Science News for Writers

kurtbubna.com A "control-freak" perfectionist, a.k.a., the other-directed perfectionist as described in this research. Link: How to handle the control freak We all know someone who is a perfectionist.  In fact, it may be someone who drives you crazy, or, maybe you're driving yourself crazy with your own perfectionism.  On the positive side, most successful men and women, sometimes described as are type A personalities,  have a streak of perfectionism in their make-up. According to this new research out of the University of Kent in England, there are three types of perfectionists, one of which has a dark side.  The question researched is whether a character expects their own life and work to be perfect, or, whether they expect the lives and work of others to be perfect.  This is a distinction I had never considered until I read this study. By the way, earlier research posted on SNfW shows that perfectionism is a major factor in many su...

Sydney Developmental Clinic Analysis of mind-wandering studies offers new perspective on mental disorders ". . .The ADHD mind allows us to think freely and creatively." During downtime, some of us daydream while others might focus on a to-do list, or get stuck in a negative loop. Psychology has traditionally defined all these thought patterns as variations of "mind-wandering." But a review of brain imaging studies led by researchers at UC Berkeley and the University of British Columbia offers a new way of looking at spontaneous versus controlled thinking, challenging the adage that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. It suggests that increased awareness of how our thoughts move when our brains are at rest could lead to better diagnoses and targeted treatments for such mental illnesses as depression, anxiety and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). www.zacharycirving.com Dr. Irving is developing a new  theory  of mind-wande...

With the amazing and rapid advances in the science of criminology, it's getting much harder to get away with a major crime.  Just in the past few months, a system was introduced for telling the age of a fingerprint helping crime scene investigators know which prints were from the crime scene, and which pre-date it, saving investigators valuable time in following clues.  Other techniques introduced over the last few months include: Better low-cost DNA hair analysis for catching criminals New CSI tool pinpoints when fingerprints were left behind Plastic, not cash, is the new sign of criminal activity Statistical model predicts where a burglar will likely next strike And this is just the tip of the technical ice berg. With this new technology out of Belgium, investigators can more accurately predict the age of a person who leaves blood evidence behind, limiting the number of suspects to pursue.  And the improved ability to determine how old a person whose remains a...

UPDATE: After posting this story earlier today, I received a message on Linkedin from Dave Page, an author in the UK that reads:   "Please bear in mind that Conan Doyle attended Forensic courses in Scotland. The Lecturer named Bell would use the techniques later accredited to Sherlock Holmes during his lectures, with Doyle in the audience.  "This is covered in a book by one of Scotland's leading Forensic Examiners.  "Unfortunately I have lost the book he wrote but he named the Lecturer and he also became an expert on poisoning in Egypt for the Colonial Service and also highlighted that a bullet in the brain need not kill immediately but allow the person to still walk depending upon where the bullet lodged. "Conan Doyle used Bell's techniques in his books for Sherlock Holmes." A quick search on Powell's Books reveals this: The Real Life Sherlock Holmes: A Biography of Joseph Bell - The True Inspiration of Sherlock Holmes and the Pioneer ...

www.scienceknowledge.org Better DNA hair analysis for catching criminals A simple, lower-cost new method for DNA profiling of human hairs developed by the University of Adelaide should improve opportunities to link criminals to serious crimes. The researchers have modified existing laboratory methods and been able to produce accurate DNA profiles from trace amounts at a much higher success rate. Forensic DNA Evidence on Trial: Science and Uncertainty in the Courtroom by Victoria Grace Order new and used from Powell's Books "Technological advancements over the last 10 years have allowed police and forensic scientists to profile crime-scene DNA from ever smaller and more challenging samples collected from fingerprints, skin cells, saliva and hairs," says Associate Professor Jeremy Austin, Deputy Director with the University's Australian Centre for Ancient DNA. "DNA profiling of human hairs is critical to solving many serious crimes but most hair...

