November 2, 2010

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Editor’s Selections: Enrichment, Ballerinas, Salmon, and Telepathy

Here are my Research Blogging Editor’s Selections for this week: Another week of top-notch psychology and neuroscience blogging! Should captive cephalopods be kept in “enriched” environments?

By Jason G. Goldman

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

Here are my Research Blogging Editor's Selections for this week:

Another week of top-notch psychology and neuroscience blogging!

  • Should captive cephalopods be kept in "enriched" environments? Mike Lisieski of the Cephalove blog says yes: "Generally, providing enrichment for captive cephalopods seems worth it."

  • " Psychologists are starting to look at how expert dancers learn and remember dance steps and what gives them the advantage of expertise in their style." How do ballerinas make it look so easy? An interesting offering from the students of the Cognition and the Arts class.

  • "Either we have stumbled onto a rather amazing discovery in terms of post-mortem ichthyological cognition, or there is something a bit off with regard to our uncorrected statistical approach." The dead salmon returns! (at Byte Size Biology)

  • Rift (of the Psycasm blog) laments: "It's sad legitimate scientists need to spend time and money disproving such hokum." Sad, indeed. Telepathy, telekinesis, clairvoyance; The Science of Mind-Reading.

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Jason G. Goldman is a science journalist based in Los Angeles. He has written about animal behavior, wildlife biology, conservation, and ecology for Scientific American, Los Angeles magazine, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the BBC, Conservation magazine, and elsewhere. He contributes to Scientific American's "60-Second Science" podcast, and is co-editor of Science Blogging: The Essential Guide (Yale University Press). He enjoys sharing his wildlife knowledge on television and on the radio, and often speaks to the public about wildlife and science communication.

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