Science & Research

People With Autism Can Read Emotions, Feel Empathy

Flikr Images There is a persistent stereotype that people with autism are individuals who lack empathy and cannot understand emotion. It’s true that many people with autism don’t show emotion in ways that people without the condition would recognise1. But the notion that people with autism generally lack empathy and cannot recognize feelings [...]

Do Vitamins And Supplements Make Antidepressants More Effective?

Pixabay Images The multibillion-dollar supplement industry spews many dubious claims, but a new study suggests that some nutritional supplements, including omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D, may boost the effectiveness of antidepressants. If so, the supplements might help relieve symptoms for the millions of people who don’t immediately respond to these drugs. The [...]

Inner Voices: How Your Internal Dialogue Helps You Make Sense Of The World

Pixabay Images Many of us go about our days with an inner commentary running through our heads. We'll ask ourselves if we have time for another coffee on the way to work in the morning. Or remind ourselves that we need to call our mother before the end of the week. These voices [...]

By |2016-07-11T10:57:06+10:00July 11th, 2016|Categories: Science & Research|Tags: , , , |0 Comments

Researchers Have Discovered A Much Faster Way To Learn New Skills

Pixabay Images If you're trying to improve your golf swing or master that tricky guitar chord progression, here's some good news from researchers at Johns Hopkins University: You may be able to double how quickly you learn skills like these by introducing subtle variations into your practice routine. The received wisdom on learning motor skills [...]

Junk Science Driving Public Misperceptions

Pixabay Images Have you heard about the latest study? Coffee fights cancer. Pizza and French fries are addictive like crack. Midnight snacks hamper our ability to retain memories. Actually, what’s really bad for our brains is all the junk science being reported as gospel. According to Pew Research, “79 percent of scientists believe [...]

This New Blood Test Could Personalise Depression Treatments For The First Time

Credit: Somsak Suwanput/ShutterStock Scientists have developed a new blood test that could finally lead to personalised depression treatments for patients, giving doctors a tool that can identify which antidepressants are likely to work for patients the first time around, instead of relying on trial and error. This could make a huge difference, because [...]

Prenatal Fruit Consumption Boosts Babies’ Cognitive Development

Andrea Ballas and her son Matthew are participants in the study. Credit: Ross Neitz Most people have heard the old adage "an apple a day keeps the doctor away." It's an old truth that encompasses more than just apples—eating fruit in general is well known to reduce risk for a wide variety of [...]

Scientists Find Brain Region That Helps You Make Up Your Mind

Thinkstock One of the smallest parts of the brain is getting a second look after new research suggests it plays a crucial role in decision making. A University of British Columbia study published today in Nature Neuroscience says the lateral habenula, a region of the brain linked to depression and avoidance behaviors, has been largely [...]

How Kids Learn Resilience

Gillian Laub / Getty Images Here’s the problem: For all our talk about noncognitive skills, nobody has yet found a reliable way to teach kids to be grittier or more resilient. And it has become clear, at the same time, that the educators who are best able to engender noncognitive abilities in their [...]

Global Sleeping Patterns Revealed By App Data

Think Stock The world's sleeping patterns have been revealed by scientists analysing data collected from an app. It showed the Dutch have nearly an hour more in bed every night than people in Singapore or Japan. The study, published in Science Advances, also found women routinely get more sleep than men, with middle-aged [...]

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