Jonah Lehrer is an editor at large for Seed Magazine. His first book is Proust Was A Neuroscientist. Buy it here.
October 31, 2006
Category: Culture
So much for the body-brain duality. Researchers in the new PNAS claim that the sympathetic nervous system in depressed rodents causes a loss of bone mass. Treatment with anti-depressants rescues the situation. These results define a linkage among depression, excessive...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 1:43 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
This survey gives me hope: 78 percent of Americans support medical marijuana: When Californians approved one of the first medical marijuana laws, in 1996, drug warriors were so convinced it would lead to a catastrophic spike in illegal use by...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 11:18 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
Last week, I mentioned that the Royal Institution in London had come up with short list of the best science books of all time. After some excellent feedback from readers, and because I love making lists of my favorite things...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 11:12 AM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
There's an odd article in the NY Times today on Marc Hauser's hypothesis that the human mind contains a "moral grammar," somewhat akin to a Chomskyan linguistic grammar. The article is odd because, while it acknowledges that Hauser's idea is...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:45 AM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
Sometimes, it seems as if science reporters just decide to make something a big story, even if there's no new news to report. In the last week, the link between calorie reduction and increased lifespan has been everywhere. New York...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:03 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 30, 2006
Category: Culture
Men are getting less manly: our testosterone levels continue to decline. Given the Hobbesian state of the world, that might not be a bad thing. (Unfortunately, falling testosterone levels have negative medical consequences. So world peace might require a reduction...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 12:34 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
I'm like a broken record, but if I could implement one policy change right away it would be to raise the gas tax: See the full image over at Foreign Policy. The latest people to support a phased increase in...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:51 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
If the polls are accurate, Senator Rick Santorum is about to lose his re-election bid. That's a good thing. Santorum is a bad cliche of the culture wars, a powerful politician who actually believes that the earth is 6,000 years...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 7:56 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 27, 2006
Category: Culture
What would happen if you combined Bob Dylan's greatest hits with the choreography of Twyla Tharp? It turns out that you get something truly awful, an alchemical concotion that is both surreal and boring. Here's Ben Brantley: And now for...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 8:50 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
Richard Dawkins has been everywhere lately. Dawkins is even keeping an online journal while on his book tour. It's full of amusing, if slightly mean-spirited, vignettes like this: The large hall at Randolph Macon Woman's College was packed. I gave...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 7:12 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Only when it comes to alien life forms can the absence of decent data - the 1976 Viking mission did not not detect any organic molecules - seem so exciting. Here's Sharon Begley, from behind the WSJ firewall: When scientists...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 6:54 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 26, 2006
Category: Culture
Primo Levi's The Periodic Table, at least according to the Royal Institution in London. The shortlist Primo Levi The Periodic Table Konrad Lorenz King Solomon's Ring Tom Stoppard Arcadia Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene Other nominations James Watson The Double...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 4:59 PM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
I've always been impressed by America's lack of interest in class issues. Having spent a bit of time in England - a country where class is transposed onto every little social interaction - it was a shock to return to...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:58 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
Another fiscal quarter, another record profit: Exxon-Mobil reported earnings of $10.49 billion today. These earnings are eclipsed only by the $10.71 billion profit posted by Exxon in last year's fourth quarter, which saw oil prices spike because of hurricanes Katrina...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:15 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 25, 2006
Category: Culture
Nylon hosiery and surgical masks? While I always assumed that the flu virus spread mainly through dirty door knobs and friendly handshakes, I was wrong. According to Lawrence Wein, "the dominant mode of virus transmission for influenza is aerosol --...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 3:47 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
It is a shame more American cities with mass transportation aren't emulating London, and charging drivers who use their cars in the central city during the day. (The London "congestion charge" is about $10). After all, the London scheme has...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 12:29 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
Here's an uplifting story of neural plasticity, a sweet reminder that our brain is always capable of changing itself. Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, lost his voice more than a year ago due to spasmodic dysphonia, a mysterious neurological...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 11:45 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
I never would have guessed that a few extra pounds of flesh can have such a strong effect on fuel economy: A new study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign says that 938 million more gallons of gasoline go...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 9:59 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
A few days ago, I linked to an article documenting a connection between reduced crime and increased exposure to violent movies. Now it appears that porn has a similar effect, and that the increased availability of porn has led to...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 9:50 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 24, 2006
Category: Culture
Why, you ask, did the dog suck on toads? Because the amphibians secrete a hallucinogenic toxin. Lady, a seemingly staid cocker spaniel, was actually a closet stoner. I'd love to see The Dog Whisperer fix this one: "We noticed Lady...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 6:21 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
When cars are stocked with airbags in every possible direction - are there ceiling airbags yet? - drivers become more aggressive: A Purdue University research team that studied five years of motor vehicle accidents in Washington State concludes antilock brakes...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 11:47 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
