Published: January 22, 2010
The presumption that children need both a mother and a father is widespread. It has been used by proponents of Proposition 8 to argue against same-sex marriage and to uphold a ban on same-sex adoption.
On the other end of the political spectrum, Barack Obama endorsed the vital role of fathers in a 2008 speech: “Of all the rocks upon which we build our lives, we are reminded today that family is the most important. And we are called to recognize and honor how critical every father is to that foundation.”
The lead article in the February issue of Journal of Marriage and Family challenges the idea that “fatherless” children are necessarily at a disadvantage or that men provide a different, indispensable set of parenting skills than women. [continue reading…]
Published: January 21, 2010
What if a jury could decide a man’s guilt through mind reading? What if reading a defendant’s memory could betray their guilt? And what constitutes ‘intent’ to commit murder? These are just some of the issues debated and reviewed in the inaugural issue of WIREs Cognitive Science, the latest interdisciplinary project from Wiley-Blackwell, which for registered institutions will be free for the first two years. [continue reading…]
Published: January 21, 2010
The extent of mental health problems is increasing, and has become one of the biggest challenges facing Europe today. As much as 10-25 per cent of women are at risk of developing serious depression during their lifetime. This implies that a large number of European women will experience mental problems such as anxiety and depression, which are more frequent among women than men. How can the health services improve safeguarding women’s mental health? Kristin Akerjordets thesis at the University of Stavanger offers an important clue: By training health personnel in emotional intelligence, they will be better equipped to prevent women from developing depressive illnesses. [continue reading…]
Published: January 20, 2010
A group of 74 US veterans has been involved in clinical trials which appear to have objectively diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), something conventional brain scans, be it X-ray, CT or MRI, have thus far failed to do.
The findings, published today, Wednesday, 20 January, in IOP Publishing’s Journal of Neural Engineering, have sprung from advances in magnetoencephalography (MEG), a non-invasive measurement of magnetic fields in the brain. [continue reading…]
