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  <lastBuildDate>Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:57:58 -0000</lastBuildDate>
  <pubDate>Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:58:07 -0000</pubDate>
  <title>Human Nature Daily Review</title>
  <description><![CDATA[News feed of the Human Nature Daily Review compiled by Dr Ian Pitchford]]></description>
  <link>http://human-nature.com/nibbs/</link>
  <language>en-us</language>
  <copyright>Dr Ian Pitchford</copyright>
  <managingEditor>Ian PItchford</managingEditor>
  <webMaster>ian.pitchford@scientist.com</webMaster>
  <category>News</category>
    <item>
     <title>Monogamous voles</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Geoff Watts learns why male voles of one species stick to one mate while those from another species don't. Could philandering humans be helped?]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:46:33 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/leadingedge.shtml</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Under Fire at Harvard</title>
     <description><![CDATA[President Larry Summers' remarks about women in science stirred the cauldron at Harvard University, and now it's boiling over.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:43:12 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2005/02/20050222_a_main.asp</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>The State of Marriage in America</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Marriage, once the cornerstone of American society, is today a bruised and battered institution. With divorce rates near fifty percent and only a small fraction of homes consisting of a man, woman and child -- younger generations are growing up in what experts call a "culture of divorce."]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:41:53 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2005/02/20050223_a_main.asp</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>The mental block</title>
     <description><![CDATA[A few studies suggest that the way parents treat children is partly caused by what the child is like genetically, so that children who are born aggressive may misbehave as a result of the care that this evokes. It is also claimed that parents may have genetic tendencies to look after their children in particular ways that then make them misbehave.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:34:10 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,,1426047,00.html</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Human, Study Thyself</title>
     <description><![CDATA[This is the first of three articles exploring the relationship between race, genes, and medicine in three far-flung populations. Although race is a socially powerful concept, most geneticists think it has no foundation in biology. Modern DNA studies show that the world’s population is too homogeneous to divide into races.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:31:37 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.discover.com/issues/mar-05/features/human-study-thyself/</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Gay men read maps like women</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Gay men employ the same strategies for navigating as women - using landmarks to find their way around - a new study suggests. But they also use the strategies typically used by straight men, such as using compass directions and distances.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:29:09 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7069</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Generational Depression</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Psychiatrists at Columbia Univerisity in New York report that children are at an increased risk for depression if their parents and grandparents also suffer from the illness. This ScienCentral News video has more.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:20:12 -0000</pubDate>
     <link><![CDATA[http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?type=article&article_id=218392489]]></link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Were cavemen painting for their gods?</title>
     <description><![CDATA[The meaning of Ice Age art has been endlessly debated, but evidence is increasing that some was religiously motivated, says Paul Bahn]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:18:21 -0000</pubDate>
     <link><![CDATA[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml;sessionid=EO1PLUOS2BLC3QFIQMGSNAGAVCBQWJVC?xml=/connected/2005/02/23/efcave23.xml&sSheet=/connected/2005/02/23/ixconnrite.html&secureRefresh=true&_reque]]></link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>How time flies</title>
     <description><![CDATA[For the Aymara people living in the Andes, the past lies ahead and the future lies behind. Laura Spinney looks at how different languages reflect, and shape, our conception of time.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:17:11 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1423455,00.html</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Hominids Lose Control</title>
     <description><![CDATA[What makes us human? From a philosophical perspective, the answer may lie in part in our apparently unique need—and self-awareness—to ask the question in the first place. From a biological perspective, the answer lies in part in the sequence of our DNA. While fossil evidence has provided a rough draft of the story of human evolution, much more remains to be learned about the path our genes followed, a path that diverged millions of years ago from our closest living hominid relatives, the chimp and bonobo. Charting differences between human genomes and those of our evolutionary relatives—both near and distant—has become a powerful tool for filling in the gaps in the human fossil record.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:15:46 -0000</pubDate>
     <link><![CDATA[http://www.plosbiology.org/plosonline/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0030073]]></link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>World population 'to rise by 40%'</title>
     <description><![CDATA[The world's population is expected to rise from the current 6.5 billion to 9.1 billion by 2050, the UN says.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:13:21 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/4297169.stm</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Scientists Gather To Examine Altruism in a World of Need</title>
     <description><![CDATA[In the aftermath of the Asian tsunami, in a world where street children beg for food, why do some people help, but others don’t? To answer this question, from February 24-26, 2005, twenty leading social scientists will gather in Santa Fe, New Mexico to share their latest research findings that examine altruism in a global context, as part of the 34th annual conference of the Society for Cross-Cultural Research (SCCR).]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:10:59 -0000</pubDate>
     <link><![CDATA[http://www.seti.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=ktJ2J9MMIsE&b=362179&ct=449971]]></link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Making those choices about right and wrong</title>
     <description><![CDATA[If asked if it would ever be OK to kill your own child, you don't have to think very hard before answering, "No." And no matter what arguments someone offered, you would probably wince at the idea that even consensual, safe sex between siblings is anything but bad. Jonathan Haidt, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia, believes these initial reactions are based on five intuitions, deep-wired in the brain by eons of evolution. Cultural norms and practices are based on these instincts, he says, much as cuisines are built on the five taste receptors.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:09:46 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.usnews.com/usnews/health/articles/050228/28think.b.htm</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>The Fossil Fallacy</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Creationists' demand for fossils that represent "missing links" reveals a deep misunderstanding of science.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Tue, 22 Feb 2005 18:41:23 -0000</pubDate>
     <link><![CDATA[http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=13&articleID=0003EFE0-D68A-1212-8F3983414B7F0000]]></link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Unintelligent Design</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Recently a school district in rural Pennsylvania officially recognized a supposed alternative to Darwinism. In a one-minute statement read by an administrator, ninth-grade biology students were told that evolution was not a fact and were encouraged to explore a different explanation of life called intelligent design. What is intelligent design? Its proponents maintain that living creatures are just too intricate to have arisen by evolution. Throughout the natural world, they say, there is evidence of deliberate design. Is it not reasonable, then, to infer the existence of an intelligent designer? To evade the charge that intelligent design is a religious theory -- creationism dressed up as science -- its advocates make no explicit claims about who or what this designer might be. But students will presumably get the desired point. As one Pennsylvania teacher observed: ''The first question they will ask is: 'Well, who's the designer? Do you mean God?''']]></description>
     <pubDate>Mon, 21 Feb 2005 20:05:58 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/magazine/20WWLN.html</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>A challenge to sexual mumbo jumbo</title>
     <description><![CDATA[By claiming that sexual inequality can be caused by innate differences between men and women, Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard University, has ignited a controversy that goes to the heart of these conservative times.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Mon, 21 Feb 2005 20:03:13 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1418972,00.html</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Drafting a Genetic Map of Human Diversity</title>
     <description><![CDATA[ Researchers have released a first rough draft map of human genetic diversity. The map shows 1.58 million single-letter genetic differences across 71 people of European-American, African-American, and Han Chinese ancestry. The study by the company Perlegen could help improve disease treatments, but it's certain to rekindle debate over the question of race itself. NPR's Joe Palca reports.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 20 Feb 2005 21:17:26 -0000</pubDate>
