The concept that the gut and the brain are closely connected, and that this interaction plays an important part not only in gastrointestinal function but also in certain feeling states and in intuitive decision making, is deeply rooted in our language.

Recent neurobiological insights into this gut–brain crosstalk have revealed a complex, bidirectional communication system that not only ensures the proper maintenance of gastrointestinal homeostasis and digestion but is likely to have multiple effects on affect, motivation and higher cognitive functions, including intuitive decision making.

{ Nature Reviews Neuroscience }

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The next time you feel angry at a friend who has let you down, or grateful toward one whose generosity has surprised you, consider this: you may really be bargaining for better treatment from that person in the future. According to a controversial new theory, our emotions have evolved as tools to manipulate others into cooperating with us.

Until now, most psychologists have viewed anger as a way to signal your displeasure when another person does you harm. Similarly, gratitude has been seen as a signal of pleasure when someone does you a favour. In both cases, emotions are seen as short-term reactions to an immediate benefit or cost.

But it’s more cunning than that, says John Tooby, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Anger, he says, has as much to do with cooperation as with conflict, and emotions are used to coerce others into cooperating in the long term. (…)

All this suggests that anger and gratitude – and perhaps other emotions, too – may be tools for turning up a partner’s mental cooperation control dial.

{ NewScientist | Continue reading }

Let’s try something for a second: Why don’t you think back on the story of your life. While you are thinking back, try to remember why you got to the job you did, the city you now live in, the neighborhood, the relationships, etc. Most likely you–and most people for that matter–took a long winding road to where you are now. It’s also likely that you can pinpoint a few critical decisions you made in the past that have really shaped who you are today, and what you did to get here.

We often construct these life narratives. (…) How true are these narratives really? Do we really know the two or three critical points in our lives that changed everything and made us the people we are today? Psychological science says no. (…)

Nisbett and Wilson concluded, based on this research, that we have strong motivations for prediction and control of our social environments. That is, we’re thinking creatures who want to know how stuff works, and as such, we are constantly constructing theories that could plausibly explain what is happening in our environments. The reality though is that these theories are never really tested or confirmed, and so they are often fabrications–based on our own beliefs about how the world works rather than on how the world actually works (which may be more chaotic than we’d like to admit).

{ Psych Your Mind | Continue reading }

The killer whale (Orcinus orca), commonly referred to as the orca, is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family. Killer whales are found in all oceans, from the frigid Arctic and Antarctic regions to tropical seas.

Killer whales are regarded as apex predator, lacking natural predators and preying on even large sharks. [List of apex predators]

Wild killer whales are not considered a threat to humans.

Killer whales distinctively bear a black back, white chest and sides, and a white patch above and behind the eye. Calves are born with a yellowish or orange tint, which fades to white.

Males and females have different patterns of black and white skin in the genital area.

There are three to five types of killer whales that may be distinct enough to be considered different races, subspecies, or possibly even species. The IUCN reported in 2008, “The taxonomy of this genus is clearly in need of review, and it is likely that O. orca will be split into a number of different species or at least subspecies over the next few years.”

• Type A looks like a “typical” killer whale, a large, black and white form with a medium-sized white eye patch, living in open water and feeding mostly on minke whales.

• Type B is smaller than Type A. It has a large white eye patch. Most of the dark parts of its body are medium gray instead of black, although it has a dark gray patch called a “dorsal cape” stretching back from its forehead to just behind its dorsal fin. The white areas are stained slightly yellow. It feeds mostly on seals.

• Type C is the smallest type and lives in larger groups than the others. Its eye patch is distinctively slanted forwards, rather than parallel to the body axis. Like Type B, it is primarily white and medium gray, with a dark gray dorsal cape and yellow-tinged patches. Its only observed prey is the Antarctic Cod.

• Type D was identified based on photographs of a 1955 mass stranding in New Zealand and six at-sea sightings since 2004. Immediately recognizable by its extremely small white eye patch, shorter than usual dorsal fin that curves back, and bulbous head (similar to a pilot whale). Its geographic range appears to be circumglobal in subantarctic waters between latitudes 40°S and 60°S. And although nothing is known about the Type D diet, it is suspected to include fish because groups have been photographed around longline vessels where they reportedly depredate Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides).

Types B and C live close to the ice pack, and diatoms (algae) in these waters may be responsible for the yellowish coloring of both types. Mitochondrial DNA sequences support the theory that these are separate species that have recently diverged.

