A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Where in your brain do you exist? Is your awareness of the world around you and of yourself as an individual the result of specific, focused changes in your brain, or does that awareness come from a broad network of neural activity? How does your brain produce awareness? Vanderbilt University researchers took a significant step [...]
Pheromones are chemical signals that help animals to communicate. Members of the same species respond to each other's pheromone releases by changing a behaviour or undergoing a physiological change. For example male house mice pheromones trigger aggression in other males and speed up puberty in young female mice. Though pheromones have been discovered across the [...]
Following the tragic death of Robin Williams, Lifeline Australia saw a 25% increase in calls. When faced with someone in crisis, many people don’t know what to do, or how to help. Some are concerned about making things worse. This means many people don’t approach the person at all. The person in crisis may feel [...]
Our brains might be adapting to an emoticon-filled world by processing them differently. Today emoticons are so pervasive that behavioral science has taken an active interest in how people use them. Among the evidence (recently surveyedby Roni Jacobson at the great new Science of Usblog), we find that women use more emoticons than men, that using [...]
Nathan Mikaere Wallis is part of the Brain Wave Trust, and X Factor Education, Christchurch. He has been a lecturer at the Christchurch College of Education, lecturing in human development, brain development, language and communication and risk and resilience. Nathan has a background of working with children in counselling settings relating to domestic violence, sexual [...]
The recent SMH article outlining author Mem Fox's genuine concern about the increasing use of technology as a replacement for parental interaction with their kids was spot-on, and should raise alarm bells - but will it? I know I'm not Gen X, Y or Z - happy to admit I am a Baby Boomer - [...]
If you feel like talking to your fetus in the womb, a new study suggests you should: The research finds that babies develop a memory of words they hear frequently before they are born. via Babies may remember words heard before birth, research finds.
Alcohol intoxication reduces communication between two areas of the brain that work together to properly interpret and respond to social signals, according to researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine. via Alcohol breaks brain connections needed to process social cues.
90% of children play computer games. 10% of them are addicted. The dangers of computers games have been in the news again recently with the death of a teenager in Taiwan after playing for 40 hours straight without refreshments or leaving the computer. Internet computer games have and addictive dimension to them that some young [...]
The arrest and charging of a NSW teacher for engaging in sexually explicit conversations with a 14 year old girl in the USA has again brought to light the dangers of children ‘chatting’ to strangers online. Online predators are experts at internet grooming and luring young people into compromising situations that they are not able [...]
