How our minds can make us young again

This remarkable article, “What if Age is Just a Mindset?”, about the work of psychologist Ellen Langer, ran this week in the New York Times. Its basic idea – that our minds have more power over the youth and health of our bodies than we’ve dared to imagine – is one that is near and

Peace like a river

From Maureena Bivins’ blog, today I learn of a study showing that emotions are primarily social occurrences: rather than being more internal, cognitive, individual responses, argues Brian Parkinson, they are “social phenomena” that are “interpersonally, institutionally, or culturally defined.” This may seem like a “well, duh” kind of finding, but I think it has important

Toward a new theory of depression

Yesterdays’ New York Times Magazine contains a long article by Siddhartha Mukherjee detailing the history of the serotonin theory of depression, and a newly emerging theory about neuron generation. The whole thing is very much worth the read, and opens a number of fascinating questions and possibilities about what it is that causes what writer