     <link><![CDATA[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4503527&sourceCode=RSS]]></link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Brain Region May Give Early Warning of Risk</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Researchers say that the part of the brain that recognizes our mistakes also acts as an early warning system to keep us from screwing up.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 20 Feb 2005 21:16:28 -0000</pubDate>
     <link><![CDATA[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4503396&sourceCode=RSS]]></link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Size 'does not matter' for brains</title>
     <description><![CDATA[When it comes to brain size and intelligence, bigger is not necessarily better, say scientists.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 20 Feb 2005 21:11:42 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4277359.stm</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Were bigger brains really smarter?</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Bigger is smarter is better. That's the conventional wisdom for why the human brain gradually became three times larger than the ancestral brain. "But bigger brains were not generally smarter brains," said neurobiologist William H. Calvin at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Washington, D.C. on Friday, Feb. 18. "Thanks to the archaeologists, we know that our ancestors went through two periods, each lasting more than a million years, when toolmaking techniques didn't gradually improve, despite a lot of gradual brain size increase."]]></description>
     <pubDate>Fri, 18 Feb 2005 19:05:05 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/uow-wbb021605.php</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>A look inside the brainbox</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Steven Rose feels strongly about many things. Most famously, in the science world at least, he passionately opposes evolutionary psychology (the idea that we’re all just lumbering robots in thrall to our selfish genes), as profligated by his nemesis, Richard Dawkins.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Fri, 18 Feb 2005 19:01:58 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://news.ft.com/cms/s/38be3b6a-81ca-11d9-9e19-00000e2511c8.html</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>How Safe are These Drugs?</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Eyes are on the FDA today, for the first of three days of hearings. It's meant to be a session examining the safety of prescription painkillers like Vioxx, Celebrex and Bextra. But the hearings could prove to be more about the Food and Drug Administration itself.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 16 Feb 2005 20:34:12 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2005/02/20050216_b_main.asp</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>The Cross and the Constitution</title>
     <description><![CDATA["One nation under God" only became part of the Pledge of Allegiance fifty years ago, but it's a sentiment that has marked the United States since its earliest days. Recognizing the dual potential of religion as a force for good and for division, the founding fathers assigned church and state to separate Constitutional corners.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 16 Feb 2005 20:33:21 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2005/02/20050216_a_main.asp</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Freedom from Want</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Back in 2002, President Bush committed to spending $5 billion a year to help the world's most impoverished nations. So far though, his administration's contribution to this Millennium Challenge Account, is zero. This year's budget promises another 3 billion, but it is unlikely that money will be paid either. Critics say it is poor performance for a country that has a 12-trillion dollar economy. It's not that Americans don't care to share. Millions dug into their own pockets following the Asian Tsunami. But the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen wants people to think beyond the horror and the drama of a tidal wave, and to think about the steady stream of people dying from disease and starvation every day. Professor Sen joins us today to talk about the social and political factors that make people vulnerable. Finding freedom from want.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 16 Feb 2005 20:30:34 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2005/02/20050211_a_main.asp</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Ethiopia is top choice for cradle of Homo sapiens</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Two Ethiopian fossils have been crowned as the oldest known members of our species. An estimated 195,000 years old, the pair were witness to the earliest days of Homo sapiens.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 16 Feb 2005 20:19:33 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050214/full/050214-10.html</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Dismal Science</title>
     <description><![CDATA[The Effortless Economy of Science? is a compilation of Philip Mirowski's essays on economic methodology and its application to understanding the organization and output of scientific activity. Mirowski, who is Koch Professor of Economics and the History of Science at Notre Dame, is prominent within the community of "heterodox" economists, people who have challenged much of contemporary economic theory and empirical practice. He links his criticisms to the study of science by arguing that neoclassical economic reasoning—which views individuals as making purposeful decisions, based on well-specified preferences, constraints and beliefs—fails to provide a way of understanding how the enterprise of science functions. This failure in turn means that these economic models cannot address major problems facing science in modern society.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 16 Feb 2005 20:17:47 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.americanscientist.org/template/BookReviewTypeDetail/assetid/40753</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Ecology as an Economy</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Describing the interactions of organisms in nature as an economic system is not new. For example, in 1838 Charles Darwin, making the first mention of the concept that became natural selection, wrote in his notebook that "One may say there is a force like a hundred thousand wedges trying [to] force every kind of adapted structure into the gaps in the economy of Nature, or rather forming gaps by thrusting out weaker ones." But however common it may be to mention the economy of nature, it is novel to construct a full theory that characterizes the history of life and the evolution of ecosystems as an economic system. In Nature: An Economic History, Geerat Vermeij does just that. The book summarizes economic ideas about ecosystems and evolution that he has been developing for several decades. In his representation, the phenomena that make up the forces and connections responsible for the history of life are economy in action. It is a viewpoint that deserves serious study.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 16 Feb 2005 20:15:54 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.americanscientist.org/template/BookReviewTypeDetail/assetid/40751</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>The Man Who Defined Truth</title>
     <description><![CDATA[All people use logic in making their way through the world. Scientists in particular use it in reasoning about relations among experimental results and theoretical explanations. The first attempt to make logic itself the subject of rational inquiry was by Aristotle in his theory of the syllogism. The 19th-century English mathematician George Boole saw how to transform Aristotelian syllogistics into mathematics—specifically, a kind of algebra. The German mathematician Gottlob Frege, followed by Bertrand Russell, turned things around, making logic primary and seeing all of mathematics as based on logic. During the 20th century, as logic developed into a vibrant branch of mathematics, tension remained between those two aspects of the field: logic as a part of mathematics and logic as the foundation of mathematics.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 16 Feb 2005 20:11:52 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.americanscientist.org/template/BookReviewTypeDetail/assetid/40743</link>
    </item>
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     <title>The Ancestor's Tale</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Popular science writing is, for the most part, undertaken by two different, if sometimes intersecting, classes of author: the intelligent general writer, often a journalist who has a deep interest in a particular scientific subject; and the versatile scientist who can place easy hands on a keyboard. Some writers in the former group, such as Richard Rhodes, interweave personality and topic to produce a compelling narrative. Others, such as Roger Lewin, write so clearly and vividly that the essential features of their subject stand out in bold relief, giving readers entrée to an often-forbidding scientific domain. Scientists who attempt the genre may display those same virtues, and the very best write with an authority that commands the attention not only of a literate public but of their colleagues as well. In their popular writing, these latter can even shift scientific discourse and bring forward new theories, or at least new perspectives.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 16 Feb 2005 20:08:08 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.americanscientist.org/template/BookReviewTypeDetail/assetid/40740</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Predicting Addiction</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Why do some people get hooked on alcohol, tobacco or gambling, while others can sip, puff and bet—or not—with indifference? Lisa Legrand dissects this question and its now-familiar overtones of nature-vs.-nurture with new data that compare identical and fraternal twins as they grew from preadolescence to adulthood. Her article describes the behavioral and neurological signatures that may point to biochemical susceptibility and provide a way to distinguish those at greatest risk. These findings may also help to identify what kind of environment—including parenting strategies, peer interactions and neighborhood influences—can tip the scales toward or away from addiction.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 16 Feb 2005 20:04:42 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/40798?fulltext=true</link>
    </item>
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     <title>The Soul of Science</title>
