Compassion and when to feel it People can feel compassion when they see somebody in physical or psychological pain. Not every observed suffering, however, leads to feelings of compassion. What exactly is compassion, and can we predict under which circumstances we experience it? Fieke Harinck • November 04, 2013
Neuroscience in the classroom? Neuroscientific results are increasingly popular amongst teachers. But what does it mean if children with learning disabilities show less activity in a certain brain area, and can we really use this information in the classroom? Sabine Peters • October 30, 2013
Learning is a series of sprints, not a marathon Many students (and people in general) like to mass their efforts to boost short-term performance when an important exam or deadline is approaching. Scientific research points to a more functional and efficient long-term strategy to raise performance. • October 28, 2013
Bad hair day? What strands of hair can tell us about stress Hair analysis has been used for decades to detect drug abuse. However, recent studies suggest that hair also contains levels of the stress hormone cortisol. This yields unique retrospective information about stress exposure. Jiska Peper • October 09, 2013
Winter blues? Depressed people report seeing the world as “dim, and lacking in color”. Is this a nice figure of speech, or a real perceptual shift? We investigated this question, particularly relevant now that the days are getting shorter and shorter… Roy de Kleijn • September 30, 2013
Plagiarism please! The current practice of avoiding academic plagiarism costs millions of dollars per year. By allowing scholars to plagiarize, these costs can be reduced substantially and more scientific progress can be made. Pascal Haazebroek • September 25, 2013
Adolescents in love: What makes a first love special? “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” ― William Shakespeare. Although probably not as intense as Romeo and Juliet’s, most people will remember their own first love. What makes a first love so special? Barbara Braams • September 11, 2013
When girl meets boy in utero: The twin testosterone transfer (TTT) hypothesis Female fetuses gestated together with a male co-twin are thought to be ‘masculinized’ in their development. Is this really the case? And how does it work? Jiska Peper • August 05, 2013
Why aren’t robots doing my laundry yet? We are still waiting for robots that make our everyday life easier by doing the dishes and cleaning our homes. Of course, we have machines such as Roombas that can vacuum, sort of, but why do we still have to bother doing all those boring things ourselves? Roy de Kleijn • July 16, 2013
