worthy links: Rama, acupuncture, disgust and politics (redux), mouse sex

V.S. Ramachandran gives a stimulating TED lecture and a short interview, mostly about mirror neurons, over at Neurophilosophy.

NeuroLogica’s Steven Novella recaps a recent study showing that acupuncture doesn’t work — and points out the clever way in which the failure was spun by the study’s authors.

Just the other day, I summarized a recent study looking at the relationship between disgust/purity and political ideology. In this short video, a brief discourse by Yale’s Paul Bloom on the topic.

Over at Not Exactly Rocket Science, Ed Wong talks about work out of Bejing that showed male mice with reduced serotonin levels became less choosy about the sex of their sexual partners. And as should be expected, the sensationalistic headlines from mass media organizations shortly followed. From the BBC: “Sexual preference chemical found” And from CBS News, a NY Post-worthy headline: “Serotonin sex bomb: How to make a mouse bisexual or just really horny”

worthy links

Nice piece from the Boston Globe on the positive benefits of solitude. (My friend Adam Waytz, from the Harvard psychology department, gets a mention.)

Congenitally blind people use visual cortex to do language processing

An essay by June Carbone regards the role of neuroscience in determining punishment for adolescents who commit crimes such as murder. Focused on a recent US Supreme Court decision on the juvenile death penalty, the piece points out some of the limitations of applying neuroscientific findings to issues of jurisprudence.

A new study from researchers at Northeastern University says day traders make more money when they stay with the herd.