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Robert Alison
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The many human benefits of stress
Stress boosts brainpower. It enhances memory and makes people more alert. Accumulating research confirms the beneficial effects stemming from confronting stressful circumstances. It seems that dealing with stress makes the human brain stronger. By contrast, cognitive sharpness wanes in those whose lives are comparatively stress-free. "Predictable chronic mild stress (PCMS)... is beneficial to the adult brain... (and) leads to enhanced memory," write researchers V.K. Panbar, B. Hattiangudy and their colleagues. "(Stress) increases hippocampal neurogenesis and improves mood and cognitive function."View Full Column | 05/4/2013 1:00 AM | 0
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Human beings are born bigots
VICTORIA -- Discrimination and prejudice are inherent genetically encoded biases already in place in the brain circuitry of young infants, researchers claim. Psychologists conclude intolerance of societal heterogeneity is an innate element of the human mindset, starting virtually at birth. "A central feature of human psychology is our pervasive tendency to divide the social world into 'us' and 'them,' " explained Neha Mahajan of Temple University and Karen Wynn of Yale University. "There is a phenomenon of in-group bias and enhanced interpersonal attraction toward those who resemble ourselves."View Full Column | 03/25/2013 1:00 AM | 0
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'Trying' to learn is failing
VICTORIA -- In its recent report, Hipster isn't a real job, the B.C. government lambastes graduates, inferring they are lazy, disaffected scroungers who perform menial jobs despite holding advanced degrees from prestigious universities. Holding one or more advanced university degrees no longer necessarily leads to a high-profile job. Quite the contrary. Employers contend that graduates are not being hired because they lack the necessary individual skills.View Full Column | 03/11/2013 1:00 AM | 0
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When 'there were no chiefs'
Pre-colonial North American native societies were almost exclusively individualistic. There was no formal government, nobody in charge. Peoples' behaviours were not forged, shaped or ordered by any sort of sovereign political entity. The concept of elected officialdom in native communities, however, was imposed by federal authorities more than a century ago, not without some enduring repercussions.View Full Column | 02/2/2013 1:00 AM | 0
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Marriage slips from wedlock to hook-up
The traditional concept of marriage is in a chronic state of decay. Historical wedlock fundamentals are corroding, and the metamorphosis is intensifying.View Full Column | 01/9/2013 1:00 AM | 0
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Parents court trouble letting kids boomerang home
Accumulating statistics show today's mollycoddled kids prefer the comforting velvet-cushion homespun pampering of the parental home to the cold realities of independent living. Life on a silver platter sharing the parental home is the option of choice for young people facing uncertain economic times. Boomerang kids are adolescent or adult children who have left the parental home at some point in the past to live on their own, but who have subsequently returned to live with parents.View Full Column | 10/5/2012 1:00 AM | 0
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We're creating adult-phobic children
An intergenerational schism is fracturing society. It is an age-based estrangement that is alienating young people from adults. Its scope is unprecedented. According to Linda Sibley at Confidential Kids, "Kids no longer trust adults."View Full Column | 09/8/2012 1:00 AM | 0
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Age of Majority: blunt instrument to gauge maturity
When is a child no longer a child? In most of the civilized world, that is determined, not by physical or mental maturity, but rather by law. A child becomes an adult the second he or she reaches the age of majority. The transition from childhood to adulthood is sudden, fixed in statute law. The actual age of majority itself is an arbitrary number that officially designates the chronological age at which a "minor child" transcends into an adult. It has no scientific basis. It is, in fact, unrelated to any mental capabilities or any other physical or physiological variables other than age.View Full Column | 08/21/2012 1:00 AM | 0
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You are as old as you smell
Human chemical communication is universal. Body odour signatures are a critical element. "Similar to other animals, humans can extract signals from body odours that allow us to identify biological age, avoid sick people, pick a suitable partner and distinguish kin from non-kin," explained neuroscientist Johan Lundstrom at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia.View Full Column | 08/4/2012 1:00 AM | 0
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Daydreaming is good -- try not to think about it
Daydreaming makes the mind sharper. Accumulating evidence shows that mental drifting boosts brain power and promotes cognitive flexibility, creativity, imagination and general "smart thinking." "There is a ubiquitous tendency for human brains to wander," Malia Mason, at Columbia University, found.View Full Column | 07/9/2012 1:00 AM | 0
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TV wildly distorts perception
North American television-program content is increasingly under fire because it flagrantly misrepresents important features of mainstream society. By inaccurately portraying elements of everyday reality, television dramas and other programs forge enduring misconceptions that distort the mindsets of viewers. Much of what is broadcast on television does not mirror actuality, researchers report, but instead distorts fundamentals so as to create a false impression of authenticity that people actually come to believe is factual.View Full Column | 06/18/2012 1:00 AM | 0
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When doing good is bad
VICTORIA -- Benevolence can be a bad thing. Excessive kindness can doom its recipients to acute psychological and health repercussions, accumulating evidence shows. "Do-gooders" often go too far in their altruistic zeal to be charitable, obliging and humanitarian, researchers caution.View Full Column | 05/5/2012 1:00 AM | 0
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Cats are rats -- ask the songbirds
