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Enlarge Image Getty Images Innate fascination with propulsive motion may explain why boys gravitate to toys that move, like trucks. After watching videos of adults cradling and striking balloons, male but not female 6-to-9-month-olds began to hit balloons more often. This suggests that males have an innate fascination with "propulsive movement," researchers say. After getting acquainted with a toy balloon, 45 children—too young to label themselves by gender—watched split-screen video clips: On one side, a man or woman cradled a balloon; on the other, the same man or woman hit the balloon. Boys tended to watch the people striking balloons more than girls did. After watching, they batted their own balloons more than before, while girls didn't change behavior. There were no sex differences in how children handled the balloons before the videos started and no evidence that the parents of boys had promoted this play style. If an innate fascination with propulsive motion exist...

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SLATE By  Ron Rosenbaum | Posted Friday, Sept. 30, 2011, at 4:24 PM ET Anders Behring Breivik, suspect in the Oslo killings, leaves the courthouse in a police car Photo by Jon-Are Berg-Jacobsen/AFP/Getty Images. Is evil over? Has science finally driven a stake through its dark heart? Or at least emptied the word of useful meaning, reduced the notion of a numinous nonmaterial malevolent force to a glitch in a tangled cluster of neurons, the brain? Yes, according to many neuroscientists, who are emerging as the new high priests of the secrets of the psyche, explainers of human behavior in general. A phenomenon attested to by a recent torrent of pop-sci brain books with titles like  Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain . Not secret in most of these works is the disdain for metaphysical evil, which is regarded as an antiquated concept that's done more harm than good. They argue that the time has come to replace such metaphysical terms with physical explanations—malfunctions o...

Criminal Minds Are Different From Yours, Brain Scans Reveal by Clara Moskowitz, LiveScience Senior Writer Date: 04 March 2011  http://www.livescience.com/13083-criminals-brain-neuroscience-ethics.html The latest neuroscience research is presenting intriguing evidence that the brains of certain kinds of criminals are different from those of the rest of the population. While these findings could improve our understanding of criminal behavior, they also raise moral quandaries about whether and how society should use this knowledge to combat crime. The criminal mind In one recent study, scientists examined 21 people with  antisocial personality disorder  – a condition that characterizes many convicted criminals. Those with the disorder "typically have no regard for right and wrong. They may often violate the law and the rights of others," according to the Mayo Clinic. Brain scans of the antisocial people, compared with a control group of individuals without any mental...

June 12, 2011 Criminal Minds Adrian Raine thinks brain scans can identify children who may become killers Jonathan Barkat for The Chronicle Review A child in Adrian Raine's lab at the U. of Pennsylvania, wearing a cap with electrodes to measure brain activity. By Josh Fischman Philadelphia Along with several other researchers, he has pioneered the science of neurodevelopmental criminology. In adult offenders, juvenile delinquents, and even younger children, dozens of studies have pointed to brain features that seem to reduce fear, impair decision making, and blunt emotional reactions to others' distress. The studies have also highlighted body reactions that are signs of this pattern and are tied to criminality. "So if I could tell you, as a parent, that your child has a 75-percent chance of becoming a criminal, wouldn't you want to know and maybe have the chance to do something about it?" asks Raine.... Soci...

Genetic Basis for Crime: A New Look By  PATRICIA COHEN Published: June 19, 2011 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/20/arts/genetics-and-crime-at-institute-of-justice-conference.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&hpw=&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1308758092-IQNwF29ZiUhMIcb27VOplg RECOMMEND TWITTER COMMENTS  (35) E-MAIL PRINT REPRINTS SHARE It was less than 20 years ago that the National Institutes of Health abruptly withdrew funds for  a conference on genetics and crime  after outraged complaints that the idea smacked of eugenics. The president of the Association of Black Psychologists at the time declared that such research was in itself  “a blatant form of stereotyping and racism.” The tainted history of using biology to explain criminal behavior has pushed criminologists to reject or ignore genetics and concentrate on social causes: miserable poverty, corrosive addictions, guns. Now that the human genome has been sequenced, and scientists are studying the gen...

The Chronicle Review Home Opinion & Ideas The Chronicle Review E-mail Print Comments (28) Share June 12, 2011 Rule Breaker When it comes to morality, the philosopher Patricia Churchland refuses to stand on principle Excerpt:    Oxytocin's primary purpose appears to be in solidifying the bond between  mother and infant, but Churchland argues—drawing on the work of biologists—that  there are significant spillover effects: Bonds of empathy lubricated by oxytocin  expand to include, first, more distant kin and then other members of one's in-group.  (Another neurochemical, aregenine vasopressin, plays a related role, as do  endogenous opiates, which reinforce the appeal of cooperation by making it feel good.) From there, culture and society begin to make their presence felt, shaping larger moral systems: tit-for-tat retaliation helps keep freeloaders and abusers of empathic understanding in line. Adults pass along the rules for acceptable beha...