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Explain This: The Illusion Of Political Understanding
NPR: Should the United States impose unilateral sanctions on Iran for its nuclear program? Should we raise the retirement age for Social Security? Should we institute a national flat tax? How about implementing merit-based pay for teachers? Or establishing a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions? Plenty of people have strong opinions about complex policy issues like these. But few people have the detailed knowledge of policy or economics that a solid understanding of the issues seems to require. Where do these opinions come from, if not from careful analysis and deep understanding? A variety of uncharitable answers come to mind.
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Una sesión con la psicóloga de los superhéroes (A session with the psychologist of superheroes)
BBC: Durante el día, esta psicóloga clínica trabaja con la Universidad de California atendiendo a familias predominantemente hispanas en el Condado de Los Ángeles, Estados Unidos, asegurándose de que estén recibiendo un buen tratamiento. Pero luego, esta descendiente de ecuatorianos se cambia la bata por una capa y se convierte en la psicóloga de los superhéroes. "Soy profundamente fanática de los cómics, la ciencia ficción y la fantasía, y esto me permite combinar mi profesión y mi hobby", confiesa Letamendi en conversación con BBC Mundo. "El trabajo al que me dedico puede ser muy oscuro y tiene un tono profundo y pesado. ...
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Unexcited? There May Be a Pill for That
The New York Times: Linneah sat at a desk at the Center for Sexual Medicine at Sheppard Pratt in the suburbs of Baltimore and filled out a questionnaire. She read briskly, making swift checks beside her selected answers, and when she was finished, she handed the pages across the desk to Martina Miller, who gave her a round of pills. ... But the evidence for an inborn disparity in sexual motivation is debatable. A meta-analysis done by the psychologists Janet Hyde and Jennifer L. Petersen at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, incorporates more than 800 studies conducted between 1993 and 2007.
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The More You Think About Money, The Less People Like You
Business Insider: Subtle reminders of money can affect the way people behave in social settings, causing them to be less engaged with others, suggests new research. A group of researchers discussed results from ongoing investigations into how money impacts social relationships here at the 25th annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science (APS) on Sunday (May 26). "Money holds lots of different associations for different people," said Kathleen Vohs, an associate professor of marketing in the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, who moderated an APS panel on the topic.
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Texting before bed linked to higher stress
The Boston Globe: In a study of more than 500 people, those who used technology before bedtime reported higher levels of stress than those who didn't, LiveScience reports on May 29. But the association wasn't found with all forms of technology: emailing or watching television before bed wasn't linked with greater stress. Other non-stressful pre-bed activities? Reading a book and exercising. In the study, researcher Israel Arevalo, a former psychology student at University of Texas-Pan American, recruited 500 subjects ages 18 to 73 who completed an online survey. Read the whole story: The Boston Globe
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Older Adult Clumsiness Linked to Brain Changes
Seniors use less effective reference frames to visualize nearby objects For many older adults, the aging process seems to go hand-in-hand with an annoying increase in clumsiness — difficulties dialing a phone, fumbling with keys in a lock or knocking over the occasional wine glass while reaching for a salt shaker.
