Research into the causes of schizophrenia is revealing that schizophrenia develops as a result of a number of biological factors, including genetic variation and environment. Now, two new papers have identified three 'micro deletions' (genetic mutations)  and several 'single nucleotide polymorphisms' (where one 'letter' is different in a particular gene) that are significantly more likely to occur in the dna of people with schizophrenia than those without schizophrenia.

Functions of Sleep: Ongoing Study Continues to Show That Extra Sleep Improves Athletic Performance A new peice of research has provided evidence that may help psychologists understand the functions of sleep.

Liar Liar There is an interesting story out today, that 15 local councils in the UK are to start using lie detectors to combat benefit fraud. They plan to use a "voice risk analyser" to detect changes in people's voices when asked questions during telephone conversations. Harrow council introduced the equipment last year and have saved £420,000 because one-third of people who were contacted using the equipment admitted that their circumstances had changed and they were no longer eligible for the benefits they were receiving. However, there is doubt over whether these lie detectors actually work.

In June 2008 the British Psychological Society published new 'guidelines on memory and the law', these may be of interest to students and teachers of Psychology A Level. The key points of the guidelines are:

Be a Crime Fighter! My beloved sister sent me this. It may be interesting for anyone studying the criminal psychology unit in the OCR or Edexcel A level Psychology course. If you are doing AQA it’s still good fun.

Researchers J. Kiley Hamlin, Karen Wynn & Paul Bloom have found that babies as young as six months are able to make judgements about the helpfulness or nastiness of others and show a preference for those who are helpful. The infants watched a puppet show which depicted a circle with googly-eyes trying to climb a hill. it was either helped by a triangle with googly-eyes or hindered by a googly-eyed square. When later given the opportunity to hold the helper or hinderer, 14 out of 16 10-month-olds and all 12 6-month-olds chose the helper.

If you want to be happy and liked by others you should stop spending your money on things and spend it on experiences instead.

...with mindfulness meditation

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