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A Maternal Link to Alzheimer’s
The Wall Street Journal: People with an immediate family history of Alzheimer's disease are four to 10 times as likely to contract the condition. A new study now suggests the chances of getting Alzheimer's are higher if your mother had it than if your father had it. Jeffrey Burns, the director of the University of Kansas Medical Center's Alzheimer's and Memory Program, said the findings don't mean that children of mothers with Alzheimer's disease will develop the condition. "It's not clear on an individual basis how much this risk applies," he said. Read the whole story: The Wall Street Journal
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Men who glare angrily when someone spills their pint are ‘reverting to their caveman instinct’
The Daily Mail: Men who stare angrily when someone spills their pint are reverting to a caveman instinct to dominate, according to scientists. They are more likely to glare when they feel hard done by rather than seek to calm things down, a study said. And to avoid trouble, it is probably better to buy them a drink than get involved in a staring match. Read the whole story: The Daily Mail
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Why we can’t stop spending
Canadian Business: The dangerous paradox: Policy-makers have encouraged Canadians to keep spending, while decrying rising debt levels. Read the whole story: Canadian Business
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Full Bladder, Better Decisions? Controlling Your Bladder Decreases Impulsive Choices
What should you do when you really, REALLY have to “go”? Make important life decisions, maybe. Controlling your bladder makes you better at controlling yourself when making decisions about your future, too, according to a study to be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Sexual excitement, hunger, thirst—psychological scientists have found that activation of just one of these bodily desires can actually make people want other, seemingly unrelated, rewards more. Take, for example, a man who finds himself searching for a bag of potato chips after looking at sexy photos of women.
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More self-aware people quit smoking easier
CNN: How your brain responds to anti-smoking messages may be useful in helping to kick the habit, a new study in the journal Nature Neuroscience reports. "People who are more likely to potentially see the messages as relevant to them, they are more likely to quit," said lead author Hannah Faye Chua of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. "They could feel like, 'This is me, this is how I am right now, this is how I would like to change.'" Read the whole story: CNN
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Staring contests automatic among the aggressive
USA Today: Staring contests, that staple of junior high school and bar fights, are indeed linked to dominance behavior and appear to be reflexive. Primates use staring contests instead of fights to resolve dominance issues. Humans do the same -- staring down another person establishes who's on top, socially, in a situation. Sometimes it keeps a fight from happening, sometimes it leads to a fight. Read the whole story: USA Today
