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Video gaming children ‘more creative’
The Telegraph: Researchers at Michigan State University, in the United States, found that playing video games was linked to greater creativity, regardless of the type of game played. Linda Jackson, the professor of psychology at Michigan State who led the research, said that the findings should encourage game designers to try to discover what it is about video games that stimulates creativity. She said: "Once they do that, video games can be designed to optimize the development of creativity while retaining their entertainment values such that a new generation of video games will blur the distinction between education and entertainment." Read the whole story: The Telegraph
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A Brief Guide to Embodied Cognition: Why You Are Not Your Brain
Scientific American: Embodied cognition, the idea that the mind is not only connected to the body but that the body influences the mind, is one of the more counter-intuitive ideas in cognitive science. In sharp contrast is dualism, a theory of mind famously put forth by Rene Descartes in the 17th century when he claimed that “there is a great difference between mind and body, inasmuch as body is by nature always divisible, and the mind is entirely indivisible… the mind or soul of man is entirely different from the body.” In the proceeding centuries, the notion of the disembodied mind flourished.
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Dyslexia not related to intelligence, study finds
Los Angeles Times: One's intelligence appears unrelated to the specific brain pattern that causes dyslexia, researchers reported Thursday. The findings are important because they suggest that IQ shouldn't be considered by education specialists when diagnosing dyslexia. In fact, doing say may bar some children from receiving special education services to improve reading comprehension. The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, was undertaken because many educators diagnose dyslexia based on a lag between reading scores and overall IQ scores. Researchers, led by Dr. Fumiko Hoeft at Stanford University, measured brain activity in 131 children ages 7 to 16.
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Does Inequality Make Us Unhappy?
WIRED: Inequality is inevitable; life is a bell curve. Such are the brute facts of biology, which can only evolve because some living things are better at reproducing than others. But not all inequality is created equal. In recent years, it’s become clear that many kinds of wealth disparity are perfectly acceptable — capitalism could not exist otherwise — while alternate forms make us unhappy and angry. The bad news is that American society seems to be developing the wrong kind of inequality.
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HIV testing urged for teens
WXIA NBC: The American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends that all teens 16 to 18 years old receive regular, routine HIV tests if they live in an area where the prevalence of HIV is greater than 0.1 percent of the population. The AAP also advises that adolescents of any age who are tested for other sexually transmitted infections also be tested for HIV. Previous guidelines recommended HIV testing only for teens who admitted to being sexually active. The new recommendations were outlined in a position paper released Monday that also advocates that the routine screening be done using a rapid response test that gives a diagnosis about 20 minutes after the test is conducted.
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Fatty Foods Addictive Like Cocaine in Growing Body of Scientific Research
Bloomberg: Cupcakes may be addictive, just like cocaine. A growing body of medical research at leading universities and government laboratories suggests that processed foods and sugary drinks made by the likes of PepsiCo Inc. and Kraft Foods Inc. (KFT) aren’t simply unhealthy. They can hijack the brain in ways that resemble addictions to cocaine, nicotine and other drugs. “The data is so overwhelming the field has to accept it,” said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “We are finding tremendous overlap between drugs in the brain and food in the brain.” The idea that food may be addictive was barely on scientists’ radar a decade ago. Now the field is heating up.
