dsgood has found some good ones today

[novapsyche]

Where the brain makes sense of speech

The GABAA receptor -- a memory bane?

Traffic jam mystery solved by mathematicians

Parents show bias in sibling rivalry, says study

Jingle bells not merry for tone-deaf individuals -- "[T]one-deaf or amusic individuals have more grey matter in specific regions of the brain related to processing musical pitch, namely the right interior frontal gyrus and the right auditory cortex, as compared to those who are musically intact."

Twins study shows genetic basis for face and place recognition -- "New evidence suggests our brains are hardwired before birth to recognize faces and places. But in contrast, the neural circuitry we use to recognize words develops mainly as a result of experience."

Comments

[eposia.livejournal.com]

Gaaah! That beetle one is so infuriating. Shoddy science. No actual data showing how the beetle behavior directly denotes human behavior. Not like articles like that don't happen all the time, but still. Grr.

[dionysus1999.livejournal.com]

Yeah, bad science gets reported all the time.

[timiathan.livejournal.com]

They really needed a team of mathematicians to figure out what causes traffic jams? Gimme a break. All it took me to figure that out was about a week of driving in LA. They only have half of the coin, though -- the amplifying wave of braking due to slow reaction times is also magnified by slow acceleration. The more one driver breaks and slows down, the longer it takes the car to get back up to speed, making it more likely that the car behind it will have to brake even harder.

And that twin study is nothing new; saying the word "new" in every sentence doesn't make the conclusion any newer. We were talking about that 10 years ago when I was in college.

Is it me, or is science getting more and more pathetic?

[dionysus1999.livejournal.com]

I think it's science reporting that's getting more pathetic. I remember reading about the theory of wave fronts in traffic years ago, this is nothing new, it's a retread story.

[blackwinterbyrd.livejournal.com]

I know right? I intuited that as a child sitting on Chicago expressways for hours at a time, watching the pattern of brake lights. I decided that individual reaction times leave tiny gaps of stoppedness that add up to total gridlock.

[blackwinterbyrd.livejournal.com]

that must suck.
I have yet to meet anyone who "does not like music."