Jonah Lehrer
Jonah Lehrer is an editor at large for Seed Magazine. His first book, Proust Was A Neuroscientist, will be published by Houghton-Mifflin in 2007.
cortex
Posts by this author
March 16, 2009
David Dobbs has a really excellent and thought-provoking article on the diagnosis (and perhaps over-diagnosis) of post-traumatic stress disorder over at Sciam. The essential point is that it's extremely hard to define a normal psychological response to traumatic events. Are nightmares normal? Is it…
March 14, 2009
This is disturbing stuff. According to the Stanford Center for Law and the Biosciences, No-Lie MRI has recently produced a report that's being offered as evidence in a California court.
The case is a child protection hearing being conducted in the juvenile court. In brief, and because the details…
March 12, 2009
A reader asks:
What's the hardest question you've gotten about the new book? Is there one you were totally unprepared to answer?
This is a slightly embarrassing confession, but one of the most difficult questions I've been asked is also one of the most obvious. It goes something like this:
"What…
March 11, 2009
A general assumption in the sports world is that athletes get better over time. Sprinters get faster, hitters hit more home runs, quarterbacks throw fewer interceptions, etc. And yet, there's one sports statistic that has refused to budge: the percentage of free-throws made in the NBA. Here's the…
March 10, 2009
Apologies, once again, for the blogging silence. I was busy in London, on tour for the UK version of the book, which is called "The Decisive Moment". (We got some great press, including being featured as "Book of the Week" by BBC Radio 4.)
Although book tours can, on occasion, be frustrating and…
March 2, 2009
In the Times Science section today, Natalie Angier discusses a fascinating-sounding new book, by the primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. The book, "Mothers and Others," argues that humans evolved a powerful set of moral instincts - a set of instincts that far exceed those of our primate relatives -…
February 28, 2009
First of all, a huge thank you to everyone who came to one of the events on my book tour, from Seattle to The Strand. Thank you for listening and for your questions. It's been such a deep pleasure to meet so many people interested in dopamine, Proust and Cheerios. Also, a sincere thank you to…
February 25, 2009
In case you were wondering how you should invest your retirement savings (assuming you're fortunate enough to still have some), yet another study demonstrates that low cost index funds are the way to go:
Basic stock market index funds generally aspire to nothing more than matching the returns of a…
February 24, 2009
One of the frustrations with writing a science book is that you keep on bumping into brand new research that you want to include. That's precisely what happened to me when I read this just published paper in the Journal of Consumer Research by Leonard Lee, Dan Ariely, and On Amir. The behavioral…
February 22, 2009
For the last week, I've been suffering from one of those head colds that won't go away. The worst part of the cold isn't the raw nose, or the sinus headaches, or the scratchy throat - it's not being able to smell. I really hate not being able to smell. A world without scent is just so much less…
February 21, 2009
Over at Mind Matters, I recently interviewed Matthew Lieberman, a social neuroscientist at UCLA. The previous week I asked Ed Vul, lead author of the "Voodoo Correlations" paper a few questions, and I wanted to make sure I gave some of the scientists he criticized a chance to rebut the accusations…
February 19, 2009
Being on book tour means that I watch way too much SportsCenter, since that's what I do when I can't sleep. And so, because it's mid-February, I've noticed that the ESPN anchors are already talking endlessly about March Madness, college basketball and brackets. (Of course, this is also because they…
February 17, 2009
Paul Ekman, the eminent scientist behind micro facial expressions, dissects the unconscious tics of deceit used by A-Rod:
Ms. Couric asked Mr. Rodriguez if he had ever been tempted to use illegal drugs. He answered with a simple "No" accompanied by what might be a microfear expression, according to…
February 16, 2009
The brain is like a Swiss Army knife, stuffed full of different mental tools that are well suited to different situations. Sometimes, we want to flex the prefrontal cortex, and really exert our rational muscles. And then there are other situations (like picking a strawberry jam) where thinking too…
February 16, 2009
Self-promotion alert! If you're allergic to self-aggrandizing blog posts, then you'll probably want to stop reading now. But just a quick note to remind interested people that I'll be in the Bay Area this week, talking about decision-making, before returning to the East Coast and holding events in…
February 11, 2009
One of the perverse pleasures of spending too much time in airports is getting to people watch. I put on my "anthropologist from Mars" glasses and pass the time by staring at strangers, watching what they eat, read and how they struggle to nap in uncomfortable positions. This morning, while waiting…
February 9, 2009
Over at the always wonderful blog Neurophilosophy, Mo has an excellent summary of a recent experiment that investigated the impressive prescience of our unconscious recognition memory:
12 healthy participants were presented with kaleidoscopic images under two different conditions. In one set of…
February 8, 2009
Over at Global Post, a new international news service, there's an interesting article on tennis greats and age. I didn't realize that tennis talent - at least when measured by Grand Slam victories - basically drops off a cliff at the age of 28, which is why Federer can no longer beat Nadal.…
February 7, 2009
One of the case studies I use in How We Decide when discussing the dangers of information overload concerns the diagnosis of back pain. Before the introduction of MRI's in the late 1980s, doctors were forced to rely on X-rays when diagnosing back pain. X-rays provide doctors with a limited amount…
February 6, 2009
Just a quick note about some of the upcoming events on the book tour, which kicks off this Monday in Seattle. I hope to see you there!
