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The American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting
The AAAS annual meeting will be held February 16-20, 2012 in Vancouver, Canada. This year’s theme will be “Flattening the World: Building a Global Knowledge Society.” For more information visit http://www.aaas.org/meetings/.
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fMRIs Show That Dyslexia Isn’t A Matter of IQ
A brain-imaging study challenges a common understanding of dyslexia, showing that the reading difficulties associated with dyslexia are not related to IQ.
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The Psychology of Caffeine
In case you missed it, the cameras were rolling at the APS 23rd Annual Convention in Washington, DC. Watch Elsa Carodenuto from Butler University present her poster session research on the “Effects of Caffeine on Relationships.” I'm Elsa Carodenuto from Butler University, and I presented my research at the APS 23rd Annual Convention in Washington, DC. Elsa Carodenuto, along with Michael Leider and APS Charter Member John N. Bohannon III, asked 72 participants to recall memories of failed relationships including first meetings, first kisses, and break ups. Half of the participants received a caffeinated drink beforehand.
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How a Mother’s Love May Counter the Negative Health Effects of Poverty
TIME: Being raised in poverty can have lifelong negative effects on children's health, increasing their risk of chronic disease in adulthood. But new research suggests one factor that may help protect poor kids from later illness: having a nurturing mother. Growing up poor is stressful, and chronic stress is known to impact physical health long term. Research finds that poor kids are more likely to develop metabolic syndrome — a collection of risk factors that may lead to Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke — compared with their wealthier peers, for example. Read the full story: TIME
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Dan Ariely: How to Pay People
Bloomberg Businessweek: Most of the time, when you hire people you don’t want to specify exactly what they are to do and how much they would get paid—you don’t want to say if you do X you will get this much, and if you do Y you will get that much. That type of contract is what we call a complete contract. Creating one is basically impossible, especially with higher-level jobs. If you try to do it, you cause “crowding out.” People focus on everything you’ve included and exclude everything else. What’s left out of the contract tends to drop out of their motivation as well. You are taking away from their judgment and goodwill and teaching them to be like rats in a maze.
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Winners of MacArthur Foundation award include 10 people who focus on science
The Washington Post: Nine scientists and a science radio host were among the 22 people who received $500,000 MacArthur “genius” grants last week. Each year the MacArthur Foundation gives the no-strings-attached awards to innovative thinkers “to advance their expertise, engage in bold new work, or, if they wish, to change fields or alter the direction of their careers.” The 10 science-affiliated winners include: Matthew Nock, a clinical psychologist at Harvard, who studies suicide and self-injury in adults and adolescents and is seeking to disentangle the neurobiological aspects of self-harming behaviors from those that are dependent on cultural context.