     <description><![CDATA[According to Greek legend, Poseidon's son Theseus sailed to Crete to slay the monster Minotaur. After his triumphant return to Athens, his ship was preserved as a memorial. As the vessel aged, decaying planks were replaced with new ones; eventually, all the original timber was replaced. Philosophers know the story of Theseus's ship as a classic example of the problem of identity. What was the true identity of the ship, the shape or the wood?]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 16 Feb 2005 19:58:05 -0000</pubDate>
     <link><![CDATA[http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/40803?&print=yes]]></link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Could schizophrenia arise from a single defect?</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Researchers have long puzzled over the apparently multiple causes of complex developmental disorders such as schizophrenia. Individuals seem to be predisposed to the disease by a tragic, mysterious combination of genetics, prenatal trauma, viral infection, and early experience. And its array of symptoms--including hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, and antisocial behavior--has defied simple explanation.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 16 Feb 2005 19:32:10 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/cp-csa021105.php</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>The oldest Homo sapiens</title>
     <description><![CDATA[When the bones of two early humans were found in 1967 near Kibish, Ethiopia, they were thought to be 130,000 years old. A few years ago, researchers found 154,000- to 160,000-year-old human bones at Herto, Ethiopia. Now, a new study of the 1967 fossil site indicates the earliest known members of our species, Homo sapiens, roamed Africa about 195,000 years ago.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 16 Feb 2005 19:31:12 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/uou-toh021105.php</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Child obesity fears 'over-hyped'</title>
     <description><![CDATA[The scale of childhood obesity has been exaggerated, researchers have claimed.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 16 Feb 2005 19:25:02 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4267949.stm</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>A Game As Old As Empire</title>
     <description><![CDATA[The author of the gripping new book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, reveals how the U.S. became the world's largest superpower: by forcing developing countries into debt.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 16 Feb 2005 19:24:10 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.alternet.org/story/21245/</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Love Softens Men, Strengthens Women</title>
     <description><![CDATA[If a man and a woman are in love, the bewitched fellow loses testosterone — a hormone linked to strength and aggressiveness — while his female partner actually gains some of the potent male hormone and its effects, according to a recent study.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Tue, 15 Feb 2005 18:32:49 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20050214/lovers.html</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Maths skills survive linguistic damage</title>
     <description><![CDATA[An inability to process language needn't stop you from doing maths, UK researchers have found.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Tue, 15 Feb 2005 18:30:37 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050214/full/050214-3.html</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>If it isn't broken, don't fix it</title>
     <description><![CDATA[A laboratory study Moshinsky conducted shows that the public tends to show a distinct preference for proposals maintaining the status quo and rejects controversial proposals. Those polled tended to give greater weight to the potential losses than to the potential gains that could come from the change, and they leaned toward the status quo due to their aversion to losing, known as "loss aversion." Moshinsky wrote her doctorate, "The Status-Quo Bias in Policy Judgment," which was approved in late 2003, under the supervision of Prof. Maya Bar-Hillel of the Center for Rationality and Interactive Decision Theory and the Department of Psychology of the Hebrew University.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Tue, 15 Feb 2005 18:28:18 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/540282.html</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Researcher links schizophrenia, gene mutations</title>
     <description><![CDATA[The supersensitivity to dopamine that is characteristic of schizophrenia can be caused by mutations to a wide variety of genes, rather than alterations to just two or three specific genes, says a University of Toronto researcher.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Tue, 15 Feb 2005 18:27:21 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/uot-uot021105.php</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Depressed women more anxious, self-conscious: Study</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Clinically depressed women are more likely than depressed men to see themselves as anxious, self-conscious and vulnerable, say researchers at the University of Toronto and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).]]></description>
     <pubDate>Tue, 15 Feb 2005 18:26:30 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/uot-dwm021405.php</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Truth in advertising</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Investigators reviewed pharmaceutical ads in American medical journals and found that nearly one-third contained no references for medical claims; while the majority of references to published material were available, only a minority of company data-on-file documents were provided upon request; and the majority of original research cited in the ads was funded by or had authors affiliated with the product's manufacturer.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Tue, 15 Feb 2005 18:24:56 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/cmaj-tia021105.php</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Brain is wired for maths</title>
     <description><![CDATA[British scientists have confirmed once again that mathematics has a special place in the human brain. They report today that three men with severe brain damage following illness could understand basic arithmetic even though they could not understand words or sentences.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Tue, 15 Feb 2005 18:24:16 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/news/story/0,,1415044,00.html</link>
    </item>
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     <title>Depression Treatments Move Beyond Electro-Shock</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Electro-shock therapy is still considered the most effective treatiment for severe depression, but researchers have begun experimenting with new ways to use electricity. Less intense treatments such as Magnetic Brain Stimulation and Vagus Nerve Stimulation may offer patients fewer side effects and a lower risk of memory loss. For NPR News and American RadioWorks, Stephen Smith reports.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Mon, 14 Feb 2005 20:29:37 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4496083</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Do opposites attract or do birds of a feather flock together?</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Do people tend to select romantic partners that are similar to them or opposite to them? And does spouse similarity lead to marital happiness? In one of the most comprehensive studies ever undertaken on these questions, researchers at the University of Iowa find that people tend to marry those who are similar in attitudes, religion and values. However, it is similarity in personality that appears to be more important in having a happy marriage. The findings appear in the February issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association (APA).]]></description>
     <pubDate>Mon, 14 Feb 2005 20:26:21 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/apa-doa020905.php</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Scientists document complex genomic events leading to the birth of new genes</title>
     <description><![CDATA[A team of scientists led by Peer Bork, Ph.D., Senior Bioinformatics Scientist at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, report today in the journal Genome Research that they have identified a new primate-specific gene family that spans about 10% of human chromosome 2. Comprised of eight family members, the RGP gene cluster may help to explain what sets apart humans and other primates from the rest of the animal kingdom.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Mon, 14 Feb 2005 20:25:30 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/cshl-sdc021005.php</link>
    </item>
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     <title>Our animal instincts</title>
     <description><![CDATA[When it comes to the key qualities of attraction, humans and animals share more than one might think.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Mon, 14 Feb 2005 20:24:40 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4255289.stm</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Self-Censorship in the Sciences Today</title>
     <description><![CDATA[A new survey of recent scientists suggests that many censor themselves. That is, they refrain from exploring topics or using research techniques that might prove controversial among the general public. NPR's Christopher Joyce reports.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Mon, 14 Feb 2005 20:23:26 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4497593</link>
    </item>
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     <title>Study Shows Like Similarities Lead to Marriage Satisfaction</title>
     <description><![CDATA[With Valentine's day here again, many singles may be hoping Cupid's arrow will strike. And if you're wondering whether a new mate is marriage material, the results of a new study hint that you're better off looking for a bird of the same feather instead of waiting for an opposite to attract.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Mon, 14 Feb 2005 20:21:00 -0000</pubDate>
     <link><![CDATA[http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=00081076-30D2-120D-B0D283414B7FFE9F]]></link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Holy Evolution, Darwin! Comics Take On Science</title>
     <description><![CDATA[In recent years, a few scientists and comic book artists have joined forces to portray the excitement of science, scientific ideas and the drama of discovery.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Mon, 14 Feb 2005 20:02:34 -0000</pubDate>
