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Why you forgot what you were just doing
msnbc: Have you ever walked into a room and realized you don’t remember what you’re doing there? Yeah, us too. Well thankfully science finally explains why: It’s the doorway’s fault, a new study finds. “When you go from room to room, your brain identifies each room as a new event and sets a new memory trace to capture the new event,” says study author Gabriel Radvansky, Ph.D., a psychology professor at the University of Notre Dame. Like a chapter marker, doorways end old episodes and begin new ones, as far as your brain is concerned. This makes it difficult to retrieve older memories because they’ve already been filed away, Radvansky says. Read the full story: msnbc
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Sex on the Brain
Slate: Are male brains different from female brains? If so, how? And does it matter? This week, five researchers debated these questions at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. Their panel session, “The Promise and Peril of Research on Sex Differences,” didn’t settle the controversy, because it isn’t binary, and evidence is complex. But the exchange did clarify common mistakes to watch out for. Here’s a guide. Read the whole story: Slate
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Right-handed people don’t care for reggae
msnbc: The hand you use to write, brush your teeth, and throw a ball may also tip people off to your taste in music, a new study reveals. An Ohio researcher has found that people with a strong preference for using their right hand for most everything they do, seem to like popular types of music and tend to shy away from less familiar genres, especially bluegrass and reggae. Strong righties, the study suggests, may be less open to new musical experiences and tend to gravitate toward styles they're more familiar with. Read the whole story: msnbc
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Does The Military Make The Man Or Does The Man Make The Military?
“Be all you can be,” the Army tells potential recruits. The military promises personal reinvention. But does it deliver? A new study, which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that personality does change a little after military service - German conscripts come out of the military less agreeable than their peers who chose civilian service. It’s hard to do long-term studies on how personalities change.
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What You Want In A Mate May Not Actually Be What You Want, Study Suggests
The Huffington Post: Think you know what you want in a mate? That may not matter when it comes to actually choosing one, a new study suggests. "People have ideas about the abstract qualities they're looking for in a romantic partner," study researcher Paul W. Eastwick, an assistant professor of psychology at Texas A&M University, said in a statement.
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Seven healthy sins: Some of the bad things you’ve been warned about may actually be good for you
Canada.com: Everything in moderation. I think of those three words as my mother's superhero buzz-phrase. Not quite as catchy as Bart Simpson's "Don't have a cow, man," or Captain Marvel's "Shazam!" but possibly more instructive. After decades of scare stories on TV and in magazines and newspapers about the dangers of red meat, alcohol, marijuana and sexually transmitted diseases, it's a wonder anyone even gets out of bed in the morning. It's dangerous out there. Liquor, red meat and anger can seriously harm you. And let us not forget the moral, legal and medical complications that travel hand-in-glove with marijuana and sex.
