Tom Stafford's Blog, page 136

Death by caffeine

[image error]If you've ever wondered how much caffeine it would take to kill you (and I know you have) there is now a handy online calculator that lets you enter your body weight and caffeine source to find out how many energy drinks, coffees, teas or bars of chocolate would be needed to cause your teeth-chattering demise.

It's a little bit basic, as a 'friend' would like to be able to factor in any caffeine tolerance already developed, and perhaps understand whether...

Is behavioural economics a political placebo?

[image error]The New York Times has an opinion piece arguing that the rise of behavioural economics has led to the science being championed by politicians who want a soft option to avoid marking hard political decisions.

The authors are economist George Loewenstein and behavioural scientist who list a range of behavioural economics-inspired policies which they claim have been used to give the impression of substantive action when the most effective form of behaviour change happens through...

Just say 0 to digital drugs

[image error]The digital drugs hilarity just keeps on giving. Back in 2008 we discussed an unintentionally hilarious USA Today article on the 'dangers of digital drugs' which I thought would never be toppped.

I was wrong. Oklahoma City's News9 channel produced a bulletin of such sheer alternative-dimension pant-wetting hilarity you couldn't have written anything funnier if you tried.

If the incredulous reporters, concerned parents and freaked-out students don't split your sides, top marks to the Oklahoma...

The inflexible efficiency of babies

[image error]Scientific American Mind has an excellent article on how the inflexibility of young children's brains can make them better learners than adults.

The piece riffs on the apparent paradox that humans develop into perhaps the most psychologically flexible of creatures and yet spend the longest with seemingly impaired mental functions. This is due to the relatively delayed development of the frontal lobes during childhood.

One particularly delayed skill is the ability to direct our attention - to...

How hot models acquire their heat

[image error]3QuarksDaily has a fantastic article that examines how certain models became hot property during catwalk season by looking at the behavioural economics of fashion show buzz and why the success of top models is as much down to herd instinct as personal magnetism.

The piece is written by sociologist Ashley Mears, a model herself, who has been studying how the personal demands of the profession mesh and conflict with both the market for beautiful faces and the social world of the fashion...

As above, so below

[image error]The Journal of Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgery has an intriguing article on head injuries from Ancient Greece which has a section on 'Unusual cranial injuries in prominent men'.

There is something cosmically poetic in the fact that the 'father of tragedy' Aeschylos died from being hit on the head by a turtle.

The death of the father of tragedy, Aeschylos (524–455 B.C.) is a very unusual case of accidental head trauma. At the age of seventy Aeschylos was mortally injured by a turtle thrown by an...

Aldous Huxley's final trip

[image error]This month's edition of the cancer medicine journal Lancet Oncology discusses some ongoing trials of psychedelic drug assisted psychotherapy for people dying of cancer but notes that author Aldous Huxley actually died while on LSD - by his own request.

Today, in a small handful of laboratories across the USA, an equally small handful of patients with terminal cancer are volunteering to take part in psychotherapeutic treatment for anxiety and depression brought on by their diagnosis. But this...

Creative beginnings

[image error]Newsweek has an eye-opening article on creativity which doesn't really discuss why creativity is supposedly 'declining', as it claims, but is still full of fascinating and counter-intuitive snapshots of creativity research.

I have to say, I'm not very familiar with the scientific research on creativity, so I can't say how well the article represents it as a whole, however, it does capture lots of interesting angles on creativity I'd not encountered before.

Nobody would argue that Torrance's...

Adjust the facts, ma'am

[image error]The Boston Globe has an interesting piece on democracy, knowledge and reasoning biases, highlighting the fact that we can often decide facts are true based more on our pre-existing political biases than the evidence for their accuracy.

The article is full of fascinating snippets from recent studies. One, for example, finding that people who are the least well-informed are the ones most likely to be believe their opinions on the topic are correct.

However, there is also some intriguing...

Is it weird in here, or is it just me?

[image error]Neuroanthropology tackles a recent psychology article which highlights the fact that the vast majority of research is done on Western students, who, in global terms, are a very unusual subgroup of the human race.

This group has been given the catchy acronym WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) although the problem is not so much that students are being studied but that researchers tend to draw conclusions about 'human nature' from this data, seemingly unaware of how ...