Science & Research

Electronic cigarettes: the truth behind the smoke and mirrors

The debate over the health and legal implications of e-cigarette use has divided experts across the world. Local authorities will now need to face up to the issue after e-cigarettes were banned in Western Australia. - Eamonn Duff, Amy Corderoy via Electronic cigarettes: the truth behind the smoke and mirrors. Image from: Unsplash

Scientists unmask a piece in the puzzle of how the inheritance of traumas is mediated

The phenomenon has long been known in psychology: traumatic experiences can induce behavioural disorders that are passed down from one generation to the next. It is only recently that scientists have begun to understand the physiological processes underlying hereditary trauma. "There are diseases such as bipolar disorder, that run in families but can't be traced [...]

Hollywood gets blame for sex disease hike

New Zealand's chlamydia rate is getting worse because of excessive drinking by young people and a Hollywood-inspired culture of sex without commitment, specialists say. Nationally more than 8000 cases of the sexual infection were treated in clinics last year, up from 6959 in 2006. "We have all the media in the world encouraging people to [...]

Wandering mind not a happy mind

People spend 46.9 percent of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they’re doing, and this mind-wandering typically makes them unhappy. So says a study that used an iPhone Web app to gather 250,000 data points on subjects’ thoughts, feelings, and actions as they went about their lives. The research, by psychologists Matthew [...]

Study: Your Brain Sees Things You Don’t

University of Arizona doctoral degree candidate Jay Sanguinetti has authored a new study, published online in the journal Psychological Science, that indicates that the brain processes and understands visusal input that we may never consciously perceive. The finding challenges currently accepted models about how the brain processes visual information. A doctoral candidate in the UA's Department [...]

Nasa-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for ‘irreversible collapse’?

A new study partly-sponsored by Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution. - Nafeez Ahmed via Nasa-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for 'irreversible collapse'? | Nafeez Ahmed | Environment | theguardian.com.

New autism definition may decrease diagnosis by one-third, study finds

New diagnosis guidelines for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) issued by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) may reduce by almost one third the total number of people being diagnosed, according to new research from Columbia University School of Nursing published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. The guidelines, released in May 2013 and the [...]

‘Intelligent people are more likely to trust others’

Intelligent people are more likely to trust others, while those who score lower on measures of intelligence are less likely to do so, says a new study. Oxford University researchers based their finding on an analysis of the General Social Survey, a nationally representative public opinion survey carried out in the United States every one [...]

Arguments In The Home Linked With Babies’ Brain Functioning

Being exposed to arguments between parents is associated with the way babies' brains process emotional tone of voice, according to a new study to be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The study, conducted by graduate student Alice Graham with her advisors Phil Fisher and Jennifer Pfeifer of the University [...]

Can you really die of a broken heart?

Losing a loved one can be heartbreaking. But a new study shows that this can be more than just symbolic, as the chances of experiencing a stroke or heart attack after a partner's death doubles within the first 30 days. The researchers, from St. George's University of London in the UK, have published the results [...]

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