Latest science news in Psychology & Sociology
Study: Some happy states have high suicide rates
Does misery really love company? An intriguing new study suggests that may be the case.
Britain issues first smog warning of the summer
The British government has urged people to avoid taking outdoor exercise in the afternoon over the Easter weekend because of the first "summer smog" of the year.
Video: Rutgers suicide: Roommate faces hate charge
Former Rutgers student Dharun Ravi is facing a host of charges - including hate crimes - for secretly streaming his roommate Tyler Clementi's sexual encounter with a man online.
From fork to farm
(PhysOrg.com) -- At Sandia's largest cafeteria, a leftover burrito will be sent off to eventually help some backyard garden bloom. When someone leaves a bit of lunch behind at Thunderbird...
Mix Science And God Correctly Or Don’t!
Mixing Science and Religion is always a hot topic. Just now we have a heated debate on Science2.0, and a mere two days ago there was a good article also...
Standing up for athletes at risk
When a high school athlete drops dead, the rare but fatal condition called "sudden death syndrome" dominates the headlines. For reasons that remain a mystery to scientists, some young athletes...
A look inside: Winthrop House
“Omar’s coming!” Winthrop House resident Lawrence Benjamin ’11 hollered across the Junior Common Room. Doing his best impression of the boys on the streets of Baltimore featured in HBO’s acclaimed television series “The...
Finding Japan, through its past
Studying early modern Japanese history may not sound like a delight. After all, you have to learn the language, along with several archaic variants. But David Luke Howell, Harvard’s newest professor of Japanese...
The gifts of immigration
Nearly one of every four Americans — 70 million — is an immigrant or is the child of parents from elsewhere. In Los Angeles, one of every three residents is foreign-born. The...
Another Freedom: The Alternative History of an Idea
Curt Hugo Reisinger Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Professor of Comparative Literature Svetlana Boym explores the cross-cultural history of the idea of freedom, discusses its limitations, and wonders...
A musical education
Peter Sellars ’81 buzzed into a Harvard classroom. His hair standing famously at attention atop his head, the unconventional American theater director greeted students with bear hugs and engaged in a two-hour discussion...
Samuel Hutchison Beer
Samuel Hutchison Beer, the distinguished Harvard political scientist, died in his sleep at the age of 97 in Washington, D.C., on April 7, 2009. His special field was British politics, in which he...
Taking the baton
Early last April, I pulled a pristine crimson folder from a tattered envelope to find the hard copy of my Harvard acceptance. Still euphoric from the news of my admission over email several...
Evolution of ‘final solution’
The table slab was cold and hard beneath 6-year-old Irene Hizme as doctors and nurses took measurements and blood samples. She didn’t know what was happening to her, and by the time...
In trash, an unlikely muse
Nima Samimi has been a chef, a baker, an apprentice carpenter, a muscular therapist, a touring folk singer, and a community organizer. He has written a prize-winning thesis on the Haitian revolution of...
Understanding Global Trade
Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade Elhanan Helpman discusses the revolutions in trade theory, showing how scholars shifted their trade flow analyses from sectoral levels to business-firm levels to...
Texting their way to better health
A team of undergraduates from Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Central Connecticut State University are developing a technology-based solution to one of the most pressing problems plaguing maternal and child health...
Muhsin Mahdi
Professor Muhsin S. Mahdi, James Richard Jewett Professor of Arabic Emeritus, at Harvard University, died on July 9, 2007, in Brookline, Massachusetts, after a long series of illnesses, at the age of 81....
Study finds news logo can affect viewer biases
(PhysOrg.com) -- Americans are more receptive to Al Jazeera English's reporting when they think it is actually CNN International's broadcast, a new University of Michigan study finds.
Musical activity may improve cognitive aging
ATLANTA -- A study conducted by Brenda Hanna-Pladdy, PhD, a clinical neuropsychologist in Emory's Department of Neurology, and cognitive psychologist Alicia MacKay, PhD, found that older individuals who spent...
School burnout can be turned into educational engagement
One fourth of all young people experience a form of school engagement on a weekly basis. Vocational students experience engagement to a greater degree than upper secondary school students; upper...
Study finds that diversity can trump ability
Dr Dick James from the Department of Physics at the University of Bath, UK, working with other colleagues from Germany and the UK, has found that decision making among groups...
Well: Think Like a Doctor: A Litany of Symptoms Solved!
Our specialist approach to medicine makes us seem like the proverbial blind men examining the elephant. Each specialist can accurately identify what he is seeing, and yet the whole picture...
Human weaknesses to blame for financial crisis, experts say
One of the first in-depth insider studies of the financial crisis has blamed human failings for the meltdown and called for urgent reforms to prevent a repeat.
Prenatal exposure to common insecticide linked to decreases in cognitive functioning at age 7
Researchers from the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health at the Mailman School of Public Health report evidence of a link between prenatal exposure to the insecticide chlorpyrifos and deficits...
Naftogaz case a diversion, says Tymoshenko
KIEV, Ukraine, April 21 (UPI) -- A criminal case charging a former Ukrainian head of state and the director of state utility Naftogaz with abuse is a political diversion,...
Review: Dual-screen Kyocera smartphone needs work
From emailing to Web surfing to taking photos, a smartphone can be a multitasker's best friend - unless all the tasks are making the screen feel too small. Wouldn't it...
Alfred Freedman, a Leader in Psychiatry, Dies at 94
As president of the American Psychiatric Association, Dr. Freedman helped bring an end to the policy declaring homosexuality a mental illness.