explanations…
Excerpt from “Bering in Mind”’s God’s in Mississippi, where the gettin’ is good:
…. In an article soon to be published in Personality and Social Psychology Review , Harvard psychologists Kurt Gray and Daniel Wegner argue that human suffering and God go hand-in-hand because our evolved cognitive systems are inherently unsatisfied with “sh*t happens” types of explanations (that is to say, reality). The main gist of their argument is that, since we’re such a deeply social species, when bad things happen to us we immediately launch a search for the responsible human party. In being morally vigilant this way–in seeking to identify the culpable party–we can effectively punish blameworthy, antisocial people, thus preserving our group’s functional cohesion and preserving each individual’s genetic interests. That’s all fine and dandy, say Gray and Wegner, when someone punches us in the face, steals from us or sleeps with our girlfriend; but when our misfortune is more “abstract” (think cancer or a tsunami) and there’s no obvious single human agent to blame, we see the hand of God.
Sugar IS addictive
From Discover magazine’s DiscoBlog:
Move Over, Heroin: “Sugar Addiction” May Be a Reality
What Health Stats Really Mean
Statistical illiteracy becomes a big problem when people make health decisions. So why isn’t statistics taught to everyone early in school? And more importantly, why isn’t it a requirement for doctors?
From Scientific American Mind, April 8, 2009:
Knowing Your Chances: What Health Stats Really Mean
Learn how to put aside unjustified fears and hopes and how to weigh your real risk of illness–or likelihood of recovery
Salad or fries with that?
Do you want salad or fires with that? It seems a healthy option actually makes you more likely to pick the junk food. Great for fast-food companies’ bottom lines.
From The National Post, April 30, 2009:
Thinking about eating healthy can fool brain into choosing fat: new study
Anne Harding, Reuters
Your brain on religion
Religion can be very useful: reduced stress, lower anxiety, improved cognitive abilities. But nothing comes without a price: religion hinders the ability to fix your mistakes.
From The Globe and Mail, March 5, 2009:
This is your brain on religion
Believers record lower levels of anxiety, which can boost performance but also hinder the ability to fix mistakes, study finds
Love or sex for creative thinking?
Check out “Solve that baffling problem” for an exploration of how psychological distancing helps creative thinking. Then read the article below how being in love does the same — but thinking of sex does not! From Scientific American, September 29, 2009:
Does Falling in Love Make Us More Creative?
A new study demonstrates that thinking about love–but not about sex–causes us to think more “globally,” making it easier to come up with new ideas
About
Although it started out as a means of practising expressing myself, this blog is turning out to be more of a compendium of interesting information I come across. One of these days I’ll have to actually write something as opposed to cut and paste.