George Eliot famously declared that "If Art does not enlarge men's sympathies, then it does nothing." Eliot would be glad to know that she was right: reading novels really does make us nicer. As the British Psychological Society Digest notes:...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:54 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
Jimmy Wales has a question for you: Imagine there existed a budget of $100 million to purchase copyrights to be made available under a free license. What would you like to see purchased and released under a free license? Hmmm...I'd...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:49 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
I've got a serious man-crush on Obama. I swooned during his Meet the Press interview - my girlfriend was getting jealous - and couldn't help but yelp when he announced that he is considering a run for president. (Given his...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:15 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
With so many dead and dying in Iraq, it seems crass to complain about the financial cost of the war. But the price tag is enormous, and will burden us for decades to come. Here's Nick Kristof (Times $elect): For...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 9:51 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 23, 2006
Category: Culture
Apparently not. If you believe these economists, a bloody blockbuster might actually reduce crime, at least temporarily: Laboratory experiments in psychology find that exposure to media violence increases aggression. In this paper, we provide field evidence on this question. We...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:19 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
From Michael Specter's article in the New Yorker (not online): Nearly half the people in the world don't have the kind of clean water and sanitation that were available two thousand years ago to the citizens of ancient Rome. More...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:06 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 21, 2006
Category: Culture
From Alex Kuczynski's new book, Beauty Junkies: Inside Our $15 Billion Obsession With Cosmetic Surgery: The synthetic collagen called Cosmoplast is manufactured from fetal foreskin stem cells harvested from a single baby boy, who would now be a teenager. (It's...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 12:12 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 20, 2006
Category: Culture
I've been hankering for Hamlet: The Game for a long time now. Imagine the possibilities: a first-person-shooter (FPS) that lets you inhabit some of the most famous characters of all time. I'd be Hamlet, but I wouldn't stab Polonius. Or...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 2:37 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
Via Joel Waldfogel: James Feyrer and Bruce Sacerdote, both of Dartmouth College, consider the effect of a particular aspect of history--the length of European colonization--on the current standard of living of a group of 80 tiny, isolated islands that have...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:46 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
Here is the best argument yet for raising the gas tax, and it comes from George Bush's former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. (Sorry Thomas Friedman, you'll just have to try harder.) With the midterm election around the...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:39 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
Try this fun game. In the following paragraph, clipped from Brian Greene's elegant defense of string theory in the NY Times, I've taken the liberty of substituting a "belief in God" for "string theory": To be sure, no one successful...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:26 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
Brian Greene mounted a lengthy defense of string theory today in the NY Times. He maintains that string theory is the grand finale of physics, the logical bridge between the contradictions of quantum physics and general relativity. Central to this...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:20 AM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 19, 2006
Category: Culture
First, they go after the beloved Steve Irwin. Now, they've begun attacking us outside of the water: An 81-year-old boater was in critical condition Thursday after a stingray flopped onto his boat and stabbed him, leaving a foot-long barb in...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 6:39 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
Is there a connection between omega-3 fatty acids and violence? Does a shortage of essential nutrients cause thuggish behavior? I'm skeptical of any direct causal connection - human behavior just isn't that simple - but I'm still going to eat...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 11:28 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
Wyeth is currently waiting on FDA approval for a new birth control medication that stops women from menstruating. It's called Lybrel, and it delivers an uninterrupted flow of hormones (there is no week of placebo pills). As Sarah Richards notes,...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:29 AM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
David Brooks annoys me just as much as the next Democrat - I especially dislike his oversimplifications of neuroscience - but he has a great column today on Barack Obama. Since it's behind the wall of Times $elect, I'll quote...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:07 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 18, 2006
Category: Culture
David Frum, the speechwriter and conservative pundit behind Bush's "axis of evil" line, has officially endorsed Al Gore's latest policy proposal: a tax on carbon. What's even stranger is that Frum endorses this policy without believing in global warming: You...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 4:45 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
Because our foreign policy of unilateral action has worked out so well here on earth, the Bush Administration has decided that we should also apply it to the rest of the universe. Just think how many distant solar systems will...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 11:15 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
Mosquitoes like blood, but they love sugar. A team of Israeli scientists are exploring how to use this sweet tooth against them: We have all suffered the irritation of being the food source for hungry mosquitoes. While it is generally...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:54 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: My So-Called Life
I'm probably breaking some obscure copyright law by simply mentioning this website. For those who don't know, allofmp3.com features ridiculously cheap mp3 files: a song usually costs a dime, not a dollar. The catch? They are a shady Russian company...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:08 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Neuroscience
In response to my recent post on governmental regulation and energy conservation, an excellent debate has started in the comments. On the one hand, there is a long list of areas in which governmental regulation has forced corporations into making...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 9:53 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 17, 2006
