A meta-analysis of 112 studies, just published in the journal Addiction, concludes "without a doubt that alcohol taxes and prices affect drinking," according to lead author Alexander Wagenaar, a professor of epidemiology and health policy research at the University of Florida College of Medicine. "When prices go down, people drink more, and when prices go up, people drink less." This dynamic applies "to not only overall consumption, but also measures of heavy drinking," University of Chicago economist Frank Chaloupka notes in an accompanying commentary. "These findings provide a strong ... Read More
Stevie Wonder’s Camera Finally Arrives
January 12, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
Back when "Saturday Night Live" might have as many as two funny sketches in a single show (that would be 26 years ago), it presented a faux ad for the "Kannon AE-1," a camera so simple even Stevie Wonder could use it. The upshot was that the blind musician, shown taking photos of tennis great John Newcombe, couldn't really use the camera properly. (We'd show it to you, but NBC Universal prefers we didn't.) Roughly around the time of that skit's debut, Elizabeth Goldring at MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies, started work on a "seeing machine" for the blind. Goldring — who ... Read More
Obesity Benefits the Oil Barons
January 12, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
Two University of Illinois researchers estimate that as many as 1 billion gallons of fuel are consumed each year in the United States due to excess weight in the American population. The recently published study in the journal Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment says between 734 million and 1.104 billion gallons of fuel could be saved annually through improved fuel economy if weights of all overweight, obese and extremely obese Americans could be reduced to their maximum normal body mass index. Quantitatively, that's a large volume of fuel, but compared to the 75 ... Read More
Revenge Counterproductive, Sayeth the Scholars
January 5, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
From Hamlet to Sweeney Todd, some of our greatest theatrical characters have been motivated by the quest for vengeance. That their obsessions led only to greater tragedy has not tempered our belief that enacting revenge can lead to sweet satisfaction. In fact, getting even often makes us feel worse, according to a paper entitled "The Paradoxical Consequences of Revenge," just published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. A research team led by psychologist Kevin Carlsmith of Colgate University conducted a series of tests in which college students were given a chance to earn ... Read More
Power Reduces Compassion
January 5, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
As the philosopher Mel Brooks once remarked, it's good to be king. But does being king make you good? Two new studies suggest power tends to make people less compassionate — with the exception of one specific situation. Power may or may not corrupt, but it definitely dulls our emotional response to other people’s suffering. That’s the conclusion of a paper published in the December issue of the journal Psychological Science. A group of scholars led by psychologist Gerben van Kleef of the University of Amsterdam assembled a group of undergraduates who, after filling out a ... Read More
Ebola — Yes, Ebola — Found in Livestock
December 26, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment
World health community invited to observe handling of outbreak of a dreaded disease. Scientific and health experts have been invited to the Philippines to investigate its government's first-ever findings of the dreaded Ebola virus in swine, discovered in four hog farms in Luzon two weeks ago. Pigs showing signs of illness were tested, and samples were sent to New York's USDA Plum Island facility where tests for the Ebola-Reston strain came back positive. This is the first time that this strain of Ebola — one that is not harmful to humans — has been in discovered in swine in the ... Read More
We Eat More When We Eat Out
December 19, 2008 • By • 7 Comments
Could Ronald McDonald be getting a bum rap? A new study shows that meals eaten at sit-down restaurants typically have more calories than those offered by fast-food franchises. But that doesn’t mean dieters should rush off to the golden arches. The research also finds that people who eat restaurant meals tend to consume less food for the rest of the day, partially negating their excess caloric intake. This is far less true of those who have eaten fast-food meals. Due to this dynamic, “fast food may ultimately result in more calories,” concludes the study, published in the Review of ... Read More
Note to Guys: Women Prefer Prestige
December 18, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment
A team of researchers led by anthropologist Jeffrey Snyder of the University of California, Los Angeles, has concluded that, when women rank men in terms of desirability, prestige is a far more important factor than dominance. They found that “women preferred targets on whom peers conferred prestige-based status because of specific knowledge or skills to targets who achieved dominance-based status through strategies of force or the threat of force.” Their paper, just published in the journal Personal Relationships, describes three studies of female college students. In the first of ... Read More
Brain Injuries Linked to Spirituality
December 18, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment
Two University of Missouri psychologists are proposing"a neurophysiological model of spiritual experience" that explains what is happening inside the brain when people experience feelings of selflessness and transcendence. The model “suggests that all individuals, regardless of cultural background or religion, experience the same neurophysiological / neuropsychological functions during spiritual experiences,” according to co-authors Brick Johnstone and Bret A. Glass. It also attempts to explain why these brain activities are interpreted in such different ways by people from different ... Read More