     <link><![CDATA[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4495248&sourceCode=RSS]]></link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Crick's first DNA doodle released</title>
     <description><![CDATA[A rough sketch by Francis Crick showing his first impression of the DNA molecule has been released on the web.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Mon, 14 Feb 2005 20:00:35 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4263611.stm</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>How to Talk to a Conservative About Social Security</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Enough facts to defend against the onslaught of misinformation about Social Security.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Mon, 14 Feb 2005 19:59:19 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.alternet.org/story/21244/</link>
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     <title>Feminine males 'more attractive'</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Men with feminine faces will be luckier in love as most women are attracted to them rather than masculine men, Liverpool University scientists say.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 13 Feb 2005 16:00:01 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4261489.stm</link>
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    <item>
     <title>Love, Lust and Homo Sapiens</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Are women less desirable to men if they are high achievers at work? Do men prefer the "step and fetch it" subservient woman to the one with career aspirations? Two studies receiving major media attention say that the answer is yes. Not surprisingly, this "bad news for smart women" scenario fueled headlines.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 13 Feb 2005 15:59:11 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-mating13feb13,0,2637899.story</link>
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     <title>A startling diary reveals the onset of autism</title>
     <description><![CDATA[A meticulous diary kept by a mother of twins has revealed indicators of autistic behaviour in children as young as six months of age. The findings are published today in Neurocase.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sat, 12 Feb 2005 11:08:59 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.mcmaster.ca/ua/opr/nms/newsreleases/2005/autism.html</link>
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     <title>Just in Time for Valentine's Day: Falling in Love in Three Minutes or Less</title>
     <description><![CDATA[It seems that the heart wants what the heart wants -- and it can figure it out fairly quickly, according to evolutionary psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania.  The researchers studied dating data from 10,526 anonymous participants of HurryDate, a company that organizes "speed dating" sessions, and found rare behavioral data on how people genuinely act in dating situations.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sat, 12 Feb 2005 11:07:45 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/article.php?id=747</link>
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     <title>Rat brain's executive hub quells alarm center if stress is controllable</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Treatments for mood and anxiety disorders are thought to work, in part, by helping patients control the stresses in their lives. A new study in rats by National Institutes of Health (NIH) grantees provides insight into the brain mechanisms likely involved. When it deems a stressor controllable, an executive hub in the front of the brain quells an alarm center deep in the brainstem, preventing the adverse behavioral and physiological effects of uncontrollable stress.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sat, 12 Feb 2005 11:06:17 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/niom-rbe021105.php</link>
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     <title>Herb 'as good as depression drug'</title>
     <description><![CDATA[A German study has added weight to the argument that a herbal remedy is an effective treatment for depression.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sat, 12 Feb 2005 11:04:36 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4255087.stm</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Treating Depression</title>
     <description><![CDATA[New research shows a common over-the-counter treatment for depression actually works. Researchers found that the hormone DHEA was 'an effective treatment for midlife-onset major and minor depression,' leading to significant improvements on several measures of depression. We'll talk about it.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sat, 12 Feb 2005 11:02:45 -0000</pubDate>
     <link><![CDATA[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4495615&sourceCode=RSS]]></link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Andrew Weil</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Medical Dr. Andrew Weil's best-selling books have done much to bring concepts such as alternative medicine, homeopathy and holistic healing into the medical main stream.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sat, 12 Feb 2005 11:01:14 -0000</pubDate>
     <link><![CDATA[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4495607&sourceCode=RSS]]></link>
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     <title>Lovers, beware candlelight’s allure</title>
     <description><![CDATA[As psychology advances its understanding of the mind and brain, perhaps the last bastion of mystery about why we do what we do remains our perplexing behaviour around love and romance.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Fri, 11 Feb 2005 22:13:07 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://news.ft.com/cms/s/fe517104-7c47-11d9-8992-00000e2511c8.html</link>
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    <item>
     <title>'Hobbit' remains kept out of reach</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Australian scientists who believe they have found a new species of mini human fear a maverick Indonesian scientist who has locked away the priceless remains may never give them back.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Fri, 11 Feb 2005 22:12:16 -0000</pubDate>
     <link><![CDATA[http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10010714]]></link>
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     <title>Older people get the big picture</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Psychologists from McMaster University have discovered that the aging process improves certain abilities -- the ability to grasp the 'big picture'. The study, published in the journal Neuron dispels the myth that older people perform slower and worse than younger people.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Fri, 11 Feb 2005 22:11:25 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://psychology.plebius.org/article.php?article=739</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Lying Faces</title>
     <description><![CDATA[When the stakes are high emotions in the face and voice may give away hard-to-spot liars. As this ScienCentral News video reports, one researcher studying deception for the military is finding information that will be helpful in love and war.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Fri, 11 Feb 2005 22:10:17 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?article_id=218392481</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Autism Gene</title>
     <description><![CDATA[The causes of autism are unknown and probably many. But as this ScienCentral News video reports, scientists may have found one genetic explanation for the disorder.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:22:40 -0000</pubDate>
     <link><![CDATA[http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?type=article&article_id=218392480]]></link>
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     <title>We are the final frontier</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Copernicus, Darwin, Crick and Watson changed the way people see themselves. Ian Sample asks leading scientists what comes next.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:20:57 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,,1409019,00.html</link>
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     <title>Love me; Love my jokes</title>
     <description><![CDATA[That sought-after trait in a mate -- "good sense of humour" -- is more complex than originally thought. In fact, men and women define it differently.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:19:31 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/mu-lml020905.php</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Fooled For Love</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Think you're having a hard time finding a date for Valentine's Day? Tell it to the male Australian cuttlefish, who sometimes has to dress up like a female if he wants to get the girl. This ScienCentral News video has more.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:17:30 -0000</pubDate>
     <link><![CDATA[http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?type=article&article_id=218392478]]></link>
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    <item>
     <title> Spray to boost female sex drive</title>
     <description><![CDATA[A spray that helps increase women's enjoyment of sex has undergone successful trials. The spray, developed by Australian company Acrux, contains the male sex hormone testosterone.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:16:43 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4252999.stm</link>
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    <item>
     <title>A theory of roughness</title>
     <description><![CDATA[A recent, important turn in my life occurred when I realized that something that I have long been stating in footnotes should be put on the marquee. I have engaged myself, without realizing it, in undertaking a theory of roughness. Think of color, pitch, loudness, heaviness, and hotness. Each is the topic of a branch of physics. Chemistry is filled with acids, sugars, and alcohols — all are concepts derived from sensory perceptions. Roughness is just as important as all those other raw sensations, but was not studied for its own sake.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:15:38 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/mandelbrot04/mandelbrot04_index.html</link>
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     <title>Study: Negative Words Dominate Language</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Robert Schrauf says he was a bit puzzled when he began analyzing data he collected that shows that regardless of age or culture, we have far more words in our vocabulary that express negative rather than positive emotions.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:14:32 -0000</pubDate>
