Psychology Archives - ScienceNOW

16 March 2000 | ScienceNOW

Sex and the Schizophrenic

by Constance Holden

Using state-of-the-art imaging, a Johns Hopkins University team has identified a brain abnormality in male schizophrenics that could help explain why the disease looks different in men and women. Men...

14 January 2000 | ScienceNOW

Spotting Bad Seeds

by Constance Holden

A few youngsters start a career of antisocial behavior early in life--destroying property, being cruel to animals, or getting booted out of grade school for fighting. At least some troublemakers,...

4 January 2000 | ScienceNOW

Moon Mystery Solved?

by Charles Seife

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's illusion ... and a point of contention for scientists. For decades, neuropsychologists have been arguing about what makes...

7 December 1999 | ScienceNOW

Language Lessons

by Science News Staff

Today is the 71st birthday of Noam Chomsky, considered by many to be the most influential linguist of the 20th century. Chomsky revolutionized the field of theoretical linguistics in 1957...

27 October 1999 | ScienceNOW

Testosterone May Be Addictive

by Laura Helmuth

MIAMI BEACH, FLORIDA--Some athletes and bodybuilders pump themselves with anabolic steroids, compounds that mimic or stimulate the hormone testosterone, to bulk up fast. New research presented yesterday at the Society...

27 October 1999 | ScienceNOW

Fixing Drug-Addled Brains

by Laura Helmuth

MIAMI BEACH, FLORIDA--Scientists have restored the short-term memory of monkeys whose brains were damaged by amphetamines. The finding, presented here today at the Society for Neuroscience's annual meeting, raises hopes...

27 September 1999 | ScienceNOW

Those Virtual Lyin' Eyes

by Laura Helmuth

A new game challenges Netizens to mask their identities and strip others' online masks away. In the Turing Game, a takeoff on the 1970s game show To Tell the Truth,...

29 July 1999 | ScienceNOW

Requiem for the Mozart Effect?

by Dana Mackenzie

A popular theory that listening to Mozart will improve your reasoning skills has taken a hit this month. After trying to replicate the original research on which the theory was...

21 July 1999 | ScienceNOW

Genes Make Chimps Glad or Sad

by Constance Holden

Happiness in chimps, as in humans, is strongly influenced by their genetic makeup, according to researchers at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Scientists say such findings demonstrate the usefulness of...

23 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Beauty in the Hormones of the Beholder

by Gretchen Vogel

What makes a guy handsome? That depends on a woman's period, researchers report in tomorrow's issue of Nature. During days of the month when they are likely to conceive, women...

16 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

The Fine Art of Chimpanzee Culture

by Gretchen Vogel

When they talk about culture, most people mean human things like art, music, and clothing styles. But in tomorrow's Nature, a group of researchers who have spend years observing chimpanzees...

11 May 1999 | ScienceNOW

Rehab for Psychology Mag

by Constance Holden

Having been transformed from a powerful voice on the science of the mind to a self-help mag, Psychology Today is about to get some therapy of its own. The bimonthly...

1 April 1999 | ScienceNOW

Testing the Mind's Eye

by Marcia Barinaga

It's a decades-old question in cognitive psychology: Does the brain process an imagined object the same way it does a real one? A report in tomorrow's Science may provide the...

23 March 1999 | ScienceNOW

Coffee Cravers Are Not Addicts

by Robert F. Service

ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA--Sure, we may have a few jitters and facial tics. But fellow caffeine drinkers: Rest easy. Animal studies, presented here yesterday at a meeting of the American Chemical Society,...

3 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Half-Brained Ducks in a Row

by Dana Mackenzie

Birds have developed an ability that any student who's ever pulled an all-nighter would envy: the ability to let half their brain sleep while keeping the other half awake. In...

28 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Grammar's Secret Skeleton

by Kathryn S. Brown

ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA--It's been more than 3 decades since scientist-dissident Noam Chomsky offered a controversial theory: that babies learn how to speak so easily because they're born with a sense of...

20 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Man of Backbone

by Science News Staff

Today is the birthday of Vladimir Mikhaylovich Bekhterev, a Russian neurophysiologist and psychiatrist born in 1857 who helped elucidate the structure and diseases of the central nervous system. Bekhterev is...

8 October 1998 | ScienceNOW

Clocking Cocaine Addiction

by Jennifer Couzin-Frankel

By plying rats with cocaine, researchers have inched closer to defining the boundary between drug use and addiction. Their study, published in tomorrow's issue of Science, shows that rats crave...

7 October 1998 | ScienceNOW

Thinking the Unthinkable

by Jennifer Couzin-Frankel

Scientists have shown that the human brain is engaged by words and numbers flashed so fast that they don't have time to register in a person's consciousness. The findings, which...

1 September 1998 | ScienceNOW

Internet Hazardous to One's Social Health?

by Kevin Boyd

The old adage that too much of a good thing can be bad for you may hold for Internet users, according to a new study. The research, published in the...

