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Think donning an Armani knockoff or phony Prada only hurts the fashion industry? Take another look in the mirror By Dan Ariely* [More]

Part 5 of a 5-part series By Allen Frances* [More]

Guest Blog by Leonard Mlodinow* Belonging to a group is good for your health. Courtesy of joncandy via Flickr.

What is the most important characteristic a medical student should have?

When I was a kid, I used to spend hours listening to Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew Pinsky on their Sunday night call-in radio show Loveline .

Ad on a London Bus. Courtesy of Annie Wade via Flickr. People have long tried tricks to aid their memories

As long as there have been political dictators, psychologists have been fascinated with them. While many psychologists try to understand what happens in normal, rational people that leads them to follow such clearly dangerous leaders, some psychologists have been more interested in characterizing the personality profiles of dictators themselves. After all, who hasn’t attempted an armchair psychiatric diagnosis of a famous personality

As long as there have been political dictators, psychologists have been fascinated with them. While many psychologists try to understand what happens in normal, rational people that leads them to follow such clearly dangerous leaders, some psychologists have been more interested in characterizing the personality profiles of dictators themselves. After all, who hasn’t attempted an armchair psychiatric diagnosis of a famous personality

Early research on the sharpest octogenarians reveals unusually youthful brain regions A nasty affliction sets into humans as they advance in years. The hair either disappears or thins into a fuzzy halo, the skin sags and bunches, while inside the brain, changes set in that slow our reaction times and cause our memories to fade. A steady, widespread thinning out of the brain s cortex, the outermost layer of the brain, is thought to underlie some of this cognitive transformation

This year’s IgNobel prize in Medicine goes to TWO studies, one of which I knew I would enjoy based entirely on the running title. The running title is, when you read a scientific paper, the few words at the top or bottom to remind you of which paper it is exactly that you’re reading (useful mostly when you’re flipping through a journal, but also with surprising uses in remembering what exactly you’re supposed to be learning about when you’re ten pages into a huge review). The running title of this one is “inhibitory spillover”.