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Tamir DI, Mitchell JP. Disclosing information about the self is intrinsically rewarding. Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. dtamir@fas.harvard.edu Abstract Humans devote 30-40% of speech output solely to informing others of their own subjective experiences. What drives this propensity for disclosure? Here, we test recent theories that individuals place high subjective value on opportunities to communicate their thoughts and feelings to others and that doing so engages neural and cognitive mechanisms associated with reward. Five studies provided support for this hypothesis. Self-disclosure was strongly associated with increased activation in brain regions that form the mesolimbic dopamine system, including the nucleus accumbens and ventral tegmental area. Moreover, individuals were willing to forgo money to disclose about the self.

The OCLC Developer Network is a community of developers collaborating to propose, discuss and test OCLC Web Services. This open source, code-sharing infrastructure improves the value of OCLC data for all users by encouraging new OCLC Web Service uses.

Powering adaptive learning for Pearson Pearson and Knewton partner to advance the next generation of digital education.

"Individuals who are homozygous for the G allele of the rs53576 SNP of the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene tend to be more prosocial than carriers of the A allele. However, little is known about how these differences manifest behaviorally and whether they are readily detectable by outside observers, both critical questions in theoretical accounts of prosociality. In the present study, we used thin-slicing methodology to test the hypotheses that (i) individual differences in rs53576 genotype predict how prosocial observers judge target individuals to be on the basis of brief observations of behavior, and (ii) that variation in targets' nonverbal displays of affiliative cues would account for these judgment differences. In line with predictions, we found that individuals homozygous for the G allele were judged to be more prosocial than carriers of the A allele. These differences were completely accounted for by variations in the expression of affiliative cues. Thus, individual differences in rs53576 are associated with behavioral manifestations of prosociality, which ultimately guide the judgments others make about the individual. "

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"Sleep and its role in memory consolidation The role of sleep in the honeybee memory consolidation has been addressed in our lab in two studies so far. Hussaini et al. (2009; http://www.neurobiologie.fu-berlin.de/menzel/Pub_AGmenzel/Sleep Deprivation.pdf) found reduced retention after extinction learning in an olfactory PER experiment if bees are prevented from sleep during the night following extinction learning. Beyaert, Greggers and Menzel tested freely flying bees after navigation learning and found reduced homing rates if the bees could not sleep the night after novel navigation learning (see Beyaert L, Greggers U and Menzel R (2012) Honeybees consolidate navigation memory during sleep. Journal of Experimental Biology 215, 3981-3988"

"SCinet is a high-performance network that is built, once a year, in support of the annual International Conference for High Performance Computing and Communications also known as the Supercomputing Conference. It is the primary network for the conference and is used by attendees to demonstrate and test high-performance distributed applications."

"This is the demonstration, test-it-out, kick the tires, see how it works instance of DSpace. DSpace is composed of a core-API, and offers several distinct Web Interfaces."

"Und selbst im Nachhinein kann ein Spaziergang noch die Kreativität fördern, wie ein weiteres Experiment zeigte: Gingen die Probanden erst spazieren und setzen sich dann zum Test hin, schnitten sie noch fast genauso gut ab als wenn sie direkt dabei gingen. "Vor einem Meeting, in dem Einfallsreichtum gefragt ist, bringt ein Spaziergang fast genauso viel, als wenn man während des Meetings laufen würde", sagt Oppezzo."

"So far the treatment, known as faecal transplant, has been tested only on a drug resistant form of the bowel disease caused by the bacterium clostridium difficile. Antibiotics are unreliable against the superbug, but the transplant is 95% successful, saving patients from constant stomach cramps and chronic diarrhoea. "It sounds radical but it makes a lot of sense," said Seppelt on Thursday at a gathering of more than 4,000 Australasian anaesthetists and surgeons. "Usually patients are sufficiently miserable to go ahead, often using a donation from a relative." Healthy humans have about 100 times more bacteria cells in their gut than their own cells."

