Another topic recommended by a student involves the genetic basis of fear. Most rodents are terribly afraid of open spaces, and for logical reasons. If a rodent is on the floor (I’ve inadvertently dropped a few in my lab days), it will run directly for the wall. This is likely Read more…
Another alert student passed along an article with a very romantic theme–holding hands. For today’s college students, hand-holding in public is signals a very significant relationship, and in some respects is considered more intimate than kissing at a party. James Coan of the University of Virginia will be publishing Read more…
I’m very backlogged in posting the wonderful suggestions being passed along to me by students in my Biological Psychology course this quarter. I’m bumping this one to the front of the line, though, because it has a great deal of personal significance for me.
For years, I was a very heavy consumer of Diet Pepsi, which like most diet sodas, contained the artificial sweetener aspartame. My chemist friend, Peggy Rice, warned me that aspartame was not a terrific thing to put in your body, but I continued to drink diet soda. About three years ago, I started to have significant problems with my vision, and invested in a very large screen monitor. I also experienced bouts of dizziness. The last straw, about a year ago, was the experience of neuropathy–chronic tingling and numbness in my feet. That got my attention. I have a family history of MS, and I thought to myself, oh no, here we go. (more…)