February 9, Seattle Town Hall, 7:30 PM
February 10, Powell's Books, Portland 7:30 PM
February 11, UCSB, 7:30 PM
February 12, Los Angeles Public Library, 7 PM…
February 6, 2009
That was fun!
*/
The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Jonah Lehrer
Colbert Report Full EpisodesPaul McCartney Appearance
Funny Political VideosMore Funny Videos
A few random notes:
1) I can't bring myself to watch the clip. Which reminds me of my brilliant idea for an fMRI…
February 5, 2009
Sorry for the radio silence: I've been traveling and promoting the new book. (More on all my tour events in the near future, except to note that I'll be in Seattle on Monday, then Powell's Books on Tuesday!)
And set your Tivos: I'll be on the Colbert Report tonight, trying not to make an ass out…
February 3, 2009
In the last few months, American consumers have undergone a profound shift in their shopping habits. We've transitioned from being incessant consumers - the spendthrifts of the world - to reluctant savers. Here's the Times:
American consumers and businesses are embarking on an era of thrift as the…
February 2, 2009
I came of age in the Ritalin generation, which meant that plenty of my classmates in elementary school went to the nurse's office for their little dose of drug. At the time, I remember being jealous of these kids, who not only got to miss 10 minutes of instruction but got to have a real, genuine…
February 1, 2009
In the latest Seed, there's an interesting dialogue between political scientist James Fowler and physicist Albert-Laszlo Barabasi. I was particularly intrigued by their ruminations on the network dynamics of Facebook:
JF: When we move from five friends in real life to 500 on Facebook, it's not the…
January 31, 2009
Over at the Economist, a number of economists have been speculating on the possibility of an economic "placebo" that would boost consumer confidence without actually triggering a massive spike in government spending. In other words, it would be a Keynsian bump without the cash, akin to giving…
January 30, 2009
Melinda Wenner has an excellent article on the benefits of unstructured playtime - play without any rules - in the latest Sciam Mind. The article reminded me of that great Auden quote, which he adapted from Nietzsche: "Maturity - to recover the seriousness one had as a child at play."
Play actually…
January 29, 2009
I've got an interview with Ed Vul, the lead author of the recent paper on "Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience," over at Scientific American. Since the paper hit the web, it has provoked a flurry of rebuttals and responses. If you'd like a balanced perspective on the issue - and it's worth…
January 29, 2009
I've got a long article in Nature this week on Jeff Lichtman (of Brainbow fame) and the birth of connectomics, which seeks to construct a complete wiring diagram of the brain:
At first glance, Jeff Lichtman seems to be hanging long strips of sticky tape from the walls of his Harvard lab. The tape…
January 28, 2009
Via Marginal Revolution, comes this interview with Warren Buffett, where he makes the case for the current stimulus package. I highlight this excerpt not to argue for the bill, but to highlight one of Buffett's many excellent mental habits, which we should all attempt to imitate:
SG: But there is…