     <link><![CDATA[http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/DyeHard/story?id=460987&page=1]]></link>
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     <title>Bonobos dying as they flee hunters</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Hunting may be altering the social ecology of our closest living relative, the pygmy chimpanzee, or bonobo, making this endangered ape even more difficult to study and protect.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:13:44 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6954</link>
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    <item>
     <title>Why North Americans ain’t got rhythm</title>
     <description><![CDATA[A recently published study looked into why people in some parts of the world seem better at grasping offbeat rhythms compared to people in North America. The problem appears to be at least partly cultural. The beat, it seems, is beat out of us.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:12:59 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6929895/</link>
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     <title>New Study Suggests Race Fear Isn't Hard Wired</title>
     <description><![CDATA[If you've ever walked down a dark alley and seen a stranger approach, then you probably know that automatic vigilance - a signal from your brain making you more alert. And even if you consider yourself unprejudiced, you may have also noticed that this response is more prevalent when you encounter people of races other than yours. It can be chalked up partly as caution around the unknown - the fact that we are generally less familiar with other races than we are with our own - but it is still discouraging for race relations. Some new research, however, has shown that we may have more control over our race-based vigilance reaction than previously thought.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:11:50 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/02/050204212209.htm</link>
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    <item>
     <title>The Selling of the Last Savage</title>
     <description><![CDATA[On a planet crowded with six billion people, isolated primitive cultures are getting pushed to the brink of extinction. Against this backdrop, a new form of adventure travel has raised an unsettling question: Would you pay to see tribes who have never laid eyes on an outsider?]]></description>
     <pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:10:24 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://outside.away.com/outside/destinations/200502/fist-contact_1.html</link>
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     <title>Study Links Emotional Stress, Heart Attacks</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Heart specialists have discovered a new way that the organ can fail suddenly in the wake of strong emotion, an effect some call the "broken heart syndrome." A report in this week's New England Journal of Medicine details the syndrome, which often affects women.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:08:49 -0000</pubDate>
     <link><![CDATA[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4492787&sourceCode=RSS]]></link>
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     <title>Science Plumbs Memory's Faults</title>
     <description><![CDATA[his week defrocked priest Paul Shanley was convicted of child rape, after the victim testified about memories of the abuse that he recalled only after seeing news reports about Shanley. The trial focused on those memories' reliability, but evidence is growing that nearly all memories distort the truth.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:08:12 -0000</pubDate>
     <link><![CDATA[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4492757&sourceCode=RSS]]></link>
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     <title>Babies can learn words before their first birthday</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Although most parents, educators, and researchers believe that children can't learn specific words until well into their second year, children younger than 1 year can, in fact, learn certain words for things that are not a regular part of their daily lives, according to new research being published in the January/February 2005 issue of the journal, Child Development.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:06:44 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/sfri-bcl020105.php</link>
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     <title>Study finds happiness persists, despite illness</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Despite what able-bodied healthy people might think, people with severe illnesses and disabilities don't wallow in misery and self-pity all the time.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:06:06 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/uomh-sfh020705.php</link>
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     <title>Nonhuman primate males more susceptible to age-related cognitive decline than fe</title>
     <description><![CDATA[When it comes to aging, women may have another reason to be thankful. Research conducted in nonhuman primates at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center of Emory University shows male nonhuman primates are more susceptible to age-related cognitive decline. The February issue of Behavioral Neuroscience reports this finding, which the researchers say has implications for developing sex-specific therapies to help humans guard against age-related memory loss.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:05:07 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/euhs-npm020905.php</link>
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     <title>Secret relationships go sour quickly</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Secret romantic relationships are hot, right? Movies and television dramas are full of them, and they almost always seem intense, the gateway to a new life filled with promise if not outright ecstasy.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:04:24 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/uog-jcw021005.php</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Science intends to tag all life</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Scientists are to establish a giant catalogue of life - to, in effect, "barcode" every species on Earth, from tiny plankton to the mighty blue whale.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:03:15 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4251309.stm</link>
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    <item>
     <title>Teach Evolution: Leave No Child Behind</title>
     <description><![CDATA[As I write this column, I’m flying from San Francisco to New York City for three days of meetings at the American Museum of Natural History on bringing the latest scientific data to the public via museums and planetariums. I look forward to working with my colleagues. I’m also eager to gaze again at their stunning collection of fossils and to travel to distant locations in our universe at the Rose Center and the Hayden Planetarium, the museum’s digital planetarium. Both the fossil dinosaurs and the immersive planetarium environment present concrete evidence that evolution is pervasive throughout the natural world.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:00:58 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_devore_evolution_050210.html</link>
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     <title>The icy truth behind Neanderthals</title>
     <description><![CDATA[In 1848, a strange skull was discovered on the military outpost of Gibraltar. It was undoubtedly human, but also had some of the heavy features of an ape - distinct brow ridges, and a forward projecting face. Just what was this ancient creature? And when had it lived?]]></description>
     <pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2005 17:59:52 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4251299.stm</link>
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    <item>
     <title>Defender of death squads to direct US "democracy" crusade</title>
     <description><![CDATA[As the State Department official in charge of human rights, and later as assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, Abrams’s main activity centered on the US organization of a counterrevolutionary army to carry out terrorist attacks against Nicaragua and the support of right-wing dictatorships in neighboring El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2005 17:57:35 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/abra-f10.shtml</link>
     <author>Bill Van Auken</author>
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     <title>There’s Nothing Sexier Than a . . . Nursing Mom?</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Martha McClintock and Natasha Spencer, psychologists at the University of Chicago, may have found  chemical compounds that increase female sexual motivation. Strangely, the potion comes not from hunky men but from breast-feeding women and their infants.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 09 Feb 2005 21:08:44 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.discover.com/web-exclusives/sexy-nursing-mom0209/</link>
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    <item>
     <title>Inventing language: window into the brain?</title>
     <description><![CDATA[he importance of word order in language got a boost from a new study of a sign language that recently arose in a Bedouin community in the Negev Desert of present-day Israel. In the 70 years since Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL) originated, it has developed a consistent subject-object-verb word order: "John Sam shot" means John pulled the trigger, and Sam took the bullet. ABSL got its start in a Bedouin village after two sons of the village founder developed a genetic defect that caused early and complete deafness. The Bedouins are an insular ethnic community that used to live a nomadic life in the Negev.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 09 Feb 2005 21:06:55 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://whyfiles.org/shorties/170lang_develop/</link>
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     <title>Study indicates male brain four per cent faster</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Canadian researchers examining the speed at which the brain works found a secondary discovery -- the male brain works slightly faster than a female one.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 09 Feb 2005 21:05:39 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1107892162802_103301362/?hub=Canada</link>
