readings in psychology for october 4th 2010

"Love is daughters who are colleagues!"

Here is what I am reading today! :

• mapping the brain

“A massive new project to scan the brains of 1,200 volunteers could finally give scientists a picture of the neural architecture of the human brain and help them understand the causes of certain neurological and psychological diseases.”

• love on the brain

“Falling in love is not as simple as it seems, but it is very quick. Those intense over-powering feelings of being truly, madly, deeply in love are the result of complex and rapid brain activity. Being in love – or more precisely being in an emotional state of intense longing for union with another, involving chemical, cognitive, and goal-directed behavioural components – is a pretty complicated affair. “

• fossil secrets of the da Vinci codex

“Did Leonardo decipher traces of ancient life centuries before Darwin? It was to be Leonardo da Vinci’s most impressive work yet. In 1483, the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, commissioned the up-and-coming artist to create a huge bronze statue of a horse, standing over 7 metres tall. Da Vinci spent the next 10 years perfecting a full-size clay model. Sadly, it was never cast in bronze. Tonnes of the metal were needed, and Sforza ended up using the earmarked supplies to make weapons for use against invading French troops. When the French army took Milan in 1499, its archers used da Vinci’s clay horse for target practice.”

• how to be happy

“It’s good for your health, it makes you smarter – and our brains are hard-wired for it. New Scientist counts our reasons to be cheerful. DOOM and gloom are the order of the day across most of the western world. Economies are faltering, the cost of living is going up and many people’s real income is falling. For some, unemployment is a reality now or in the near future. If the pursuit of happiness is supposed to be one of our goals, prospects appear bleak.”