science wire

For much of history, psychosis was considered a result of demon possession. In many ways that view is still evident today.

It seems like a simple series of events: Someone is arrested and charged with a crime. They have a hearing.

Picture Earth at the center of a frame. The planet looks unassuming, a fleck, its blue-and-white marbling stark against a black interstellar backdrop. Yet the image likely evokes some reaction. Now imagine seeing this view from space. Astronauts who experience Earth from orbit often report feelings of awe and wonder, of being transformed by what they describe as the magic such a perspective brings.

UCLA Operation Mend The new program provides sessions for veterans' family members so they can learn how to understand their loved ones' challenges.

Hip-hop artists Tupac and Eminem are among the most iconic music artists of the past two decades, and as Dr Akeem Sule and Dr Becky Inkster, co-founders of HIP-HOP-PSYCH , write, their lyrics can prov

Money really can buy happiness when spending fits our personality, finds a study based on 77,000 UK bank transactions. Spending can increase our happiness when it is spent on goods and services that fit our personalities and so meet our psychological needs. Joe Gladstone People who spent more money on purchases which matched their personality were happier, found the study , published in the journal Psychological Science .

Would you kill one innocent person to save five? Choose your answer wisely: your popularity may depend on it. New research from Oxford University shows people gauge others' trustworthiness based on their moral judgements. The findings can help explain why snap judgements about morality tend to be based on a set of absolute moral rules (such as 'don't kill innocent people'), even if we might make different decisions when given more time.

Four million people travel on the Tube every day and Imperial researchers are trying to understand how they make decisions and adapt to disruptions.

Immigrant groups experience a high incidence of mental illness. Hannah Jongsma (Department of Psychiatry) is looking at data from an international study of the distribution of psychotic disorders. She suggests that 'psychosocial disempowerment' might be a powerful contributing factor to raised levels in minority communities.

Most terrorists are not psychopaths or sadists, nor are they people who would necessarily be inclined to shoot a gun or plant a bomb. That is one of the key statements of Fueling Terror , an article co-authored by University of Queensland School of Psychology's Professor Alex Haslam and University of St Andrews' (Scotland) Professor Stephen Reicher.

A joint report produced by the University of Liverpool's Institute of Irish Studies , Queen's University Belfast and the University of Notre Dame, Indiana released today (Friday, 25 March) sheds new light on the risks encountered by young people and children growing up in places of high religious segregation.

"Developmental scientists can learn from past studies, but it's still too hard for a researcher who wants to reuse another person's data - to find it, to reuse it, get it in interoperable form - to eventually build upon it," said Gilmore. UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. While there is no Hubble telescope gathering data about the universe of human development, projects to make large amounts of information - big data - more accessible to developmental researchers could bring behavioral science's biggest questions into focus, according to a Penn State psychologist.

Adults who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB) are twice as likely as heterosexual adults to suffer from anxiety or depression, according to research from UCL, London Metropolitan University and Public Health England. The study, published today in BMC Psychiatry, highlights the need for healthcare policy to address the needs of the LGB community.

Disaster films and science-fiction stories can go one step beyond entertaining us: they can also help shape our values. By Susanne Leuenberger (From "Horizons" no. March 2016) The Antarctic wasteland stretches out endlessly before us on the movie screen. For several minutes, the aerial photography explores the sublime beauty and the terrors of this icy world.

PhD student, Sarah Allen, is exploring socioeconomic differences in doctor-patient communication with head and neck cancer patients to understand whether these differences can be reduced using the Patient Concerns Inventory (PCI). "Before starting my PhD I gained a Masters in Health Psychology at the University of Hull while volunteering at a hospice in my home town.

Healthy people who have occasional hallucinations or delusions are more likely to experience mood and anxiety disorders, University of Queensland researchers have found. The Queensland Brain Institute 's Professor John McGrath has previously determined that five per cent of the general population occasionally experience hallucinations- sights or sounds that no one else can hear - and about one per cent of the general population also have delusional, or false, beliefs.

ANN ARBOR-As science, education and technology have taken on ever-increasing roles in society during the past two centuries, researchers at the University of Michigan have identified corresponding changes in cognition. Robert Axelrod, U-M professor of public policy and political science, and Rumen Iliev, a former U-M postdoctoral researcher, found an increase in the amount of causal-or cause and effect-language used in western society.

When news breaks about a famous athlete, typically it's what they say that matters, not how they say it.

Experts in tinnitus - ringing in the ears - are gathering in Nottingham next week for the first ever European research conference on the condition.

Leading experts in the field of veterans' mental health gathered at King's College London yesterday (Thursday 10th March 2016) to explore how services for Veterans and Service Families could be improved.

Breastfeeding can be a wonderful way to bond with a baby, but it's not the only way Vivien Burt, Sonya Rasminsky and Robin Berman ashkanroayaee/iStockphoto The authors write that the intangible benef

Needy families will pay less for diapers under a pilot program announced by the White House March 10 and inspired by research conducted through a partnership between Yale, local mothers, the City of New Haven, and community groups.

The societies we live in can have a direct influence on how dishonest people may be, according to a new study from The University of Nottingham. The study ' Intrinsic Honesty and the Prevalence of Rule Violations across Societies ' found that people from more corrupt societies were likely to be more dishonest than those from societies where rule-breaking is frowned upon.

Educational neuroscience has little to offer schools or children's education, according to new research from the University of Bristol.

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CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Is cellphone use detrimental to mental health? A new study from the University of Illinois finds that high engagement with mobile technology is linked to anxiety and depression in college-age students.

Luciana Berger MP visits new Brain Research Imaging Centre Shadow Cabinet Minister for Mental Health Luciana Berger MP has visited the University to see first-hand how investment in world-class facilities will make a real difference in helping researchers better understand mental illness. Luciana Berger visited Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre, the new £44m facility which hosts a combination of equipment unique in Europe.

Why do opponents of same-sex marriage really oppose it? A UCLA psychology study published online today in the journal Psychological Science concludes that many people believe gay men and women are more sexually promiscuous than heterosexuals, which they may fear could threaten their own marriages and their way of life.

Women are intuitively more altruistic than men, even women who identify with traditionally masculine traits such as power, dominance, and independence, a new Yale-led meta-analysis of 22 studies shows.

A bedside device that measures 'brain signatures' could help diagnose patients who have consciousness disorders - such as a vegetative state - to work out the best course of treatment and to support family counselling. The patient might be awake, but to what extent are they aware? Can they hear, see, feel? And if they are aware, does their level of awareness equate to their long-term prognosis? Srivas Chennu In 10 minutes, Srivas Chennu can work out what's going on inside your head.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill.

A mother walks into the pediatrician's office with her child who is experiencing headaches. Not much appears to be wrong.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently held a three-day conference to celebrate the achievements of its six Science of Learning Centers.

Do politicians get more done if they are more prone to virtue or to vice, if they are inclined toward justice and humanity or to a self-serving social strategy?

Both languages are active at all times in bilinguals, meaning the individuals cannot easily turn off either language and the languages are in competition with one another.

The Government's 'street triage'initiative - which sees mental health nurses accompany police officers to incidents where people need mental health support - could reduce police detentions without increasing cost to the public purse, suggests a new study by researchers from King's College London. Street triage aims to provide faster and more effective assessment, support and access to appropriate mental health services, and to reduce the need for people to be detained under Section 136 of the Mental Health Act (MHA).

The ephemeral design of the social media app Snapchat encourages intensely personal conversations between users, according to a study jointly conducted by the Social Media Lab of Natalie Bazarova , a

By Cynthia Lee Newsroom By Cynthia Lee Newsroom Everyone marches to the beat of their own drum: From walking to talking to producing music, different people's movements occur at different speeds. But do these differences influence coordination of group actions? The answer is yes, according to McGill University researchers.

A leading expert on hoarding disorder called for a major rethink in the way hoarding is managed in Australia.

UW-Madison psychology Professor Markus Brauer is focused on your good behavior. Throwing your cans and bottles in the recycling?

According to a study led by LMU researchers, a majority of patients diagnosed with breast cancer go on to develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, and in most of these cases the symptoms persist for at least a year.

Sussex brains behind Wellcome Collection exhibition on consciousness Neuroscientists at the University of Sussex are among the brains behind a major new exhibition on consciousness, which opens in London this week.

Professor Peter Kinderman, University of Liverpool's Institute of Psychology, Health and Society: "We have an absolute moral imperative to alleviate human suffering. Most of all for children. How a society treats its children is a benchmark of humanity. And our success in medical science is astounding.

Wendy Bradley, a PhD candidate of tax simplification and regulation at the University of Sheffield, comments on the challenges facing HMRC when collecting tax and pursuing tax avoiders as well as the agency's search for a new chief executive.

The University of Nottingham is welcoming Rwandan sociologist, psychotherapist and survivor of the 1994 genocide, Esther Mujawayo, to give a talk about her experiences.

Donald Trump is a baffling presidential candidate, because many people wonder how a person could be so liked when his primary method of communication appears to be insulting people.

Good filmmakers know intuitively that close-ups can be much briefer than longer-distance shots and still maintain their power. A Cornell psychologist has explained why. It takes less time to read an actor's expression when her face fills up the frame and there's nothing else in the shot to distract from it.

ANN ARBOR-For female gelada monkeys, a grunt from a male primate won't suffice to get her attention. The call of the wild must involve moans, wobbles or yawns to entice these females, according to a new University of Michigan study involving the Ethiopian mammals. In findings appearing in Scientific Reports, U-M researchers found that female geladas who heard recorded playbacks of male vocal sequences containing one of three derived call types-moans, wobbles and yawns-lingered longer and spent more time near the speaker.

Customer service calls can be frustrating for consumers and agents alike. But MIT spinout Cogito believes it can use behavioral analytics to make those experiences less onerous. Cogito has developed voice-analytics software for call centers - refined through years of research that focused on human behavior - that tracks, in real-time, voice patterns of customers and agents, and offers feedback to make the conversations more productive.

Mindfulness in parenting significantly reduces children's stress levels, according to a new study by the University of Melbourne's Director of Positive Psychology, Professor Lea Waters.