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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.
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How Social Is Social Networking?
I like Facebook. I’ve been signing into the site fairly regularly for a couple years now, and it has become my large extended family’s primary form of communication. It also keeps me connected with friends and former colleagues—people I like a lot but would never stay in touch with otherwise. We share photos, update personal news, comment on politics and pop culture—nothing serious, but it’s still more connection than I would have in a previous era. In that sense, Facebook is certainly a social lubricant for many of its 500 million users, facilitating fast and effortless and widespread connection. But does this innovative technology actually change the quality and texture of relationships?
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How We Create False Memories: Assessing Memory Performance in Older Adults
A study at Tufts University addresses the influence of age-related stereotypes on memory performance and memory errors in older adults.
