August 10, 2011

Managing On the Shoulders of Giants

Biologist Mohamed Noor recently shared some of his scientific wisdom and management philosophy with Duke's "Faith and Leadership" online magazine.

April 20, 2011

Low testosterone makes men and women frisky with money

Women may no longer be able to blame men’s impulse buys on testosterone. Individuals, both women and men, with low levels of the sex hormone took just as many financial risks as those with high levels, and both groups took more gambles than individuals with average levels, a new study finds.

April 12, 2011

A Global Epidemic Nobody Talks About

Worldwide, suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people aged 15 to 30. 

Young women in Nepal are now more likely to die from suicide than from child-birth. 

March 29, 2011

Goodall visits her data at Duke

It’s hard to imagine Jane Goodall being envious of anyone, let alone the undergraduate and graduate students in Duke’s evolutionary anthropology program.

But as the legendary primatologist visited the university’s new research center that houses her 50-year data-collection on chimpanzees, it became evident that the scientist longed to “sit down and dive right in” to the data.

March 28, 2011

Why We Study Chimpanzees

“Why do people do something that benefits someone else but is detrimental to themselves?” Ian Gilby asked during a panel discussion, March 24. “Chimps are one of the few animals that do this really frequently,” he said.

March 21, 2011

To be or not to be, a psychopath

Less than one percent of people are psychopaths. Yet, psychopaths commit more than 30 percent of all violent crimes. “That’s a giant problem,” said Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, a philosopher at Duke.

February 9, 2011

Tigers and helicopters and refrigerators, oh mom!

Mothers can be tigers, helicopters or soccer moms. But no stereotype was perhaps ever as biting as “refrigerator mom”.

December 1, 2010

I Need to Understand You Better

Back in the day, your doctor told you what the treatment was going to be, sometimes without even telling you the diagnosis, because they didn't think you could handle it. 

Today, doctors are encouraged to go almost entirely the other way by offering 'patient autonomy' -- you know, lay out the jargony pile of facts and let the patient decide what's best for themselves.

December 1, 2010

Can A Parott Do Math?

Can birds do math?

That’s what Irene Pepperberg wondered when she started a series of studies involving a single African grey parrot named Alex, who subsequently became very famous.

November 24, 2010

Animal Intelligence

As part of a package of stories on animal intelligence that was done for CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 show, correspondent Randi Kaye visited Duke a few weeks back to talk to cognitive scientists Liz Brannon and Brian Hare.