{ Wikipedia | Continue reading }

bonus:

{ On December 24, 2009, a 6,600-pound orca killed trainer Alexis Martínez at a marine park in the Canary Islands. Two months later, trainer Dawn Brancheau was killed by an orca at SeaWorld Orlando. Should Martínez’s death have served as a warning about the lethal potential of killer whales being trained for our entertainment? Tim Zimmermann investigates. | Outside | full story }

Almost everyone has experienced one memory triggering another, but explanations for that phenomenon have proved elusive. Now, University of Pennsylvania researchers have provided the first neurobiological evidence that memories formed in the same context become linked, the foundation of the theory of episodic memory. (…)

“Theories of episodic memory suggest that when I remember an event, I retrieve its earlier context and make it part of my present context,” Kahana said.  “When I remember my grandmother, for example, I pull back all sorts of associations of a different time and place in my life; I’m also remembering living in Detroit and her Hungarian cooking. It’s like mental time travel. I jump back in time to the past, but I’m still grounded in the present.” (…)

“By examining the patterns of brain activity recorded from the implanted electrodes,” Manning said, “we can measure when the brain’s activity is similar to a previously recorded pattern. When a patient recalls a word, their brain activity is similar to when they studied the same word.   In addition, the patterns at recall contained traces of other words that were studied prior to the recalled word.”

“What seems to be happening is that when patients recall a word, they bring back not only the thoughts associated with the word itself but also remnants of thoughts associated with other words they studied nearby in time,” he said.

{ Penn News | Continue reading }

artwork { Cy Twombly, Poems to the Sea, 1959 }

Researchers have shown that we sit near people who look like us.

The effect is more than just people of the same sex or ethnicity tending to aggregate — a phenomenon well documented by earlier research.

The new finding could help explain why it is that people so often resemble physically their friends and romantic partners (known as “homophily”) — if physically similar people choose to sit near each other, they will have more opportunities to forge friendships and romances. (…)

A further possibility is that seeking proximity to physically similar others is an evolutionary hang-over — an instinct for staying close to genetically similar kin.

{ BPS | Continue reading }

In recent years, the search for an Earth-like planet orbiting another star has been the most exciting in science. The world has waited with baited breath for the discovery of another Earth.

But the discovery of Earth 2.0 has been a damp squib. Not because astronomers haven’t found one; on the contrary! The problem is they’ve found too many candidates. And these have turned out to be so unlike Earth that it’s hard to imagine that any of them can be a convincing twin.

We’re left, like the starving donkey equidistant between two bails of hay, unable to decide on what to celebrate.

The top candidates so far are these:

* Gliese 4581 g, the fourth rock from a red dwarf some 20 light years from Earth in the constellation of Libra

* GJ 1214 b, a sub-Neptune-sized planet orbiting a star in the constellation of Ophiucus 40 light years away

* and HD 28185 b, a gas giant in a near circular orbit that is entirely within the habitable zone of a Sun-like star in the constellation of Eridanus. This planet’s moons, if it has any, may be good candidates for ‘other Earths’

Today, we can add another strange planet to the list: 55 Cancri f, one of five planets known to orbit an orange dwarf star some 40 light years away in the constellation of Cancer.

{ The Physics arXiv Blog | Continue reading }

photo { Constantin Brancusi, Bird in Space, ca. 1936 }

“Everything we do involves making choices, even if we don’t think very much about it. For example, just moving your leg to walk in one direction or another is a choice – however, you might not appreciate that you are choosing this action, unless someone were to stop you from moving that leg. We often take for granted all of the choices we make, until they are taken away,” says Mauricio Delgado at Rutgers University.

{ APS | Continue reading }

At a glance, a painting by Jackson Pollock can look deceptively accidental: just a quick flick of color on a canvas.

A quantitative analysis of Pollock’s streams, drips, and coils, by Harvard mathematician L. Mahadevan and collaborators at Boston College, reveals, however, that the artist had to be slow—he had to be deliberate—to exploit fluid dynamics in the way that he did.

The finding, published in Physics Today, represents a rare collision between mathematics, physics, and art history, providing new insight into the artist’s method and techniques—as well as his appreciation for the beauty of natural phenomena. (…)

Pollock’s signature style involved laying a canvas on the floor and pouring paint onto it in continuous, curving streams. Rather than pouring straight from the can, he applied paint from a stick or a trowel, waving his hand back and forth above the canvas and adjusting the height and angle of the trowel to make the stream of paint wider or thinner.

