As an eyewitness sits on the stand in a courtroom recalling details of an incident, how much of what he or she remembers actually happened?
False memories are a common occurrence in the courtroom and in everyday life, and have long been considered by psychologists as a side effect of efforts to boost memory. New research from Tufts University has answered the question of how to increase memory, without also increasing corresponding false memories.
“The better we understand
Researchers from Imperial College London and Charing Cross Hospital have discovered a way to help musicians improve their musical performances by an average of up to 17 per cent, equivalent to an improvement of one grade or class of honours.
The research published in this months edition of Neuroreport, shows that using a process known as neurofeedback, students at London’s Royal College of Music were able to improve their performance across a number of areas including their music
Leading public-health scientists highlight in a study in this week’s issue of THE LANCET how confronting major risk factors that lead to poor health could have a substantial effect in reducing premature deaths and morbidity globally-especially in the poorest areas of the world. This preventive approach would also reduce the prevailing health inequalities that exist between the world’s richest and poorest nations.
Majid Ezzati from the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, USA, Christophe
University of Delaware marine scientists are now working aboard the 420-foot U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy on a National Science Foundation project to track the fresh water flowing out of the Arctic Ocean into the Atlantic. This fresh water, from melting ice and rivers, affects the salinity and circulation of the ocean and thus has a major influence on the Earth’s climate.
“Freshwater discharge from the Arctic to the North Atlantic is a crucial factor controlling global climate,”
High temperature superconductor (HTS) devices could help the EU reduce its CO2 emissions by up to 52 million tonnes, equivalent to 65 per cent of its Kyoto Protocol commitment.
Teemu Hartikainen, Jorma Lehtonen and Risto Mikkonen from Tampere University of Technology, Finland have worked out how much European GHG emissions would be reduced if these devices were introduced. Their findings are published today (23 July) in the Institute of Physics journal Superconductor Science and Techn
People who are energetic, happy and relaxed are less likely to catch colds, while those who are depressed, nervous or angry are more likely to complain about cold symptoms, whether or not they get bitten by the cold bug, according to a recent study.
Study participants who had a positive emotional style weren’t infected as often and experienced fewer symptoms compared to people with a negative emotional style, say Sheldon Cohen, Ph.D., of Carnegie Mellon University and colleagues
Using the Internet at school for research can lead to teenagers losing their confidence and becoming frustrated, a new study suggests.
Most teenagers lack the more complex information gathering skills necessary for internet searching, ultimately using the Internet very inefficiently, says Dr Alison Pickard of Northumbria University who has just completed a four-year research study into the subject.
Her findings will be given next week at the 5th Northumbria International Conf
Individual genetic differences in drug metabolism in pain medication can lead to severe toxicity or therapeutic failure.
The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) defines pain as an “unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage or described in terms of such damage.” The current analgesic strategies for treating chronic pain and cancer pain are based on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 1990 analgesic ladder, in
Bigger and brighter isn’t better, at least not when trying to view moving objects.
That is the counter-intuitive result of a study performed by a team of Vanderbilt psychologists which sheds new light on one of the most sophisticated processes performed by the brain: identifying and tracking moving objects.
“The bigger an object, the easier it is to see. But it is actually harder for people to determine the motion of objects larger than a tennis ball held at arms length than
Results of a Johns Hopkins study suggest that natural chemicals released in the body as a result of chronic inflammation may underpin the failure of low-fat, so-called heart healthy diets to actually reduce cholesterol and heart disease risk in some people.
According to the study’s results, published in the July 15 issue of Circulation, measuring circulating blood levels of C-reactive protein — a marker of inflammation already linked to increased risk of heart disease — may pre
Brain scientists will have to rethink the current theory of how the visual processing region of the brain is organized to analyze basic information about the geometry of the environment, according to Duke neurobiologists. In a new study reported in the June 26, 2003, Nature, they studied the visual-processing region — called the visual cortex — of ferrets, as the animals’ brains responded to complex patterns.
The results, they said, indicated that clusters of neurons in that region
Yale researchers have, for the first time, identified two types of reading disability: a primarily inherent type with higher cognitive ability (poor readers who compensate for disability), and a more environmentally influenced type with lower cognitive skills and attendance at more disadvantaged schools (persistently poor readers).
The findings, published in the July 1 issue of Biological Psychiatry, show that compensated poor readers were able to overcome some of the disability, impr
Hypochondriasis, or excessive worry over one’s health, is a psychiatric disorder that can affect every aspect of a person’s life — especially interpersonal relationships. University of Iowa researchers are finding ways to study the condition and how it affects relationships, including patient-doctor interaction.
Hypochondriasis involves preoccupation with a fear of having or developing a serious illness, despite lack of physical evidence of illness. It affects 4 to 9 percent of f
Parents whose kids are allergic to peanuts may be relieved to know that it’s possible their children could outgrow their allergy over time.
In a study of 80 children ages 4 to 14 with well-documented peanut allergies, researchers at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and Arkansas Children’s Hospital found that some children completely lost their potentially serious or life-threatening allergy to peanuts, and that among those who did, there was a low risk of allergy recurr
U-M researchers report more effective method for separating viable sperm
A new technique to find the viable sperm in the semen of men with low sperm motility could lead to a new approach for infertility treatment, according to University of Michigan Health System researchers.
In a study published online and in the July/August issue of Reproductive BioMedicine Online (http://www.rbmonline.com), UMHS researchers used a microscopic chip divided into two channels to encourage vi
Not looks or money but rather life-long fidelity is what most people seek in an ideal mate, according to a Cornell University behavioral study that also confirmed the “likes-attract” theory: We tend to look for the same characteristics in others that we see in ourselves.
The study began when Cornell University students in an animal-behavior class conducted a scientific survey of 978 heterosexual residents of Ithaca, N.Y., ages 18-24. Hoping to learn whether likes attract, students asked the
Feedback