Category: Culture
Here we are, enmeshed in a low-grade civil war, and our fearless leaders can't tell the two sides apart. Jeff Stein has been asking assorted congressmen, intelligence analysts and counterterrorism officials a fundamental question: "Do you know the difference between...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 2:39 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
This is encouraging: Alaskans actually care about their own destruction. According to a new survey led by Dr. Anthony Leiserowitz, the citizens of the state most directly affected by global warming have actually noticed what is happening, and they don't...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 2:22 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
The danger of being a recessive trait: Once a hallmark of the boy and girl next door, blue eyes have become increasingly rare among American children. Immigration patterns, intermarriage, and genetics all play a part in their steady decline. While...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 1:25 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
Are doctors like scientists? Are their practices primarily guided by experiments and empiricism? Or are doctors more like artisans, unwilling or unable to test the effectiveness of many of their treatments? The Washington Post provides an interesting example of the-doctors-as-artisan...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 12:39 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
This ad is awesome. In sixty seconds, you watch a pretty-but-ordinary looking woman become a supermodel. All it takes is a little makeup, some hairspray and a few seconds of photoshopping. Instead of selling something impossible to achieve, this commercial...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:25 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Neuroscience
When I lived in London, I used to have to take the bus to Oxford. Without traffic, the ride took 70 minutes, which was just long enough to catch up on my reading and iPOD playlists. But as anyone who...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:12 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 16, 2006
Category: Culture
Breathing Earth is a map that shows, in real time, births, deaths and tons of carbon dioxide emitted by countries all over the world. If it weren't so depressing to watch, I could stare at it for hours......
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 3:05 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
Here are some facts about energy conservation. They all suggest that when it comes to reducing energy consumption what we need is more governmental regulation, not less. And these facts come courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, which is not...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 12:23 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Neuroscience
A few months ago, I offered a completely speculative hypothesis on television and autism: So how might TV be one of the causes of the "autism epidemic"? A possible answer focuses on the way the newborn brain organizes itself in...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 12:13 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
In his latest New Yorker article, Malcolm Gladwell profiles a group of shady entrepreneurs who claim to have devised an algorithm that can predict which movies will become blockbusters. They simply "interpret" the script, breaking it down into a discrete...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 9:10 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 15, 2006
Category: Culture
This is one manipulative television spot. Although I'm afraid it indulges in some serious scientific hype - stem cell cures for diabetes and Alzheimers remain a distant dream - it effectively humanizes a scientific issue. If we are ever going...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 12:15 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 13, 2006
Category: Culture
I want Bill Clinton to be president again. First there was this savvy framing of the upcoming election: "This is an election unlike any other I have ever participated in. For six years this country has been totally dominated -...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 6:22 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: My So-Called Life
While we are on the theme of consilience, here's a pretty perfect paragraph of prose that captures the kind of Third Culture I fantasize about. It's from Primo Levi's The Periodic Table: Carbon is again among us, in a glass...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 5:38 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
Since Mooney is off writing a book about hurricanes, I thought I would point your attention to a nice article in Slate on the continuing controversy over whether or not global warming is making hurricanes worse. It's worth noting that...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 2:58 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
In the new Seed, there's an excellent profile of E.O. Wilson, and his recent attempt to get evangelicals to embrace environmentalism. Good luck, Professor Wilson. I have a single (and very minor) quibble with the article, and it's a common...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:47 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
The defense is now presenting its case. I've sifted through Landis' online powerpoint, and I'm not that impressed. For starters, he still maintains that his abnormal testosterone ratio was simply a matter of too much whiskey. Sure. And while he...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:01 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
James Carville thinks he knows what Americans care about. Via Thomas Friedman: "Energy independence," Carville said. "It's now the No. 1 national security issue. ... It's become kind of a joke with us, because no matter how we ask the...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 9:54 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 12, 2006
Category: Culture
Pardon my schadenfreude: Yesterday, a source close to Foley explained to THE NEW REPUBLIC that in early 2006 the congressman had all but decided to retire from the House and set up shop on K Street. "Mark's a friend of...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 3:38 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
A plea for help. I'm trying to write something about this paper, by John Conway and Simon Kochen of Princeton. Any guidance from physics experts would be greatly appreciated. I'm afraid that when it comes to these sorts of papers...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 3:24 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
Apparently, the easiest way to reduce the percentage of churchgoers is to allow retail activity on Sundays. In this recently published paper on NBER, economists Jonathan Gruber and Daniel Hungerman examined the effect of repealing "blue laws" on church attendance...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 1:56 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
Alex Ross, music critic for the New Yorker, thinks that he has found a great new composer. There's only one catch: this composer doesn't even know how to read or write music. (Did I mention she's also a kitten?): It...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 11:26 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks