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Punishing kids for lying just doesn't work

If you want your child to tell the truth, it's best not to threaten to punish them if they lie. That's what researchers discovered through a simple experiment involving 372 children between the ages of 4 and 8.

How the Experiment was Done

The researchers, led by Prof. Victoria Talwar of McGill's Dept. of Educational and Counselling Psychology, left each child alone in a room for 1 minute with a toy behind them on a table, having told the child not to peek during their absence.

While they were out of the room, a hidden video camera filmed what went on.

Commentary calls for new 'science of climate diversity'

ITHACA, N.Y. - There is cloud hanging over climate science, but one Cornell University expert on communication and environmental issues says he knows how to help clear the air.

In the December issue of Nature Climate Change, Jonathon Schuldt, assistant professor of communication, argues that only by creating a "science of climate diversity" can climate science and the larger climate change movement overcome a crippling lack of ethnic and racial diversity.

Office jerks beware - your good ideas may not always be welcomed by colleagues

You don't have to be a jerk to come up with fresh and original ideas, but sometimes being disagreeable is just what's needed to sell your brainchild successfully to others. However, difficult or irritating people should be aware of the social context in which they are presenting their ideas. A pushy strategy will not always be equally successful, warn Samuel Hunter of Pennsylvania State University and Lily Cushenbery of Stony Brook University in the US, in an article in Springer's Journal of Business and Psychology.

Researchers identify hormone that reduces calorie burning, contributes to obesity

Hamilton, ON (Dec. 8, 2014) - Researchers from McMaster University have identified an important hormone that is elevated in obese people and contributes to obesity and diabetes by inhibiting brown fat activity.

Brown adipose tissue, widely known as brown fat, is located around the collarbone and acts as the body's furnace to burn calories. It also keeps the body warm. Obese people have less of it, and its activity is decreased with age. Until now, researchers haven't understood why.

Enzyme identified which could lead to targeted treatment for PMS

Low doses of fluoxetine - better known as the anti-depressant Prozac - could hold the key to preventing PMS symptoms, an international team of researchers has found.

Up to 80 per cent of women are thought to suffer from premenstrual syndrome (PMS), which can be a debilitating condition with symptoms such as anxiety, irritability, fatigue, sleep deprivation and increased sensitivity to pain.

Researchers at Mainz University explore new approach for treating Alzheimer's disease

It is estimated that about 35 million people worldwide currently suffer from dementia and it is expected that the number will increase to 135 million by the year 2050. The disease is already one of the most common health problems in the elderly, which is why experts predict that the numbers of people affected will increase over time.

San Francisco public housing type a strong predictor of kids' use of emergency rooms

San Francisco children living in non-redeveloped public housing are 39 percent more likely to repeatedly visit emergency rooms, according to new research from UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley.

Utah study: Mindfulness intervention boosts brain activation for healthy pleasures

(Salt Lake City) --How can people who are dependent on prescription opioids reduce their cravings? Learn to enjoy other aspects of their lives.

That's the key finding in a new study published in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine by Eric L. Garland, associate professor at the University of Utah College of Social Work. Garland and colleagues studied how an intervention program for chronic pain patients called Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) decreased patients' desire for prescription drugs.

Salk and Harvard scientists chart spinal circuitry responsible for chronic pain

LA JOLLA-Pain typically has a clear cause-but not always. When a person touches something hot or bumps into a sharp object, it's no surprise that it hurts. But for people with certain chronic pain disorders, including fibromyalgia and phantom limb pain, a gentle caress can result in agony.

In a major breakthrough, a team led by researchers at the Salk Institute and Harvard Medical School have identified an important neural mechanism in the spinal cord that appears to be capable of sending erroneous pain signals to the brain.

Utah study: Mindfulness intervention boosts brain activation for health pleasures

(Salt Lake City) --How can people who are dependent on prescription opioids reduce their cravings? Learn to enjoy other aspects of their lives.

That's the key finding in a new study published in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine by Eric L. Garland, associate professor at the University of Utah College of Social Work. Garland and colleagues studied how an intervention program for chronic pain patients called Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) decreased patients' desire for prescription drugs.

Cerebral oxygenation in elite Kenyan athletes

This news release is available in Spanish.

This is a pioneering study in the world of the physiology of exercise, given that it describes for the first time that elite Kenyan athletes have greater brain oxygenation during periods of maximum physical effort, and which contributes to their success in long-distance races.

Computers that teach by example

Computers are good at identifying patterns in huge data sets. Humans, by contrast, are good at inferring patterns from just a few examples.

In a paper appearing at the Neural Information Processing Society's conference next week, MIT researchers present a new system that bridges these two ways of processing information, so that humans and computers can collaborate to make better decisions.

Salience network is linked to brain disorders

CORAL GABLES, Fla (December 4, 2014) -- How does the brain determine what matters? According to a new scientific article, a brain structure called the insula is essential for selecting things out of the environment that are "salient" for an individual, and dysfunction of this system is linked to brain disorders such as autism, psychosis and dementia.

Blood brain barrier on a chip could stand in for children in pediatric brain research

In the human brain, the BBB is not the Better Business Bureau but the blood brain barrier and the BBB is serious business in human physiology. The human BBB separates circulating blood from the central nervous system, thus protecting the brain from many infections and toxins. But the BBB also blocks the passage of many potentially useful drugs to the brain and it has long stymied scientists who want to learn more about this vital tissue because of the lack of realistic non-human lab models. Even less is known about the BBB in children.

'Alzheimer's in a Dish' model induces skin cells into neurons expressing amyloid-beta

The search for a living laboratory model of human neurons in the grip of Alzheimer's disease (AD)--the so-called "Alzheimer's in a dish"--has a new candidate. In work presented at the ASCB/IFCB meeting in Philadelphia, Håkan Toresson and colleagues at Lund University in Sweden report success in creating induced neurons that model Alzheimer's by starting with fibroblasts taken from skin biopsies. The differentiated cells express a full range of normal neuronal markers.