Birds’ Evolution Across Mass Extinctions – Daniel Field

Life history and learning

Special issue on neoteny, or extended childhood, indicates that long childhoods and extended parenting allow the time necessary to explore, create, and learn skills that take years to master.

Trump-fueled promotion of unproved coronavirus drug

Prescriptions for two anti-malarial drugs rose 2,000% - from 2,208 in a week last year to 45,858 this year - after Trump supported them, despite coronavirus patients taking them being about twice as likely to die as those who did not.

However, two elite medical journals retract coronavirus papers

The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine have since retracted two high-profile papers after a company declined to make the underlying data for both available for an independent audit, following questions being raised about the research.

Procrastination and forgetting to do things we intend to do later

Three distinct procrastinator profiles (non-procrastinators, conscious procrastinators & unconscious procrastinators) forget to carry out planned tasks differentially.

Listening difficult during racial discussions

Having encountered explicit racism or micro-aggressions and negative prior experiences talking about race-related issues, African Americans may be more likely to want to avoid conversations about race with Whites.

Your dog wants to rescue you

Even without training, one-third of dogs found to try to rescue their owners when they call out "help" or "help me," so long as they understand what to do.

No cognitive processing during sleep

The lack of transfer of waking experiences to sleep in humans, and the suppression of cognitive processing general anesthesia and non-REM sleep, casts doubt on the involvement of sleep in cognitive processing.

Upcoming guests

• Trevon D. Logan from Ohio State University’s Department of Economics will join us to discuss his article “Do Black Politicians Matter? Evidence from Reconstruction” [to be recorded]
• Jordan Theriault from Northeastern University joins us to discuss his article “Theory of mind network activity is associated with metaethical judgment: An item analysis” [already recorded]
• Neil Garg from UCLA joins us to discuss his article “Electrochemical Oxidation of Δ9 Tetrahydrocannabinol: A Simple Strategy for Marijuana Detection” [already recorded]
• Richard Bomphrey from the Structure and Motion Laboratory at Royal Veterinary College joins us to discuss his article “Aerodynamic imaging by mosquitoes inspires a surface detector for autonomous flying vehicles” [already recorded]
• Emily Ho from Northwestern University joins us to discuss her article “Measuring Information Preferences” [already recorded]

Have a question for an upcoming guest? Ask here.