I’m Not Lying, I’m Telling a Future Truth. Really.: Touching up scenes or past performances induces none of the anxiety that lying or keeping secrets does, these studies find; and embroiderers often work to live up to the enhanced self-images they project. The findings imply that some kinds of deception are aimed more at the deceiver than at the audience, and they may help in distinguishing braggarts and posers from those who are expressing personal aspirations, however clumsily. [NYT]
Abuse as a child ‘makes adults more likely to commit sucide’: Survivors of child abuse may be more likely to kill themselves as adults because their early experiences change the way a critical gene works in the brain, according to new research that could shed light on the biology of suicide. [Times]
Can You Become a Creature of New Habits?: So it seems antithetical to talk about habits in the same context as creativity and innovation. But brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks. [NYT]
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