Merv Mandelbaum 
Revenge fantasies are certainly satisfying—but are they bad for you? A new study published in the Journal of Behaviour Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry examined exactly that. Researchers subjected several dozen psychologically healthy subjects to three disturbing five-minute clips from Funny Games, Sleepers, and the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; the … Read More
Everything’s worse when you’re stressed—including, as it turns out, the smell of the world around you. A new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience has found that when a person becomes stressed, their emotional and olfactory portions of the brain become linked, causing inoffensive smells to become offensive. Scientists … Read More
That diet pop probably isn’t fooling your taste buds, but guess what? It’s fooling your brain. That’s the gist of a new study published in Gastroenterology. Researchers have discovered that carbonation, an essential component of pop, can alter your brain’s perception of sweetness, and make it difficult to figure out … Read More
Here’s the good news: there’s a cure for fear on the horizon, and you can do it in your sleep. The bad news? It’s still a bit theoretical at this point. Writing in the journal Nature Neuroscience, researchers have used exposure therapy and sleep to help patients overcome fear . … Read More
Let’s revisit the prisoner’s dilemma. In a nutshell, two prisoners are being interrogated separately. If they both talk to the cops, they both serve hard time. If neither talks, they take a light sentence. However, if one talks and the other doesn’t, the talker walks free and the other does … Read More