VICTORIA -- Canada's 7.9 million house cats are the focus of intensifying public disquiet. There are those who loudly protest catastrophic predation by cats on wildlife and demand cat control. Others vociferously oppose any sort of cat constraint owing to their unique and iconic status that should exempt them from municipal oversight. The controversy is pitting neighbour against neighbour.View Full Column | 04/14/2012 1:00 AM | 0
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They're 'entitled' to their rioting
Major riots in several Canadian cities, including Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and, most recently, London, Ont., are likely rooted in a self-focus entitlement mindset characteristic in the New Me (Y) Generation, suggests a new study by researchers Jean Twenge and Elise Freeman at San Diego State University and Keith Campbell at the University of Georgia. The vast majority of riot perpetrators have been adolescents and 20-somethings, members of the Y Generation, those born between 1982 and 2000, the most self-indulgent generation ever documented, prompting some researchers to dub the group the Entitlement Generation.View Full Column | 03/24/2012 1:00 AM | 0
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Ethics of 'neuro-weaponry' hard to wrap your brain around
Mind control will be a primary focus of neuro-weaponry, which is expected to reshape warfare, neuroscientists confirm. Emerging technologies will give birth to highly sophisticated adversarial applications centred on brain science; conventional battlefield methodology could soon fade into history.View Full Column | 01/30/2012 1:00 AM | 0
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'Anchored' sounds so much better than pig-headed
The cognitive phenomenon of "anchoring" dramatically leads human judgments astray, psychologists confirm. People's beliefs and judgments are very often anchored on incomplete, deficient and sketchy information that forms the basis of a lifelong mindset, impervious to persuasion and adjustment. The resulting cognitive bias is pervasive; it vigorously resists any subsequent interpretation of information that might alter the anchored conviction.View Full Column | 01/14/2012 1:00 AM | 0
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Anonymity fuels the paradoxical growth of cybersex
VICTORIA -- A cybersex revolution is upon us. The recent, but thoroughly popular phenomenon is sweeping across college and university campuses, according to research at the University of New Brunswick. Online sexual communication has increased vastly, and the prevalence of the behaviour among students is linked to their tenacious attachment to computers.View Full Column | 11/23/2011 1:00 AM | 0
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Text betrays its author's gender
Male and female brains are wired differently, studies confirm, and new diagnostics show those differences surface in the spelling, phraseology, punctuation and other peculiarities of written language. Distinctive words, syntax, colloquialization, repetition, subordination, capitalization and other features of written text expose the gender of the author. Research confirms the gender of a writer emerges readily from scrutinizing unmistakable clues.View Full Column | 08/5/2011 1:00 AM | 0
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Queues join roads for rage
Waiting in cashier queues is a frustrating part of shopping, often so irritating that "queue rage" is a new phenomenon sweeping across North America and Europe. Irritation escalates wherever people are delayed by slow-moving cashier lineups. The resulting phenomenon is very much like road rage, and is especially prominent at supermarket tills.View Full Column | 07/21/2011 1:00 AM | 0
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Friendships are secret ingredients of religions
Godliness spawns happiness, but not for theological or spiritual reasons. Accumulating evidence shows deism and personal satisfaction are inextricably linked, but it is not communal devotion to divinities that is primarily responsible. Rather, the good feelings flow from powerful friendships that develop among congregation members. Research confirms that a primary soul-soothing advantage of group worship is the comforting camaraderie that it engenders, regardless of religious denomination.View Full Column | 07/14/2011 1:00 AM | 0
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Prison rape remains a tolerated 'terrorism'
Male-on-male forced sodomy is a rampant part of prison life, accumulating evidence confirms. Yet, its actual magnitude is shrouded by a "conspiracy of hush." Owing to its insidiousness, the public is widely unaware of its enormous proportions.View Full Column | 05/31/2011 1:00 AM | 0
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Yes, they're lying, but they're lying legally
Political candidates all across Canada are on the hustings, making a slew of promises, none of which they are legally required to keep. Pre-election pledges are limitless in content and scope because there are no legislative mechanisms to hold politicians to account for failing to fulfil promises made to the public at large. "Politicians are not legally compelled to abide by their platforms in any democratic system," confirmed researcher Barnard Manin at New York University.View Full Column | 04/2/2011 1:00 AM | 0
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The value of foul language
Profane language has its virtues, new studies show. Profanity has been almost universal in human cultures since time immemorial. Colourful swearing and cursing have persisted in virtually all civilizations and scientists have concluded the conspicuousness of verbal obscenities throughout history is due to outstanding health and survival benefits.View Full Column | 03/29/2011 1:00 AM | 0
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Personal debt might be genetic
Many Canadians are hopelessly financially hog-tied by debt. Accumulating evidence shows Canadians are especially vulnerable to myopic budgeting and overspending, which generate potentially crushing debt loads. Although several factors can shape spending habits, research shows there is a significant genetic component. A substantial proportion of Canadians might be genetically predisposed to be in debt.View Full Column | 10/26/2010 1:00 AM | 0
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All schools need to let the sunshine in
Exposure to natural light is acutely therapeutic to humans. Morning light is especially important because its wavelengths impact enormously on biorhythms. Rhythmicity is a fundamental theme of human life, and its patterns reflect the cycle of day and night. But an increasingly indoor existence has dramatically reduced exposure to vital outdoor light.View Full Column | 09/23/2010 1:00 AM | 0
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