17 August 1998 | ScienceNOW

What Spock Heard

by David Kestenbaum

Understanding the cadences and accents of a foreign language can take years. But getting used to a new pair of ears turns out to be much easier. People who wear...

7 August 1998 | ScienceNOW

Time-Saving Memory Loss

by Science News Staff

You may think you remember every nook and cranny where you looked for those lost car keys. But a report in the current Nature suggests otherwise: The brain, it seems,...

5 August 1998 | ScienceNOW

Cocaine High Blocked by Epilepsy Drug

by Science News Staff

An epilepsy drug used in Europe eliminates key signs of cocaine addiction in baboons and rats, according to a study in this week's Synapse. If confirmed in human studies, the...

29 June 1998 | ScienceNOW

UFOs Get Respectful Hearing

by Science News Staff

Few scientists give much thought to UFOs, but UFO tales received a serious 4-day hearing by nine senior physical scientists at a workshop late last year. In a report released...

29 June 1998 | ScienceNOW

Heroin Relapse Ups Overdose Threat

by Science News Staff

Heroin users appear to run a higher risk of dying if they abstain from taking the drug for a few months then resume shooting up. Experts say the finding, reported...

25 June 1998 | ScienceNOW

Clearer Sounds From Picky Ears

by Science News Staff

Consonants are critical for telling words apart, and everyone occasionally mishears them--sometimes with comical results. But such confusion is no laughing matter for the 3.5 million children in the United...

18 June 1998 | ScienceNOW

Talking Up Risky Behavior to Ward Off HIV

by Science News Staff

Educating people at high risk for HIV infection succeeds in getting them to engage in safer sex. Experts say the finding, reported in tomorrow's issue of Science, bodes well for...

11 June 1998 | ScienceNOW

Why Young Brains Lack Caution

by Science News Staff

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS--"No fear." It's the brazen brand name of youth-oriented fitness gear. Now brain scans have revealed some truth behind the hype: Teenage brains, it appears, have not fully developed...

9 June 1998 | ScienceNOW

U.S. Researchers Talk Up Giving Heroin to Addicts

by Science News Staff

Following a meeting last weekend in New York, a cadre of researchers and others involved in drug treatment are skirting treacherous political waters: They want to design the first study...

13 May 1998 | ScienceNOW

Pathway to Addiction

by Science News Staff

Researchers have the first strong evidence that a brain chemical called serotonin plays an important role in drug addiction. A report in tomorrow's Nature shows that genetically engineered mice whose...

7 May 1998 | ScienceNOW

Split Brain Separates Writing, Speech

by Science News Staff

The mental centers for speech and writing, long thought to be in the same side of the brain, can reside in different hemispheres. This surprising finding, reported in tomorrow's Science,...

15 April 1998 | ScienceNOW

Test Gauges Tolerance for Job Stress

by Science News Staff

Air traffic controllers and emergency dispatchers must make critical decisions while being deluged with information. Now researchers have devised a test that accurately measures the cool, quick judgment needed to...

14 April 1998 | ScienceNOW

Dozing Brain Studies Hard

by Science News Staff

SAN FRANCISCO--Forget the clever mnemonics and untie that string around your finger. If you really need to learn something, get a good night's sleep. Researchers have found that two types...

10 April 1998 | ScienceNOW

Dreaming Brains Like Loose Concepts

by Science News Staff

SAN FRANCISCO--Ever wonder why your dreams can be so freakish? It's because your thought patterns are also bizarre in never-never land. Researchers have shown that concepts are more disjointed during...

3 April 1998 | ScienceNOW

But Officer, It Was the Fog

by Science News Staff

Thick fog poses an obvious traffic hazard--you can't see very far. Now scientists have identified a surprising danger of driving in pea soup: The lack of contrast makes high speeds...

23 December 1997 | ScienceNOW

Toxic Microbe Befuddles Rats

by Science News Staff

To the victims of Pfiesteria, a toxic marine microorganism that has killed scads of fish and sickened some people from Delaware to the Gulf of Mexico, add laboratory rats. In...

21 November 1997 | ScienceNOW

The Pathogenic Legacy of Combat

by Science News Staff

Vietnam veterans who endured heavy combat and were later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) are significantly more likely than other vets to suffer from a variety of chronic diseases...

20 November 1997 | ScienceNOW

Sizing Up Visual Memory

by Science News Staff

Anyone who's ever crammed just before an exam knows that you can't fit many facts into short-term memory. In fact, the space limit seems to be about seven words or...

3 October 1997 | ScienceNOW

Study Finds Students Like a Good Show

by Science News Staff

An enthusiastic teaching style is more important to students than what's taught, according to a recent study at Cornell University. The authors say the study casts doubt on the validity...

1 October 1997 | ScienceNOW

No Respect for Male Wasps

by Science News Staff

The battle between the sexes in human society may pale in comparison to the one raging among wasps, according to a study in tomorrow's issue of Nature. Female paper wasps,...

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