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Neu­ro­science used to be the monop­oly of a few elite uni­ver­si­ties locat­ed in a hand­ful of coun­tries. Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy used to be a quaint niche dis­ci­pline rel­a­tive­ly uncon­nect­ed to the larg­er world of neu­ro­science and con­tent in its meth­ods with paper-and-pen­cil tests. Read the rest of this entry »

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Mar­i­an Dia­mond, neu­ro­sci­en­tist who gave new mean­ing to ‘use it or lose it,’ dies at 90 (The Wash­ing­ton Post):

“Mar­i­an Dia­mond, a path­break­ing neu­ro­sci­en­tist whose research — includ­ing a study of Albert Einstein’s pre­served brain — showed that the body’s three-pound seat of con­scious­ness was a dynam­ic struc­ture of beau­ti­ful com­plex­i­ty, capa­ble of devel­op­ment even in old age, died July 25 at an assist­ed-liv­ing com­mu­ni­ty in Oak­land, Calif. She was 90 Read the rest of this entry »

Neu­ro­sci­en­tists attack ‘off-course’ human brain project (BBC News):

“Senior neu­ro­sci­en­tists have attacked the Human Brain Project, a bil­lion-pound Euro­pean Com­mis­sion ini­tia­tive aim­ing to sim­u­late the human brain. An open let­ter to the EC from over 200 sci­en­tists says the project is “not on course”, Read the rest of this entry »

I like to think of myself as a pos­i­tive and opti­mistic per­son. It seems to me to make for an eas­i­er and more enjoy­able jour­ney through life. So I was intrigued when I read of neu­ro­sci­en­tist Tali Sharot’s research into the Opti­mism Bias, which has shown that despite all the bad news sto­ries we are bom­bard­ed with on a dai­ly basis: war, vio­lence, wrong-doing and finan­cial melt­down, the major­i­ty of us are opti­mistic by nature; our brains are hard­wired to be so. It’s a fas­ci­nat­ing con­cept and one I had to find out more about, so I bought the book and met with Tali in her office at Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Lon­don for an enthralling dis­cus­sion. Read the rest of this entry »

A few days ago we pub­lished the first and sec­ond install­ments of this Peace Among Pri­mates series, by neu­ro­sci­en­tist Robert Sapol­sky. Today we pub­lish the third and final one.

Peace Among Pri­mates (Part 3)

Any­one who says peace is not part of human nature knows too lit­tle about pri­mates, includ­ing our­selves.

–By Robert M. Sapol­sky

Nat­ur­al born killers?

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