Sex Differences

Why is this blog post ‘merely an introduction’? Because despite the interchangeable use of the the two words, ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ are not the same thing and they are also somewhat complex. This post will introduce you to the basic discourse around this highly fascinating and confusing subject. Starting with…

What is a habit and are the odds stacked for or against us? — What Is a Habit and Why Even Have Them?! When something becomes a habit (i.e. automatic) it frees up cognitive resources for other things. Creating habits can literally help you become more efficient and do more with the same time and resources; who doesn’t want that? Now, that’s wonderful when we create ‘good’ or ‘positive’ habits. …

In an extremely short span of time, evolutionary psychology has come to occupy the public imagination in a manner that perhaps only a few fields have. It’s not surprising that most of the psychology “hot takes” featuring in pop-culture magazines stem from poorly researched evolutionary psychology papers with extremely small…

A Hot Topic Made Fun — Your Immune System: Maybe You’re Born With It, Maybe It’s Lifestyle The crisp cool air is starting to come around… Well, at least for us in the North Pole! With this air comes thoughts of colds, coughs, and all those little germs kids tend to spread around with their boogers. The truth is we can get sick all year round and…

A review of studies in the life sciences shows that inappropriate statistical approaches may distort conclusions on sex differences. — Biomedical research has a long history of including only men or male laboratory animals in studies. To address this disparity, the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) rolled out a policy in 2016 called Sex as a Biological Variable (or SABV). The policy requires researchers funded by the NIH…

Authors: Maria Tokuyama, PhD, Assistant Professor at UBC Microbiology & Immunology; Joshua Mao, University of California Berkeley, Summer Intern at the Tokuyama Lab, UBC Microbiology & Immunology Since March 2020, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has drastically changed our lives and has killed over four million people worldwide…

Men’s risk of dying increases when they become widows but straight women’s mortality risk is unchanged by the death of their husband (Moon et al., 2011). Emotional intelligence (EI) by Angela Phan (May 22, 2021) Emotional Intelligence is “the ability to identify and manage one’s own emotions, as well as the emotions of others.” Individuals with EI are able…