'How' often is more important than 'why' when describing breakups Maybe rocker Greg Kihn was being prophetic in his 1981 hit, "The Breakup Song," with its chorus, "They don't write 'em like that anymore." According to a research article by Ilana Gershon, associate professor of communication and culture in IU's College of Arts and Sciences, part of what makes the breakup stories she collected into American stories is that the medium seems so important to the message when breaking off relationships. "It wasn't until after I had collected many breakup stories that I realized my students had told me something quite revealing that would come up time and time again. ... American undergraduates focus on the 'how' of a breakup when describing their breakups, not the 'why' or the 'who,'" Gershon said. Her paper, " Everytime We Type Goodbye: Heartbreak American Style, " published in the jo...

Credit: iStockphoto/Cristian Ardelean Variation in the color of the eyes from brown to green can all be explained by the amount of melanin in the iris, but blue-eyed individuals only have a small degree of variation in the amount of melanin in their eyes.   There are days when I just scan through random research reports from past years, and find things that make me say, "Well, this is certainly interesting."  If you have blue eyes as I do, then we share a common ancestor who lived between six and ten thousand years ago.  Not ancestors, plural, but an ancestor, singular, that had a random mutation in a single gene that created the first blue-eyed person ever. Until about ten thousand years ago, everyone of the planet had black skin with eyes that varied from brown to green, but starting with this one person, there were blue eyes.  Meaningless in most respects, but interesting in that it shows the power of one mutation in one gene in one pe...

www.courier-journal.com Alpha-PVP, nicknamed “flakka," is an illegal synthetic drug unlike any  drug law enforcement officers have seen -- users will even trade heroin to get it. While research has shown that mental illness is not a prime cause of violence, alcohol and drugs are.  A new favorite street drug in the U.S. and the UK is bath salts as found in many homes across the world.  From reading the report, symptoms of bath salts use are similar to the use of stimulants, with many of the same results - aggression and violence included, as well as an inability to follow the instructions of others such as law enforcement.  For crime writers, bath salts offers another range of causes in murder, in suicide, and in a causes of violence.  Writing about the effects of bath salts is an effective way to get message out to the public through fiction and film. Here's the story with a link to the original research report and a list of symptoms from a B...

www.medicine.uiowa.edu   Stanley Perlman, MD, PhD, of the University of Iowa's Carver School of Medicine, Iowa City, Iowa. There's a story here, a story of scientific curiosity that could lead to a defense against an outbreak and epidemic that could sicken, cripple and even kill thousands if not millions worldwide.  Better still, it's a story of how science and scientists work. Any takers?  While this may never be a screenplay that sells (then again it might) it could well be the basis of a book about Doctor Perlman and others like him.   Here's the story with a link to the original essay in PLOS in the attribution line. *  *  *  *  * Scientific curiosity and preparedness for emerging pathogen outbreaks An essay published on July 14th in PLOS Pathogens' new "Research Matters" series reflects on a career path that started with the study of a somewhat obscure mouse virus mice and ended up at the front-line of the SARS and MER...

www.pinterest.com You gotta love this photo found on Pinterest.  One happy cat. This climate update indicates where we are on global warming, one of the nine critical Earth systems being impacted by human activity, one of four systems critically impacted.  For a review of the latest science on all nine systems, click on the link The Global Environment below. *  *  *  *  * International report confirms:  2014 was Earth’s warmest year on record Climate markers continue to show global warming trend In 2014, the most essential indicators of Earth's changing climate continued to reflect trends of a warming planet, with several markers such as rising land and ocean temperature, sea levels and greenhouse gases -- setting new records. These key findings and others can be found in the State of the Climate in 2014 report released online by the American Meteorological Society (AMS). For State of the Climate in 2014 maps, images and highlig...

Credit: © underworld / Fotolia  Scientists are concerned that global environmental change represents a growing threat to human health. Global warming and the rest of it is one of the more confusing topics we're confronted with.  Not that there's any doubt that warming is happening, but how do all of the various topics tie together?  One day it's research on warming, the next on the decline of fishing worldwide, followed by a report on the extinctions of species. How does this all tie together? We know that we're facing a series of environmental crises, but keeping it all organized in our minds is difficult. Two weeks ago I came across a 2010 report from the University of Stockholm and several related groups that offers a solution to the confusion. The Stockholm Resilience Centre, founded in 2007 as a joint project of Stockholm University and the Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics at The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences published a...