The Mind Thinks More Than It Knows

Debate focuses on whether the brain and mind function in tandem

(NEWSER) - To undermine Darwinian theories about the emergence of life, skeptics have a new weapon in mind: the brain, NPR reports. They’re challenging the notion that a cluster of cells could produce such high-level mental processes as consciousness and free will. “It doesn’t hang together,” says one neurosurgeon, who argues that an intelligent designer created the brain and molded the universe. More»

Better to acknowledge bad feelings than recite phony good ones

(NEWSER) - Deliberate positive thinking—from Norman Vincent Peale to Stuart Smalley—has long been touted as a way to overcome feelings of worthlessness and self-doubt. But a new study suggests that repeating positive mantras may often backfire, making people with low self-esteem feel even worse about themselves. For many, it may “simply highlight how unhappy they are,” writes John Cloud in Time. More»

Bilingual kids may talk later but excel at 'executive functions'

(NEWSER) - Some teachers complain that children raised in bilingual households tend to lag behind their peers in school, but a new study suggests multilingual kids' brains may be better organized, the Economist reports. Polyglot babies have stronger "executive function": processes in the brain that help humans plan, prioritize, and switch attention among various tasks and stimuli. More»

(NEWSER) - When you wolf down a box of cookies at midnight, it only shows you're being human and relinquishing your self-control, Meredith Small writes on LiveScience. A recent study supports your habit, showing that subjects following the story of a waiter who resists gourmet dishes finally have to eat the same food themselves. "Apparently, it's human nature to be out of control," Small writes. More»

(NEWSER) - Having boogied in 70 countries on all seven continents, Matt Harding concludes that “globalization is forcing our brains to evolve." Known via the Internet for dancing poorly with locals in far-flung locations, Harding argues that our brains were designed for social interaction within a small tribe—but we now inhabit a “single, impossibly vast social network," he writes on NPR. More»