“Knocking Down Straw Dolls: A Critique of Cynthia Eller’s The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Won’t Give Women a Future”

“We know of many societies that did not confine, seclude, veil, or bind female bodies, nor…

“Surprising Cause of Most ‘Spider Bites’”

“The vast majority of “spider bites” are caused by something else, research shows. One study Vetter cited found that of 182 Southern California patients seeking treatment for spider bites, only 3.8 percent had actual spider bites, while 85.7 percent had…

“Your Speech Is Packed With Misunderstood, Unconscious Messages”

“Many scientists, though, think that our cultural fixation with stamping out what they call “disfluencies” is deeply misguided. Saying um is no character flaw, but an organic feature of speech; far from distracting…

“The problem with p-values”

“The problem of how to distinguish a genuine observation from random chance is a very old one. It’s been debated for centuries by philosophers and, more fruitfully, by statisticians. It turns on the distinction between induction and deduction. Science is an exercise in inductive…

“The late effects of stress: New insights into how the brain responds to trauma”

“In their recent study, Chattarji’s team has established that the new nerve connections in the amygdala lead to heightened electrical activity in this region of the brain.

“Why Physicists Are Saying Consciousness Is A State Of Matter, Like a Solid, A Liquid Or A Gas”

“In 2008, Tononi proposed that a system demonstrating consciousness must have two specific traits. First, the system must be able to store and process large amounts of…

“A disability is a mismatch between a person’s abilities and their environment”

“Even the most physically-based disability is impairing only to the extent that the culture allows it to be. In a culture without paved roads, wheelchairs, and wheelchair accessible buildings…

“Vitamin D Intake Needed to Maintain Target Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D Concentrations in Participants with Low Sun Exposure and Dark Skin Pigmentation Is Substantially Higher Than Current Recommendations”

“Noise Is a Drug and New York Is Full of Addicts”

“What was going on, the researchers believed, was that the moderate level of noise induced processing disfluency, defined as the loss of “the subjective experience of ease or speed in processing information.” Processing disfluency is basically…

“We Are All Princes, Paupers, and Part of the Human Family”

“Chances are, if you have a famous ancestor far enough back that finding out about them is a surprise, you share them with a small city of other people. And the farther back you go, the truer that is. In 2004, statistician…