NEWSWORTHY
LSD's long strange trip: 75 years from 'problem child' to 'prodigy'
Lysergic acid diethylamide was labeled a "problem child" by the man who discovered its hallucinogenic properties in 1943. As it turns 75, the drug known as LSD may now be changing its image. The late Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann famously learned of LSD's psychedelic effects ...
Stressed? Many Japanese schools and companies are encouraging people to cry to boost mental health
An increasing number of schools and companies in Japan are encouraging their students and employees to cry as a way of relieving stress and improving mental health. Tears of sadness and happiness are believed to reduce stress, as the act of crying relaxes autonomic nerves ...
From family and friends to strangers on the subway and public figures on 24-hour news cycles, humans recognize an astonishing 5,000 faces, scientists said Wednesday in the first study of its kind. Through most of history humans lived in small groups of a hundred or ...
Have you ever heard of macaws that blush? Researchers still don't quite understand how it works, but a French team has observed the phenomenon multiple times in a group of five captive blue-and-yellow macaws (Ara ararauna). They published their findings Wednesday in the journal PLOS One. Blue-and-yellow ...
There's nothing wrong with being wrong
Humans are built to make mistakes. Admitting them is crucial to a functioning democracy.
New Caledonian crows use mental pictures to twist twigs into hooks and make other tools, according to a provocative study that suggests the notoriously clever birds pass on successful designs to future generations, a hallmark of culture. "We find evidence for a specific type of ...
Scientists have pinpointed three genes that may have played a pivotal role in the evolution of the striking increase in brain size that helped define what it means to be human. These genes, found only in people, appeared between 3 and 4 million years ago, ...
Have you ever been on a diet and wished that spinach excited your taste buds? Or that chocolate left you cold? Neuroscientists said Wednesday they have discovered how to manipulate the brain to make sweet things off-putting, and bitter ones nice. But only in mice, for ...
Hit songs today are "happier," more danceable and more likely to be sung by women than songs that fail to make it to the charts, a study into 30 years of musical evolution revealed Wednesday. But also it noted a somber trend: while people clearly ...
Messing with the natural rhythm of one's internal clock may boost the risk of developing mood problems ranging from garden-variety loneliness to severe depression and bipolar disorder, researchers said Wednesday. The largest study of its kind, involving more than 91,000 people, also linked interference with ...
Mind games: North Korean detention may have scarred U.S. prisoners
Three Americans released from North Korean captivity Wednesday are at risk of a range of symptoms, from crippling anxiety to severe depression, as a result of the trauma experienced during their imprisonment. Half a dozen experts said the men could suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, ...
A study of nearly half a million people has uncovered 30 new genes linked to depression, tripling the number known to play a role in the debilitating disease. The same enlarged basket of depression genes also underpins other psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, a consortium ...
