Are kids from more religious families more or less altruistic than their peers from less-religious families? That’s what a high-profile new study from University of Chicago neuroscientist Jean Decety and a global crew of collaborators sought to determine. In the course of the study, published in the journal of Current Biology, the researchers use something called the “children’s dictator game,” a.k.a. stickerpalooza. Here’s how it worked: Step one. Go …
Alex Kirby – Climate change threatens US influence
Climate News Network, 2 December, 2015 – Two American security experts say the Asia-Pacific region needs massive international aid to tackle its greatest problem − climate change. And they fear that without a huge outlay on development, diplomacy and defence, the US claim to global leadership may be challenged. In a report they edited for the Centre for Climate and …
Ashley Whillans – Want to do something good for your health? Try being generous
Every day, we are confronted with choices about how to spend our money. Whether it’s thinking about picking up the tab at a group lunch or when a charity calls asking for a donation, we are faced with the decision to behave generously or not. Research suggests that spending money on others can improve happiness, but can it also improve your physical health? …
MAYO CLINIC – Physicians and burnout: It’s getting worse
ROCHESTER, Minn. — Burnout among U.S. physicians is getting worse. An update from a three-year study evaluating burnout and work-life balance shows that American physicians are worse off today than they were three years earlier. These dimensions remained largely unchanged among U.S. workers in general, resulting in a widening gap between physicians and workers in other fields. The study conducted …
Jack A. Smith – Climate Change, Rising Levels of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Global Warming
This article first published in December 2013, documents the failure of the Climate Change COP19 Conference in Warsaw. What prospects for Paris COP21? The sharply increasing scientific indicators of impending disastrous global climate change have failed to motivate the principal developed countries, led by the U.S., to accelerate the lackluster pace of their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This …
‘Huge Error’: Former US Military Chief Admits Iraq Invasion Spawned ISIS
The U.S. is poised to repeat all the same mistakes in Syria that it made in Iraq after 9/11, says former head of Defense Intelligence Agency The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq fueled the creation of the Islamic State (ISIS) today and must serve as a warning against similar rash military intervention in Syria, a former U.S. intelligence chief said …
Turkey Arrests Generals for Stopping Syria-Bound Trucks ‘Filled With Arms’
Two Turkish generals and a colonel were detained on Saturday for intercepting Syria-bound trucks that belonged to Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT), the newspaper Today’s Zaman reported. In January 2014, Ankara Gendarmerie Major-General Ibrahim Aydin, former Adana Gendarmerie Brigadier-General Hamza Celepoglu and former Gendarmerie Criminal Laboratory Head Colonel Burhanettin Cihangiroglu stopped Syrian-bound trucks in southern Turkey after they received information from an anonymous …
Chris Hedges – The Age of the Demagogues
The increase in nihilistic violence such as school shootings andFriday’s lethal assault on a Planned Parenthood clinic, the frequent executions of poor people of color by police, and the rise of thuggish demagogues such as Donald Trump are symptoms of the collapse of our political and cultural institutions. These institutions, which once made possible piecemeal and incremental reform, which sought to …
Barbara Ehrenreich – Dead, White, and Blue
The white working class, which usually inspires liberal concern only for its paradoxical, Republican-leaning voting habits, has recently become newsworthy for something else: according to economist Anne Case and Angus Deaton, the winner of the latest Nobel Prize in economics, its members in the 45- to 54-year-old age group are dying at an immoderate rate. While the lifespan of affluent whites continues …
Juan Cole – Abortion Clinics, White Christian Terrorism and GOP Candidates
Americans are more at risk from violence by armed white Christian fanatics than they ever were from Muslims. Abortion clinics have been targeted for violence by fundamentalist Christians of a violent bent for decades. In 2009, Dr. George Tiller was relentlessly shot to death by Scott Roeder, who insisted that the good doctor was satanic because he performed abortions. Dr. …










