“A specially prepared extract of the herb St John’s wort is at least as effective in treating depression as the powerful antidepressant drug Seroxat and has fewer side-effects, a study has indicated.”
For a little more background on St John’s wort (left) have a look at the Netdoctor site.
> From Netdoctor
The Guardian asks leading scientist to gaze into their crystal balls and ruminate on the next scientific revolution. V S Ramachandran, the neuroscientist, comes up with my favourite quote:
“The next revolution will be understanding the organ that made all the previous revolutions possible. Your mind, your ambitions, your love life, even what you regard as yourself, all of it is the activity of little wisps of jelly in your head. Once we figure out the code, that’s going to be a big revolution and another humbling experience. The ultimate triumph of the human mind is to understand what the mind is.”
> From The Guardian
Bad BBC News! Bad! Bad! The idea that the left hemisphere of the brain is solely responsible for language functions is wrong. The idea that the brains of all left-handers are functionally reversed is wrong. The idea that left-handers are likely to die younger or are more susceptible to disease is also wrong. The BBC news site manages to make two of these mistakes in reporting research from Nature Neuroscience.
The first two of these popular ideas, as ever, have a kernal of truth but are considerable simplifications of a complicated picture. The last idea is just plain wrong. If you don’t believe me then read Chris McManus’ excellent ‘Right Hand, Left Hand‘.
> From the (usually excellent) BBC News site
The green box contains a brand new rat neuron. Why is this important? Well, until quite recently researchers were unsure of two things: whether it’s possible for the brain to change and whether it can grow new cells. With the help of rats and monks, the answer is emerging: quite possibly yes.
This phenomenon is called neuroplasticity and is all the rage in neuropsychology at the moment. As none of us are getting any younger, it’s good to know our brains still have the capacity for change.
> Read about rats in Science Daily, and monks in the Orlando Sentinel
Ecstasy’s emergence as a popular recreational drug can be traced back to one man. Although the drug was first synthesised by Merck in 1914, it was initially thought to be useless, and immediately forgotten. It wasn’t until 1976 that an eccentric chemist, Alexander Shulgin (above), resynthesised it on the suggestion of a former student.
Shulgin wasn’t particularly impressed with its effect, describing it as being like “…a particularly lucid alcohol buzz,” but he did find that, “It opened up a person, both to other people and inner thoughts…” He wondered if perhaps it would be useful in psychotherapy and recommended its use. By the late 70s a number of therapists were encouraging their patients to use it – and with some success. In the following decades word eventually spread, and its recreational use began to take off.
Meanwhile Shulgin continued to research hallucinogens, synthesising and testing them first on himself, then on his wife and friends. He carefully catalogued the effects of every single one in his self-published works, ‘Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved,’ and ‘Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved’.
Unsurprisingly, Shulgin has now become a hero of the counter-culture.
> From The New York Times [Free registration required]
With changes proposed to the licensing laws in the UK there’s been lots of talk about binge drinking. The suggestion is that opening the pubs and bars at all hours will encourage binge drinking.
This is the same as saying that increasing the number of gyms will make us more healthy, or lowering the price of sofas will make us more lazy, or paying lawyers the same as binmen will decrease their number and make us less litigious and argumentative.
The answer to all these: it might but it won’t necessarily.
Research carried out on students into binge drinking – and after all these guys are professionals – suggests that it has much more to do with our expectations for drinking. The student’s belief that it made them more attractive, socially inviting and articulate, was directly predicting how much they drank.
Remember, reality is often not as important as our beliefs in affecting our behaviour.
> The abstract from the Journal of Addictive Behaviours
> You can check whether you’re a binge drinker on the BBC site
“A controversial bill to reform mental health law is so draconian, unethical and impractical that ministers should scrap it and start afresh, doctors’ leaders said today.”
> From The Guardian
My Dad is occasionally heard to mutter that TV programmes nowadays can’t compete with the adverts. In this case, he’s right.
> From The Guardian, you can download the ad here.
“Both men and women judge a tall female on first sight as more intelligent, assertive, independent and ambitious. For good measure, they are also judged richer and more successful, whatever the reality.”
> From The Independent
According to this report on BBC News there are 3,000 businesses in the UK that use graphology (handwriting analysis) as part of the recruitment process. I am astounded.
Back when I was at school, I had an English teacher who was learning graphology. She took a look at my scrawling and told me that I was becoming more outgoing. I was astounded, how could she tell that just from handwriting? Then she stopped, looked at it again and corrected herself. Or, she said, perhaps it’s the opposite.
Obviously this is only anecdotal evidence, but what else is there? Well, after reviewing the research, the British Psychological Society has ranked all the procedures used in personnel selection in order of validity. Graphology shares its ranking position with astrology: zero validity.
So if your organisation uses this as a method of selecting new recruits, and you don’t work for the British Institute of Graphologists, then it’s time to think again.
» Read on about the connections between handwriting and personality.
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