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     <title>Love Beats Depression for Women, Not Men</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Love may banish the blues for women more easily than for men, according to a new study.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 09 Feb 2005 21:01:42 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://drkoop.com/newsdetail/93/523794.html</link>
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    <item>
     <title>Melatonin's action in the brain</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Scientists have found the first instance of melatonin directly acting on a neuropeptide in the vertebrate brain, they reported February 7 online in PNAS.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 09 Feb 2005 18:25:58 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20050209/02/</link>
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    <item>
     <title>Humanity and Divinity in Rembrandt's Art</title>
     <description><![CDATA[A recent review of Rembrandt's Late Religious Portraits at the National Gallery in Washington says, "Go to this show. It will make you a better person; it will make the whole, complicated, messy, human enterprise seem more tolerable."]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 09 Feb 2005 18:24:58 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2005/02/20050209_b_main.asp</link>
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    <item>
     <title>What's infantile sexuality got to do with it?</title>
     <description><![CDATA[In Fred Hoyle's classic science fiction novel, ''The Black Cloud" (1957), a super-intelligent, intergalactically roaming gas cloud passes through our solar system. Contact is briefly established with a primitive planetary population (i.e., us). After effortlessly and instantaneously ingesting the entirety of human knowledge, the cloud asks amiably: ''Will you please resolve this paradox? A very large proportion of your literature -- forty percent, I estimate -- is concerned with what you call 'love.' Yet nowhere in literature could I find out what 'love' consists of. This led me to assume that 'love' must be something rare and remarkable. Can you imagine my surprise when at last I learned from medical textbooks that 'love' is a very simple, ordinary process, shared by a great variety of other animals?"]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 09 Feb 2005 18:19:21 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2005/02/06/whats_infantile_sexuality_got_to_do_with_it/</link>
     <author>George Scialabba</author>
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     <title>For the Worst of Us, the Diagnosis May Be 'Evil'</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Predatory killers often do far more than commit murder. Some have lured their victims into homemade chambers for prolonged torture. Others have exotic tastes - for vivisection, sexual humiliation, burning. Many perform their grisly rituals as much for pleasure as for any other reason.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 09 Feb 2005 18:18:45 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/08/health/psychology/08evil.html</link>
     <author>BENEDICT CAREY</author>
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     <title>Dolly expert is to clone embryos</title>
     <description><![CDATA[The creator of Dolly the sheep has been granted a licence to clone human embryos for medical research. Professor Ian Wilmut and Kings College London scientists will clone early stage embryos to study motor neurone disease (MND).]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 09 Feb 2005 18:15:06 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4245267.stm</link>
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     <title>Your Money or Your Life</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Today, medical-related debt is the second leading cause of personal bankruptcies - and the middle class is suffering the most.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 09 Feb 2005 18:14:07 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.alternet.org/rights/21211/</link>
     <author>Dan Frosch</author>
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    <item>
     <title>New monkey species name to be auctioned</title>
     <description><![CDATA[The Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), in partnership with Bolivian protected area authorities, announced today a one-of-a-kind international auction for the right to name an entire species of monkey. The online auction runs from Feb. 24th to March 3rd, and will be hosted by Charity Folks (www.charityfolks.com), an online auction venue for nonprofits that recently sold a guitar autographed by former Beatle Paul McCartney and lunch with President Bill Clinton.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Wed, 09 Feb 2005 18:13:21 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/wcs-nms020905.php</link>
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    <item>
     <title>Disease Gene Linked to Evolution</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Approximately two percent of Caucasians have a gene segment variation that can cause a certain form of schizophrenia. Most people with the variation, known as a polymorphism, do not have the disease. A University of Iowa, Iowa City, study reveals a good prognosis for those who do have this form of schizophrenia. The researchers also found that this polymorphism is associated with overall benefits for human survival, and the initial mutation occurred in a single common ancestor about 100,000 years ago.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Tue, 08 Feb 2005 18:54:09 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.rednova.com/news/display/?id=125713</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Study Identifies Trade-Off between Motherhood and Longevity</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Motherhood is a difficult job. In fact, the results of a new study suggest that, historically, taking on the role early in life was linked to shorter lifespans. A report published online this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates that mothers who gave birth at a young age in the 18th and 19th century also tended to die young. The results suggest that natural selection may have sacrificed a woman's longevity for reproductive success.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Tue, 08 Feb 2005 18:33:20 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://tinyurl.com/5p924</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Sex and the scientist</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Susan Greenfield's grand passion is popularising science, so it's not surprising if she calls the president of Harvard a 'toerag' and appears in Hello! says John Crace.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Tue, 08 Feb 2005 18:32:27 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,1407564,00.html</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>"Libido Meter" May Be First True Sexual-Arousal Gauge</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Israeli scientists have developed a test that can objectively determine the level of a person's sexual desire.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Tue, 08 Feb 2005 18:32:01 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/02/0207_050207_libido.html</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>I'm the boss, so will you marry me?</title>
     <description><![CDATA[When it comes to wedlock, men opt for women in subordinate job positions. Maureen Dowd reports .]]></description>
     <pubDate>Tue, 08 Feb 2005 18:31:25 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://tinyurl.com/5fbrj</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Hell to pay for Harvard president</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Lawrence Summers, president of Harvard, slipped up recently. It is hard to imagine, but he seems momentarily to have believed that his was an institution of inquiring minds, open to all sorts of provocative ideas and ready for intellectual adventure in the search for truth. He felt free to actually think instead of mouthing the party line. There will be hell to pay for this stupidity.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Tue, 08 Feb 2005 18:30:20 -0000</pubDate>
     <link><![CDATA[http://www.joplinglobe.com/story.php?story_id=161441&c=96]]></link>
     <author>Jay Ambrose</author>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>While under pressure those most likely to succeed will most likely fail</title>
     <description><![CDATA[New research published in the latest issue of Psychological Science finds that individuals higher in working memory capacity (HWM) are more likely to be negatively impacted by performance pressure on math tests than those lower in working memory capacity (LWM). Working memory is a short-term system that holds information relevant to performance and ensures task focus. HWMs have superior attentional allocation capacities-- more resources, which they use on a regular basis. "However, if this attention capacity is compromised, e.g. by worries about the situation andits consequences, high working memory individuals' advantage disappears," the authors explain. Under low-pressure conditions, HWMs outperform LWMs. However, when the pressure is on, HWMs failed, while LWMs performance did not deviate from their, albeit lower, scores.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Tue, 08 Feb 2005 18:28:48 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/bpl-wup020705.php</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>The science of difference</title>
     <description><![CDATA[When I was an undergraduate in the early 1970s, I was assigned a classic paper published in Scientific American that began: "There is an experiment in psychology that you can perform easily in your home. ... Buy two presents for your wife, choosing things ... she will find equally attractive." Just ten years after those words were written, the author's blithe assumption that his readers were male struck me as comically archaic. By the early '70s, women in science were no longer an oddity or a joke but a given. Today, in my own field, the study of language development inchildren, a majority of the scientists are women. Even in scientific fields with a higher proportion of men, the contributions of women are so indispensable that any talk of turning back the clock would be morally heinous and scientifically ruinous.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Tue, 08 Feb 2005 18:25:31 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://tinyurl.com/65rlz</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Males slow to realise 'men are quick thinkers' claim could offend</title>