Simultaneously restricted and inspired by the laws of nature, Pollock took on the role of experimentalist, ceding a certain amount of control to physics in order to create new aesthetic effects.

Instabilities in a free fluid jet can form in a few different ways: the jet can break into drops, it can splash upon impact with a surface, or it can fold and coil, as when a stream of honey lands on a slice of toast. The artist Robert Motherwell produced drips and splashes by flicking his brush; Pollock’s technique, on the other hand, is defined by the way a relatively slow-moving stream of paint falls onto the canvas, producing trails and coils.

In a sense, the authors note, Pollock was learning and using physics, experimenting with coiling fluids quite a bit before the first scientific papers on the subject would appear in the late 1950s and ’60s.

{ EurekAlert | Continue reading | More: The Physics of Jackson Pollock’s Art }

painting { Jackson Pollock, Untitled, 1948-1949 }

The Misconception: When your beliefs are challenged with facts, you alter your opinions and incorporate the new information into your thinking.

The Truth: When your deepest convictions are challenged by contradictory evidence, your beliefs get stronger.

{ You are not so smart | Continue reading }

photo { Robert Frank }

{ You may have heard of freshwater sharks, but what about freshwater cetaceans? River dolphins share long thin rostrums, reduced eyes, numerous teeth in both upper and lower jaws, and somewhat flexible necks. | Wild Mammal Blog | full story }

You probably already know whether you’re a morning or evening person, but if you’re not sure, here are two ways to figure it out:

1) On weekends, or when you don’t have to wake up at any particular time, when do you naturally wake up? If the answer is more than an hour or so different from when you wake up on weekdays, chances are you’re an evening person by nature. Morning people tend to wake up just as early on weekends as they do during the week.

2) Regardless of how much sleep you’ve gotten, when do you find that you have the most energy? If your energy peaks in the morning and dwindles by late afternoon, you’re a morning person. If it peaks later in the evening - you guessed it - you’re an evening person. (…)

The debate over whether it’s better to be a night owl or an early bird has been going on for centuries. (…) Research on the advantages and disadvantages of each “chronotype” has yielded mixed results, in part because it is difficult to conduct this research experimentally. (…)

Evolutionary psychologists have suggested that a preference for late hours may suggest a higher level of intelligence because being a night owl is presumably an evolutionary novel preference, though this hypothesis is controversial.

{ Psych Your Mind | Continue reading }

painting { Edward Hopper, Summer Interior, 1909 }

Memory includes both learning and then some sort of recollection. (…) Each time something is remembered it is actually recreated. The problem is that each time a memory is recreated it can be changed — dramatically or subtly. This occurs more often than we might think. (…)

This leads into point 2 — memory is unreliable. (…) These type of memories are called flashbulb memories. While they can be quite accurate, researchers have shown that they are often affected by news coverage after the fact or discussions with others. Further, how confident people are about these types of memories does not strongly relate to how accurate the memories are. (…)

This leads into point 3 — false memories are common. (…) False memories are often strongly emotional. While emotion can help strengthen memories, it also sets them up to potentially be more unreliable because emotions change over time, which changes can affect connected memories.

{ BrainBlogger | Continue reading }

There is this fountain of youth inside the adult brain that actively makes new neurons. Yet we don’t know how this fountain is constructed or maintained.

{ EurekAlert | Continue reading }

photo { Allan Macintyre }

According to a report in the March issue of The Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 54 percent of men and 42 percent of women are unhappy with the frequency of sex in their long-term relationships.

A prime reason that couples go out of sync sexually lies in the brain’s reward circuitry. It’s a set of mechanisms that work together to drive all motivation, libido, appetite, and—when out of kilter—addiction. Therefore, it governs your attraction (or lack thereof) to each other between the sheets. It works subconsciously, which is why neither of you can will yourself to enjoy sex if the magic isn’t happening.

{ Good Men Project | Continue reading }

In the late 1990s, Jane Anderson was working as a landscape architect. That meant she didn’t work much in the winter, and she struggled with seasonal affective disorder in the dreary Minnesota winter months. She decided to try meditation and noticed a change within a month. “My experience was a sense of calmness, of better ability to regulate my emotions,” she says. Her experience inspired a new study which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, which finds changes in brain activity after only five weeks of meditation training.

Previous studies have found that Buddhist monks, who have spent tens of thousands of hours of meditating, have different patterns of brain activity. But Anderson wanted to know if they could see a change in brain activity after a shorter period.

