There’s a big discrepancy between what science shows about recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse and what’s being shown in the media, according to University of Oregon memory researcher Jennifer Freyd.

Most people find recovered memories less believable than events someone has always remembered, despite research showing that whether a memory is true or not has no documented relationship to whether it was always remembered or only recently remembered, Freyd says.

U

Madzuu is a village in Kenya’s western highlands and Lake Victoria basin where the rainfall is abundant, and there is some access to urban markets. And yet about 61 percent of the village population earned less than 50 cents a day in real terms in both 1989 and 2002. Many people there are trapped in chronic poverty from which escape is difficult.

Alice Pell, professor of animal science at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., is the principal investigator on a five-year, multidisciplinary

New research by Historian Dr Rebecca Earle from the University of Warwick charts love letters from the 16th -18th centuries to reveal that over 300 years ago men commonly used flowery, romantic words to express emotions, and that the emotionally open ‘New Man’ is not so new. Her research also suggests that 16th century Spaniards were more romantic than their American or English contemporaries.

The study of 303 letters entitled “Letters and Love in Colonial Spanish America” charts the langu

Well-qualified women are less likely than their male counterparts to consider running for public office because women do not perceive themselves as qualified and do not receive as much encouragement as men, according to a new study by political scientists at Brown University and Union College.

Despite the fact that women perform as well as men in terms of campaign fundraising and vote totals, they remain severely under-represented in U.S. political institutions. Gender disparities are appar

A new study of young mothers by researchers at University College London (UCL) has shown that romantic and maternal love activate many of the same specific regions of the brain, and lead to a suppression of neural activity associated with critical social assessment of other people and negative emotions. The findings suggest that once one is closely familiar with a person, the need to assess the character and personality of that person is reduced, and bring us closer to explaining why, in neurologica

Individuals with autism have been shown to have a difficult time recognizing faces, but two University of Washington researchers now suggest that the problem may be due to a lack of practice, rather than to abnormal functioning of the affected region of the brain.

Previous research, using an electroencephalogram (EEG) to measure brain activity, had shown that autistic 3- and 4-year-olds failed to show normal brain response when viewing their mother’s picture. However, a recent study re

As world reserves of oil and natural gas dwindle over the coming decades – a prospect predicted by many energy experts – the rate at which the people in most societies around the world have babies is likely to drop precipitously as well.

That is the prediction of anthropologist Virginia Abernethy, professor emerita of psychiatry at Vanderbilt University, speaking on Feb. 13 in the symposium “From the Ground Up: The Importance of Soil in Sustaining Civilization” at the annual meeting of the

There are no general laws of human relationships as there are for physics, but a leading marital researcher and group of applied mathematicians have teamed up to create a mathematical model that predicts which couples will divorce with astonishing accuracy. The model holds promise of giving therapists new tools for helping couples overcome patterns of interaction that can send them rushing down the road toward divorce.

Psychologist John Gottman and applied mathematicians James D. Murray and

Report suggests we’re better at avoiding self-blame than we think

“Regrets? I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention.” When Frank Sinatra crooned those lyrics in his song “My Way,” he probably didn’t know that having few regrets is more like “Our Way.”

Research has shown that people often expect to feel more regret when they “nearly succeed” (miss an airplane by a minute) than when they “clearly fail” (miss a flight by an hour) because they believe they will blame

The preparation of Espresso Coffee (EC) is influenced by factors related to the coffee and water and other technical conditions related to the machine. Susana Andueza has presented her doctoral thesis about Influence of technological variables on espresso coffee quality. Antioxidant and pro-oxidant capacity of coffee in the University of Navarre.

The aim of this work was to investigate the effects of hot water temperature (88, 92, 96 and 98º C), water pressure (7, 9 and 11atm), grinding gra

Findings Could Lead to Faster Electronic Devices

Working at the nexus of biology and nanotechnology, a researcher and an alumnus from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have released findings that could lead to the tailoring of bacterial processes for a host of smaller, faster semiconductors and other electronic devices.

Pulickel Ajayan, professor of materials science and engineering at Rensselaer, and geobiologist Ronald Oremland reported that three different kinds of common

Anger primes prejudice

You may be more prejudiced than you think, especially if you’re angry and approached by someone of a different race, religion or creed.

A study slated for publication in the Spring 2004 edition of Psychological Science (the flagship Journal of the American Psychological Society) by psychology professors David DeSteno and Nilanjana Dasgupta from Northeastern University and UMass Amherst respectively, reveals that the experience of anger causes automati

As Valentine’s Day approaches, one prevailing argument for marriage may well be that studies show married people are less depressed than their single counterparts. Behind this string of scientific reasoning for matrimony is a proven fact: the prevalence of depression in patients with coronary artery disease (e.g., myocardial infarction and heart failure) is approximately five times that of the general population.

Background

Major depression is a significant predictor of mor

A series of studies in rats and mice suggests that short bouts of stress increase the skin’s ability to fight infections and heal minor wounds.

The immune response of animals exposed to acute stress – about two hours of restraint – was two to four times higher compared to non-stressed animals. This was true when the animals’ skin was treated with chemical or protein antigens immediately after a stressful event. An antigen is any substance that the immune system reacts to by

Study evaluates immune response to telomerase tumor antigen as possible vaccine

Researchers at the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania have begun a Phase I clinical trial to evaluate the effectiveness of a telomerase peptide as a possible vaccine against breast cancer. The study will measure potential tumor cell shrinkage in patients after an immune response has been triggered to an antigen – the telomerase peptide – found in more than 90 percent of breast cancer

Heavy Internet use may be therapeutic for those people facing social isolation and loneliness, says a University of Alberta study–dispelling the belief that high computer usage leads to psychological problems.

A team of researchers, lead by graduate student Mary Modayil, challenged the notion that heavy Internet use increases levels of depression for its users. The research was recently published in the journal Cyberpsychology and Behavior.

Modayil and her team, made up of Dr. G