     <description><![CDATA[BOYS may be outperformed by girls at school but there is a glimmer of hope for them. Researchers claim to have found scientific proof that men can think faster than women.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Tue, 08 Feb 2005 18:25:00 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12170249%255E2703,00.html</link>
     <author>Roger Dobson and Will Iredale</author>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>A Susceptibility Gene for Affective Disorders and the Response of the Human Amyg</title>
     <description><![CDATA[A common regulatory variant (5-HTTLPR) in the human serotonin transporter gene (SLC6A4), resulting in altered transcription and transporter availability, has been associated with vulnerability for affective disorders, including anxiety and depression. A recent functional magnetic resonance imaging study suggested that this association may be mediated by 5-HTTLPR effects on the response bias of the human amygdala—a brain region critical for emotional and social behavior—to environmental threat.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Mon, 07 Feb 2005 22:05:51 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/62/2/146</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Minority rule works for animals</title>
     <description><![CDATA[A handful of clued-up individuals can steer a swarm of honeybees or a school of fish in the right direction, research suggests. The finding could help engineers to deploy robots more effectively in the future.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Mon, 07 Feb 2005 22:01:19 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050131/full/050131-9.html</link>
     <author>Roxanne Khamsi</author>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Monkeys pay for sexy pics</title>
     <description><![CDATA[To a monkey, some things are worth looking at more than others. A US study has shown that rhesus macaques will pay to look at images of powerful or sexually interesting fellows.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Mon, 07 Feb 2005 22:00:03 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050131/full/050131-5.html</link>
     <author>Michael Hopkin</author>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Duquesne speaker focuses on perils of modern 'eugenics'</title>
     <description><![CDATA[The eugenics movement of the early 20th century, which led to immigration bans and state-mandated sterilization of the genetically unfit, appears so crude and sinister today that it seems unlikely anyone would ever embrace it.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Mon, 07 Feb 2005 19:21:51 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05038/453781.stm</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Rude software causes emotional trauma</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Scientists at California University in Los Angeles (UCLA) have discovered computers can cause heartache simply by ignoring the user. When simulating a game of playground catch with an unsuspecting student, boffins showed that if the software fails to throw the ball to the poor student, he is left reeling from a psychological blow as painful as any punch from a break-time bully.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Mon, 07 Feb 2005 19:21:05 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/07/rude_software/</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Why left-handers may not see the wood for the trees</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Left-handed people really do see the world differently, according to research published today. A team from the University of Birmingham has found that, when shown the same image, left-handed and right-handed people use different parts of the brain.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Mon, 07 Feb 2005 19:20:32 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1407477,00.html</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Peter E. Stokes, 78, a Leader in Treating Bipolar Disorder, Is Dead</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Peter E. Stokes, a Cornell endocrinologist and psychiatrist and a pioneer in the use of lithium to treat manic depression, died on Jan. 22 at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in Manhattan. He was 78.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Mon, 07 Feb 2005 19:19:57 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/obituaries/07stokes.html</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Children's taste sensitivity and food choices influenced by taste gene</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Variation in a taste receptor gene influences taste sensitivity of children and adults, accounting for individual differences in taste preferences and food selection, report a team of researchers from the Monell Chemical Senses Center. In addition to genes, age and culture also contribute to taste preferences, at times overriding the influence of genetics.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Mon, 07 Feb 2005 19:19:26 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/mcsc-cts012805.php</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Experimental domestication of foxes yields clues to cognitive evolution</title>
     <description><![CDATA[New findings, made by researchers studying the outcome of a decades-long fox-breeding experiment, suggest that some aspects of social intelligence in animals are correlated with genetically selected "tame" behavior--for example, fearlessness and non-aggression toward humans. Understanding how intelligence evolved in humans and other animals remains one of the central evolutionary questions yet to be answered by behavioral scientists. Of particular interest is how social problem solving evolves; many believe it is our own social intelligence that differentiates us from all other species.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Mon, 07 Feb 2005 19:18:34 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/cp-edo020305.php</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Abnormal brain activity during the observation of others' actions</title>
     <description><![CDATA[In a study that broadens our understanding of the neural basis of social interactions, researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of Montreal have shown that individuals with autism display abnormal patterns of activity in brain circuits that underlie the understanding of other people's behavior. Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized in part by marked social deficits.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Mon, 07 Feb 2005 19:17:54 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/cp-aba020305.php</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Field-cricket study shows that when it comes to competition, sperm quality matte</title>
     <description><![CDATA[By studying the relationship between sperm viability and reproductive success in a cricket species, researchers have come closer to understanding the contribution of sperm quality to reproductive success, at least in insects.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Mon, 07 Feb 2005 19:17:00 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/cp-fss020305.php</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Ancient engravings found in Somerset cave</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Two members of the University of Bristol Spelaeological Society have discovered an engraving in a cave in the Mendip Hills, Somerset, which may be at least 10,000 years old.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Mon, 07 Feb 2005 19:16:33 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2005/622</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>The impact of biotechnology</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Laurie Taylor talks to Professor Nikolas Rose about the impact of biotechnology: will it re-shape our society, family life and our own sense of who we are and what we can hope for? And does it hold the possibility to alleviate or exacerbate the huge global inequalities in health?]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 06 Feb 2005 18:18:05 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/thinkingallowed.shtml</link>
     <author>Laurie Taylor</author>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Anthropologist: Mothers' baby babble is part of evolution</title>
     <description><![CDATA[ Every modern mom speaks "motherese," the singsongy coos and goos used to talk to her baby. This language is not just a dumbed-down form of grown-up talk, but it lies at the root of how all humans speak, according to a theory recently published in a peer-reviewed journal by world-renowned anthropologist Dean Falk of Florida State University.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 06 Feb 2005 16:08:59 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/myrtlebeachonline/news/nation/10830499.htm</link>
     <author>Bill Hendrick</author>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Emotions and Life: Perspectives for Psychology, Biology, and Evolution</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Emotions are a complex subject to explore in a single book. All animals experience emotions; although the emotions may be beyond self-awareness, they can influence the animals’ behavior or that of animals around them. Emotions and Life is a textbook designed for students in psychology or graduate students studying the field of emotion. The author, Robert Plutchik, is a noted psychologist who has conducted extensive research and developed theories of emotions. He has published widely on the topic, and, in this volume, explores the evolution and biology of emotion.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 06 Feb 2005 16:07:56 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/162/2/409</link>
     <author>KATHRYN J. EDNIE, M.D.</author>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Making False Memories</title>
     <description><![CDATA[We'll also find out about new research looking at how the brain makes memories. Though there's no shortage of research on memory formation, this study has a twist -- the researchers imaged the brains of the study subjects as they made memories of events that didn't actually happen.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 06 Feb 2005 16:07:09 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4486533</link>
     <author>Ira Flatow</author>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Ernst Mayr dies</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Ernst Mayr, the eminent evolutionary biologist and arguably one of the most influential scientists of the 20th century, died Thursday morning (February 3) at the age of 100, Harvard University said today.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 06 Feb 2005 16:06:25 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20050204/01</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Games people play</title>
