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January 15, 2013

12:32 PM | What science should we fund? Questioning new policy on H5N1 gain-of-function research

Science can be risky business, but it is important to know what those risks are. It is established wisdom that we need to experiment on viruses, for example, to better defend against emerging infectious diseases. But there is a fine line between creating a new strain of avian influenza to better understand how to defend [...]

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Big data for autism and the promise of newborn bloodspots

An episode of the BBC program Horizon on 'Big Data' recently caught my attention. The content was a fascinating insight into how we are living in a data-rich age and how trawling/mining/dredging such data has the ability to advance medicine, predict crime and even make someone a few quid/dollars/euros on the stock market.Gone (data) fishing @ Wikipedia I'm a big believer in big data. In particular how, with the right sources, technology, techniques and people, big data might be able […]

Mizejewski GJ, Lindau-Shepard B & Pass KA (2013). Newborn screening for autism: in search of candidate biomarkers., Biomarkers in medicine, 7 (2) 247-60. PMID: 23547820

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The mindbus technique for resisting chocolate - should we climb aboard?

Imagine you are the driver & your chocolate cravings are unruly passengers If someone gave you a bag of 14 chocolates to carry around for five days, would you be able to resist eating them and any other chocolate? That was challenge faced by 135 undergrads in a new study that compared the effectiveness of two different "mindfulness" resistance techniques. To help them, Kim Jenkins and Katy Tapper taught 45 of their participants "cognitive diffusion", the essence being that "you are not […]

Jenkins, K. & Tapper, K. (2013). Resisting chocolate temptation using a brief mindfulness strategy, British Journal of Health Psychology, DOI: 10.1111/bjhp.12050

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What if 501(c)4 Organizations Had to Disclose Their Donors?

The IRS kerfuffle has increased interest in the tax code by about 5700%, and one outcome is that people are starting to put the various exemption groups under a microscope. Dylan Matthews has thoughtful piece on 501(c)4 organizations, the groups at the center of the scandal. Matthews thinks the real issue is disclosure, and it’s [...]

Dowling, C. & Wichowsky, A. (2013). Does It Matter Who's Behind the Curtain? Anonymity in Political Advertising and the Effects of Campaign Finance Disclosure, American Politics Research, DOI: 10.1177/1532673X13480828

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Offshore Drilling Helps Microbiologists Study Life on Earth and Beyond

Offshore drilling is often discussed in terms of its positive effect on the economy and the potential risks it carries for the environment. There’s, however, another side to offshore drilling, one that is less often talked about. A recent study done at the University of Aberdeen, suggests that the oil and gas industry’s pursuit of new oil reserves has contributed to a greater understanding of where life exists on Earth and may even help us look for life on other planets. Read more »

Parnell, J., Boyce, A., Hurst, A., Davidheiser-Kroll, B. & Ponicka, J. (2013). Long term geological record of a global deep subsurface microbial habitat in sand injection complexes, Scientific Reports, 3 DOI: 10.1038/srep01828

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Decision Theory Journal Club: Our brains are perfect machines

A few of us have started a Decision Theory journal club where we plan on reading papers from a variety of fields that examine how decisions are made. We have people from neuroscience, economics, and cognitive science participating (so far), including people participating through Google+ hangouts!, which will hopefully make lead to some productive discussions. […]

Brunton, B., Botvinick, M. & Brody, C. (2013). Rats and Humans Can Optimally Accumulate Evidence for Decision-Making, Science, 340 (6128) 95-98. DOI: 10.1126/science.1233912

Znamenskiy, P. & Zador, A. (2013). Corticostriatal neurons in auditory cortex drive decisions during auditory discrimination, Nature, 497 (7450) 482-485. DOI: 10.1038/nature12077

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January 15, 2013

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