How does the brain create the experience of joy and desire? That’s the subject of David Linden’s new book, The Compass of Pleasure. A professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Linden studies …
mind reading
Q&A: Why ‘Expert’ Predictions in the Media Are So Often Wrong
With the gyrations of the stock market and unsettling political and financial climates causing jitters around the world, writer Dan Gardner offers timely insight in his new book Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Are Next to …
Q&A: Psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen on Empathy and the Science of Evil
Cambridge psychology professor and leading autism expert Simon Baron-Cohen is best known for studying the theory that a key problem in autistic disorders is “mind blindness,” difficulty understanding the thoughts, feelings and …
Q&A: Positive Psychologist Martin Seligman on the Good Life
These days Martin Seligman, author of the best-selling book Authentic Happiness, is perhaps best known as a father of positive of psychology — the study of people’s strengths and virtues, rather than on pathological behavior.
Q&A: How to Use Quirks of the Mind to Change Behavior
How can we motivate ourselves to do what we really want to do? By better understanding the brain’s unconscious tendencies and tactics, argues journalist Wray Herbert — or, in other words, tricking ourselves into doing it.
Q&A: How to Live Well on the Autistic Spectrum
What happens when children with Asperger’s grow up?
Q&A: The Surprising Upside of Getting Old
Americans have tremendous fear of aging — and a great deal of prejudice against the elderly. But, as the joke has it, being old is better than the alternative. And, despite our fears, new research suggests that being old is …
Q&A: Using Peer Pressure to Change the World
Virtually every day, a new study comes out suggesting that feeling close to others and having strong relationships boost health, happiness and longevity. From brain studies on the stress-relieving powers of the “love hormone” …
Q&A: How Our Brains Predispose Us to Believe in God
Psychologist Jesse Bering is best known for his often risqué (and sometimes NSFW) Bering in Mind blog for Scientific American, which examines human behavior — frequently of the sexual sort. But he’s also the director of the …
Q&A: Can We Protect Ourselves from the ‘Superbug’ MRSA?
You’re going to want to wash your hands after you read this post. Author Maryn McKenna, or “Scary Disease Girl,” as she’s known to her colleagues, talks about MRSA — a potentially lethal bug that has jumped from hospitals into …
Q&A: How the New Science of Adult Attachment Can Improve Your Love Life
People tend to think of “attachment” and “bonding” as the subjects of child psychology, but in fact, these factors are just as important to adult health and happiness. So what defines the healthy adult relationship — is there such a thing as too “clingy” or “dependent?” — and can people change in order to find lasting love?
Q&A: Neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran on ‘Unlearning’ Pain
Even before the discovery of “mirror neurons” — brain cells activated when we observe the actions of others that enable empathy — Dr. V.S. Ramachandran was using real mirrors to change the brain and relieve pain.
Q&A: Geneticist Misha Angrist on Publishing His Genome. TMI?
Would you want to know the secrets of your own genome, perhaps discovering that you are at risk for a disease like Alzheimer’s, for which there is no cure? If you did find out what lies in your genes, would you ever decide to …