Science News for Writers

Credit: © igor / Fotolia    When solving short (non-political) verbal problems in an experiment, liberals were more likely than conservatives to achieve solutions with a sudden insight or "Aha!" Conservatives and liberals do think differently Research shows different ways of solving everyday problems linked to political ideology. Big differences in the ways conservatives and liberals think about solving the nation's most pressing problems couldn't be more apparent during this presidential election cycle. But political ideas aside, people who hold conservative versus liberal perspectives appear to differ in everyday thinking processes and problem solving, according to new research. When solving short (non-political) verbal problems in an experiment, liberals were more likely than conservatives to achieve solutions with a sudden insight or "Aha!" In contrast, both groups achieved roughly an equal number of solutions through gradual, analytica...

Here's a curious situation: scientists are debating. . . well, arguing. . . about the definition of curiosity.  This may seem a bit silly, but it's not.  Unless there is a standard, broadly accepted definition of a phenomena such as "what is an atom?", it becomes very difficult to conduct research that can be replicated by other researchers.  And replication of an experiment achieving the same results is critical to verifying the research as accurate. As writers, we all depend on standard definitions of words, relying heavily on both a precise definition and the implied definition.  What is curiosity?  It's a word I've used for years assuming that my readers understand what I mean.  But do we?   These sorts of arguments are common in science.  It is entertaining to read about the twenty some years of debates between Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein about quantum mechanics. Einstein was awarded his one Nobel Prize for identifying light as disc...

www.cnn.com The question is, if Caitlyn Jenner can choose her sex, can Rachel Dolezal choose her race? In cases like Jenner or Dolezal, does it come down to the freedom change what is genetically imbued to meet personal choice, personal preference, of self-identification?   How much can each of us change ourselves by psychotherapy or plastic surgery or exercise or diet?   Is there a limit to what we can change about ourselves?  And how?  . . .before it becomes an issue to those around us or to or society as a whole. If we believe in absolute personal freedom - as long as we don't yell fire in a movie theater - are there or should there be other limits?  Who gets to set the limits?  Is it a politically controlled, majority rules decision?  Or does it fall within the choice of the individual? Getting back to the cases in point, if one can choose her sex, can the other choose her race? Sounds like a topic a writer should explore. *  ...

cw33.com This election year has produced 17 Republican presidential candidates, which on its surface  may appear to give the party a competitive advantage. Evolution, however, disagrees. The 2016 Presidential race is in full swing, with the news cycle currently dominated by a slate of seventeen seemingly qualified candidates for the Republican nomination.  The assumed wisdom is that competition is good, leading to the eventual emergence of the best candidate. But is it?  This study out of Michigan State University suggests otherwise, that too many candidates is as bad as too few - according to their application of the theories of evolution of decision-making strategies. As many have noted, it's very hard for an individual candidate in this pack to make himself or herself heard over the din of attack and counter-attack between the current leader and the pack. As yesterday's post pointed out, it appears that when faced with a multitude of options, the human bra...

wegotthiscovered.com Tony Shalhoub as Adrian Monk, a San Francisco detective who suffers obsessive compulsive disorder, created by writer and producer Andy Breckman. The television detective Monk was an enjoyable character, solving crime despite being portrayed as being nearly crippled by his obsessive compulsive disorder.  What attribute of the Monk character made him effective at solving crime?  Or rather, what attribute might the writers have picked up on that made him able to solve crimes that baffled others? As this research points out it was his imagination.  He was obsessive because he could imagine the germs on every door knob and so on, so he had a well developed ability to picture "what-ifs." This in turn gave him the ability to imagine all sorts of possible solutions that those of us lacking a hyper-imagination would miss. I don't know that this was the writer's thought process, but it came through in Monk's thought processes. Here's...

I feel most of us wonder how others see us.  Handsome?  Beautiful?  Wise?  Smart?  Trustworthy?  This research of patients suffering from degenerative disease offers an insight.  The researcher's conclusion is that a person's morality is at the core of how others view us, our identity.  Sure, at first glance, others take in how we look and present ourselves, and as other research points out, they make an immediate judgement based on appearance. As they get to know us, I assume, our identity becomes based on our morals - how we treat others and react to situations. While this may seem obvious, still it's important to have this verified, and to keep it in mind while crafting character and relationship in your work. Here's the story with a link to the complete research in the attribution. *  *  *  *  * How others see our identity depends on our moral traits " Moral capacities form the core of how we perceive in...

Credit: UZH Preference-based decisions were less stable if the information flow between the two brain regions was disrupted. Don't know about you, but I find all of the current research on how our brains function fascinating. From a layman's point of view (mine), our brains are a highly complex organ consisting of 8 billion neurons organized into twenty modes, or functional regions.  Most of what constitutes our thoughts are generated almost randomly by the various modes and transmitted to our conscious minds which acts like traffic control at O'Hare Airport during a snow storm over the holidays. Each mode is calling for attention of the conscious mind.  You know how random thoughts go flittering through your mind while you're trying to sleep?  That's the result of various modes getting the attention of traffic control, if only for a moment.  One thing that research shows is that a person can only think about one thing at a time, the reason ...