"In einem weiteren Versuch testeten die Forscher, wie sich dieser immundämpfende Effekt auf den Virenbefall der Bienen auswirkt. Dazu fütterten sie die Bienenarbeiterinnen von Versuchsvölkern mit Zuckerlösungen, die unterschiedlich hohe Beimischungen des Neonicotinoids Clothianidin enthielten. Die Konzentrationen reichten dabei von 0,1 bis zu 10 parts per billion (ppb). "Das entspricht einer Kontamination, die noch unter der typischerweise auf Feldern vorhandenen liegt", sagen die Forscher. In den Bienenvölkern war das Flügeldeformationsvirus präsent, wurde aber von den Insekten ausreichend in Schach gehalten. Die Infektion blieb dadurch latent. Wie sich zeigte, änderte sich dies aber durch die Pestizidgabe sehr schnell: Bereits die geringsten Dosen führten dazu, dass sich das Virus in den Bienen nach einigen Tagen deutlich vermehrte. Ähnliche Ergebnisse brachten die gleichen Tests mit dem Neonicotinoid Imidacloprid."

"THE precursor of life may have learned how to copy itself thanks to simple convection at the bottom of the ocean. Lab experiments reveal how DNA replication could have occurred in tiny pores around undersea vents." "To test this theory, Mast and Braun put these ingredients into tubes 1.5 millimetres long. They used a laser to heat one side of the water and create thermal convection. Sure enough, they found that the DNA doubled every 50 seconds (Physical Review Letters, vol 104, p 188102)."

In addition to sensing distant galaxies made entirely of antimatter, the AMS will also test leading theories of dark matter, an invisible and mysterious substance that comprises 83 percent of the matter in the universe. And it will search for strangelets, a theoretical form of matter that's ultra-massive because it contains so-called strange quarks

A study published Sept. 29 by Luis Populin, a professor of anatomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, shows that under specific conditions, a rhesus macaque monkey that normally would fail the "mark test" can still recognize itself in the mirror and perform actions that scientists would expect from animals that are self-aware.

What do quantum particles do when we're not looking? Probably not what you'd expect.\n\nWhile the mathematical formalism 'behind the scenes' is perfectly well-defined and the predictions by the theory are completely sensible (and rigorously tested), it is often difficult to interpret the mechanism of quantum theory into ideas that make sense relative to everyday experiences.

Dog owners often compare their pets to toddlers; many even treat their pooches like kids. It's easy to label such comparisons sentimental. But a new study suggests that the owners are right. A team of scientists has discovered that dogs behave surprisingly like 10-month-old infants on a classic psychological test--though there is one important difference.

Purpose of review: Autism is a biologically based disorder of brain development. Genetic factors - mutations, deletions, and copy number variants - are clearly implicated in causation of autism. However, they account for only a small fraction of cases, and do not easily explain key clinical and epidemiological features. This suggests that early environmental exposures also contribute. This review explores this hypothesis. Recent findings: Indirect evidence for an environmental contribution to autism comes from studies demonstrating the sensitivity of the developing brain to external exposures such as lead, ethyl alcohol and methyl mercury. But the most powerful proof-of-concept evidence derives from studies specifically linking autism to exposures in early pregnancy - thalidomide, misoprostol, and valproic acid; maternal rubella infection; and the organophosphate insecticide, chlorpyrifos. There is no credible evidence that vaccines cause autism. Summary: Expanded research is needed into environmental causation of autism. Children today are surrounded by thousands of synthetic chemicals. Two hundred of them are neurotoxic in adult humans, and 1000 more in laboratory models. Yet fewer than 20% of high-volume chemicals have been tested for neurodevelopmental toxicity. I propose a targeted discovery strategy focused on suspect chemicals, which combines expanded toxicological screening, neurobiological research and prospective epidemiological studies.

"In the first study to demonstrate a clear positive association between adolescent fitness and adult cognitive performance, Nancy Pedersen of the University of Southern California and colleagues in Sweden find that better cardiovascular health among teenage boys correlates to higher scores on a range of intelligence tests - and more education and income later in life."