     <description><![CDATA[MANY people, it is said, regard life as a game. Increasingly, both biologists and economists are tending to agree with them. Game theory, a branch of mathematics developed in the 1940s and 1950s by John von Neumann and John Nash, has proved a useful theoretical tool in the study of the behaviour of animals, both human and non-human.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 06 Feb 2005 16:04:46 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.newsisfree.com/iclick/i,69940996,1676,f/</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Monkeys fancy symmetrically patterned cards</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Capuchin and squirrel monkeys prefer symmetrical pictures and those with elements repeated at common intervals more than random patterns, according to new study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes (Vol. 31, No. 1). The findings suggest that human aesthetic preferences may have ancient evolutionary and genetic roots, says study author James Anderson, PhD, a reader in the psychology department at the University of Stirling in Scotland.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 06 Feb 2005 16:04:01 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb05/monkeys.html</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Fuzzy math</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Ask a member of the Pirahã tribe to count a cluster of pebbles, and even the brightest member of this isolated Amazonian tribe will probably respond with a blank stare. This is because the Pirahã do not have words for precise quantities or the action of counting--instead they quantify objects approximately, using words analogous to our "few" and "many." Even their word for one, "hói," might be more accurately translated as "about one," says Peter Gordon, PhD, a psychology professor at Columbia University Teachers College, who studies the tribe.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 06 Feb 2005 16:02:31 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb05/fuzzy.html</link>
     <author>SADIE F. DINGFELDERE</author>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Experiments investigating cooperative types in humans: A complement to evolution</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Unlike other species, humans cooperate in large, distantly related groups, a fact that has long presented a puzzle to biologists. The pathway by which adaptations for large-scale cooperation among nonkin evolved in humans remains a subject of vigorous debate. Results from theoretical analyses and agent-based simulations suggest that evolutionary dynamics need not yield homogeneous populations, but can instead generate a polymorphic population that consists of individuals who vary in their degree of cooperativeness. These results resonate with the recent increasing emphasis on the importance of individual differences in understanding and modeling behavior and dynamics in experimental games and decision problems. Here, we report the results of laboratory experiments that complement both theory and simulation results. We find that our subjects fall into three types, an individual's type is stable, and a group's cooperative outcomes can be remarkably well predicted if one knows its type composition. Reciprocal types, who contribute to the public good as a positive function of their beliefs about others' contributions, constitute the majority (63%) of players; cooperators and free-riders are also present in our subject population. Despite substantial behavioral differences, earnings among types are statistically identical. Our results support the view that our human subject population is in a stable, polymorphic equilibrium of types.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 06 Feb 2005 16:02:03 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/102/5/1803</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Prehistoric Knives Suggest Humans Competed</title>
     <description><![CDATA[A recent excavation of 400,000-year-old stone tools in Britain suggests that two groups of early humans could have competed with each other for food and turf.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 06 Feb 2005 16:00:47 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20050131/knifefight.html</link>
     <author>Jennifer Viegas</author>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Impact of childhood abuse on the clinical course of bipolar disorder</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Severe childhood trauma appears to have occurred in about half of patients with bipolar disorder, and may lead to more complex psychopathological manifestations.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 06 Feb 2005 15:59:22 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/186/2/121</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Non-sex genes 'link to gay trait'</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Multiple genes - and not just the sex chromosomes - are important in sexual orientation, say US scientists.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 06 Feb 2005 15:58:34 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4215427.stm</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Linguistics may be clue to emotions, according to Penn State research</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Words may be a clue to how people, regardless of their language, think about and process emotions, according to a Penn State researcher.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 06 Feb 2005 15:57:31 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://live.psu.edu/story/9849</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>War Against the Weak</title>
     <description><![CDATA[War Against the Weak:  Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race by Edwin Black]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 06 Feb 2005 15:56:22 -0000</pubDate>
     <link><![CDATA[http://mentalhelp.net/books/books.php?type=de&id=2500]]></link>
     <author>Erika Nanes</author>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Forgotten Prophet of Genetics</title>
     <description><![CDATA[The Man Who Invented the Chromosome: A Life of Cyril Darlington. Oren S. Harman. xii + 329 pp. Harvard University Press, 2004.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 06 Feb 2005 15:54:58 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.americanscientist.org/template/BookReviewTypeDetail/assetid/37208;jsessionid=baahDCY4f04pCM</link>
     <author>Robert Olby</author>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Monkey "Pay-Per-View" Study Could Aid Understanding of Autism</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Researches have found that monkeys will "pay" juice rewards to see images of high-ranking monkeys or female hindquarters. They say their research technique offers a rigorous laboratory approach to studying the "social machinery" of the brain and how this machinery goes tragically awry in autism -- a disease that afflicts more than a million Americans and is the fastest growing developmental disorder.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 06 Feb 2005 15:53:46 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.dukemednews.org/news/article.php?id=8409</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Our Modern Day Monsters</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Child molesters occupy a dark corner in our collective nightmares. Murderers and rapists may return to society after they've served their time but child molesters are considered so dangerous that their names are published to warn neighbors of their presence.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 06 Feb 2005 15:52:48 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2005/01/20050124_b_main.asp</link>
     <author>Dick Gordon</author>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Genes influencing male homosexuality identified</title>
     <description><![CDATA[The first study to examine the entire human genome for genetic influence in male sexuality has identified several regions that may influence whether a man is heterosexual or gay.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 06 Feb 2005 15:51:42 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.plebius.org/article.php?article=734</link>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Study Plumbs Brain Responses to Anger</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Robert Siegel talks with David Sander, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Geneva and one of the lead authors of an article in Nature Neuroscience about the brain's anger response mechanism. Sander explains how his team conducted the experiment and possible benefits this study may hold for understanding autistic and schizophrenic patients.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 06 Feb 2005 15:50:30 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4465923</link>
     <author>Robert Siegel</author>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>The Gender Gap in Math and Science Careers</title>
     <description><![CDATA[NPR's Madeleine Brand talks to Nicole Weekes, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Pomona College in Southern California, about whether gender differences explain why more men than women take up careers in math or science. Harvard University President Lawrence Summers recently suggested that such differences in part accounted for the gender gap science and math related jobs.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 06 Feb 2005 15:49:27 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4458519</link>
     <author>Madeleine Brand</author>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>Science and Religion: Physical Sciences</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Where did the universe come from -- and where is it going? Some people find answers to such questions in scientific theories, while others look to religion for answers, We talk about whether there can be common ground between science and religion in the study of the physical sciences, including physics and astronomy.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 06 Feb 2005 15:48:14 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4461733</link>
     <author>Ira Flatow</author>
    </item>
    <item>
     <title>A Look at Research on Gender and the Sciences</title>
     <description><![CDATA[Harvard President Lawrence Summers caused an uproar with his intimation that innate differences account for a lower number of women in the fields of math and the sciences. David Kestenbaum, himself a particle physicist, examines what the scientific evidence shows about this subject.]]></description>
     <pubDate>Sun, 06 Feb 2005 15:47:01 -0000</pubDate>
     <link>http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4470316</link>
     <author>David Kestenbaum</author>
    </item>
 </channel>
</rss>
