Child Abuse Never Really Stops

Kids who were abused as children grow up with brains tuned to be hypervigilant - similar changes have been observed in the brains of soldiers. Abused kids have a kind of permanent, low-grade Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder that never really goes away. We have long known that abused kids grow up to be more anxious and depressed, and now we have the brain imaging showing permanent neural rewiring to go with that data.

Don't hit your kids. Just don't.

via SciGuru, Child abuse changes the brain

Honest Babies

Live Science reports on research showing that babies are inherently turned off by people who are dishonest or unreliable. Humans are, from an extremely early age, able to judge the behavior of others around them and to develop preferences for people they can rely upon. They also prefer to imitate and learn from those people. Let's live up to their expectations, shall we?

Babies Picky About Who They Imitate

Knowing

The Boston Globe has run a wonderful story about a set of identical twins, born as Jonas and Wyatt, who nevertheless have developed very differently. Wyatt, from as early as age 3, always self-identified as a girl. Now 14, Wyatt is now known as Nicole, and she is undergoing treatment to postpone male puberty until she can make the decision to undergo full male-to-female gender reassignment surgery after she's 18. The Globe's article details the tricky navigation of this social adjustment and the heartwarming bravery of Nicole and her family. Must-read.

Led by the child who simply knew

Crafty Buggers, part III

Bedbugs. Icky, icky, bedbugs. While they are undoubtedly becoming more resistant to pesticides, just like the corn borers that Monsanto has tried to thwart with GMO seeds, they also undoubtedly utilize the hearing-body-hair that all other insects and spiders have to help them locate predators and prey.

In case you were wondering about the superpowers of YOUR OWN leg hair, wonder no more. Body hair has been shown to help protect against bedbug bites. The bugs disturb your hairs as they crawl across your skin in the night, and you will twitch and flick them away in your sleep, apparently. This is also why bedbugs apparently have an evolved liking for the wrists and ankles, as these areas have less body hair on pretty much all humans (even Robin Williams). The BBC reports:

Hairy limbs keep bed bugs at bay

Crafty Buggers, part II

Recent work has shown that the hairs on spiders' and insects' legs act in the same way as the cilia in the cochlea of the mammalian inner ear - they pick up vibrations in the air, allowing the animals to hear each other. Wired has a great post on the story, including video of the laser and camera setup the researchers used to capture ultrafast images of the hairs doing their vibrational work.

Spiders’ Hundreds of Fine Hairs Are Hundreds of Ears

Crafty Buggers

Via Grist, a report on the burgeoning failure of Monsanto's GMO pesticide-resistant and pesticide-producing crops. Basically, in an evolutionary race against insects we will never win on any permanent basis by poisoning them, because their life cycles are so short that they can simply evolve around the obstacle.

The bugs that ate Monsanto

Frankl on Attitude

Viktor Frankl, a holocaust survivor and respected psychiatrist, discusses the value of holding ourselves and others to a high standard of ethics and compassion. Footage is from 1972, via TED.




Viktor Frankl: Why to believe in others