{ EurekAlert | Continue reading | Related: Meditation as cheap, self-administered morphine }

Why does exercise make us happy and calm? (…) How, at a deep, cellular level, exercise affects anxiety and other moods has been difficult to pin down. The brain is physically inaccessible and dauntingly complex. But a recent animal study from researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health provides some intriguing new clues into how exercise intertwines with emotions, along with the soothing message that it may not require much physical activity to provide lasting emotional resilience.

{ NYT | Continue reading }

photo { T. Harrison Hillman }

It is well recognized that there are consistent differences in the psychological characteristics of boys and girls; for example, boys engage in more ‘rough and tumble’ play than girls do.

Studies also show that children who become gay or lesbian adults differ in such traits from those who become heterosexual – so-called gender nonconformity. Research which follows these children to adulthood shows that between 50 to 80 per cent of gender nonconforming boys become gay, and about one third of such girls become lesbian. (…)

The team followed a group of 4,000 British women who were one of a pair of twins. They were asked questions about their sexual attractions and behavior, and a series of follow up questions about their gender nonconformity. In line with previous research, the team found modest genetic influences on sexual orientation (25 per cent) and childhood gender nonconformity (31 per cent).

{ EurekAlert | Continue reading }

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Amazon.com made waves in March when it announced Cloud Player, a new “cloud music” service that allows users to upload their music collections for personal use. It did so without a license agreement, and the major music labels were not amused. Sony Music said it was keeping its “legal options open” as it pressured Amazon to pay up.

In the following weeks, two more companies announced music services of their own. Google, which has long had a frosty relationship with the labels, followed Amazon’s lead; Google Music Beta was announced without the Big Four on board. But Apple has been negotiating licenses so it can operate iCloud with the labels’ blessing.

The different strategies pursued by these firms presents a puzzle. Either Apple wasted millions of dollars on licenses it doesn’t need, or Amazon and Google are vulnerable to massive copyright lawsuits. All three are sophisticated firms that employ a small army of lawyers, so it’s a bit surprising that they reached such divergent assessments of what the law requires.

So how did it happen? And who’s right?

{ Ars Technica | Continue reading }

Why does music elevate your mood, move you to tears or make you dance? It’s a mystery to most of us, but not so much to evolutionary neurobiologist Mark Changizi.

My research suggests that when we listen to music without any visual component, our auditory system—or at least the lower-level auditory areas—”thinks” it is the sounds of a human moving in our midst, doing some sort of behavior, perhaps an emotionally expressive behavior.

The auditory system “thinks” this because music has been “designed” by cultural evolution to sound like people moving about. That is, over time, humans figured out how to better and better make sounds that mimicked (and often exaggerated) the fundamental kinds of sounds humans make when we move.

I lay out more than 40 respects in which music sounds like people doing stuff. At the core of “moving people” is the walk. The human gait has unique characteristics, from its regularly repeating step (the beat) to the sounds of other parts of the body during the gait that are in time with the step (notes, more generally).

{ WSJ | Continue reading }

So what is financial engineering? In a logically consistent world, financial engineering should be layered above a solid base of financial science. Financial engineering would be the study of how to create functional financial devices – convertible bonds, warrants, synthetic CDOs, etc. – that perform in desired ways, not just at expiration, but throughout their lifetime. That’s what Black-Scholes does – it tells you, under certain assumptions, how to engineer a perfect option from stock and bonds.

But what exactly is financial science?

Canonical financial engineering or quantitative finance rests upon the science of Brownian  motion and other idealizations that, while they capture some of the  essential features of uncertainty, are not finally very accurate descriptions of the characteristic behavior of financial objects. (…) Markets are filled with anomalies that disagree with standard theories. Stock evolution, to take just one of many examples, isn’t Brownian. We don’t really know what describes its motion. Maybe we never will. And when we try to model stochastic volatility, it’s an order of magnitude vaguer. (…)

If you’re going to work in this field, you have to understand that you’re not doing classical science at all, and that the classical scientific approach doesn’t have the unimpeachable value it has in the hard sciences.

{ Emanuel Derman/Reuters | Continue reading }

Each of us receives, on average, 60 mutations in our genome from our parents, a new study has revealed — far fewer than previously estimated. (…)

“We had previously estimated that parents would contribute an average of 100-200 mistakes to their child. Our genetic study, the first of its kind, shows that actually much fewer mistakes — or mutations — are made.” It is these mistakes or “mutations” that help us evolve.

The geneticists from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, who co-led the study with scientists from Montreal and Boston, also found that the percentage of mutations from each parent varies in every person.

{ Wired UK | Continue reading }