This article categorizes and discusses the kinds of cataclysmic events that threaten the human race and the natural world. A useful set of definitions is provided, and an annotated bibliography of a representative assortment of reference books and monographs.

There are many reasons to be curious about the way people learn, and the past several decades have seen an explosion of research that has important implications for individual learning, schooling, workforce training, and policy. In 2000, "How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition" was published and its…

When explaining why some are gifted and others are not, nature and nurture are invariably mentioned. Is Jason gifted because of his inherited genes, his home environment, or a combination of the two? Researchers and laypersons have debated this for decades. They have conducted research, created tests, written editorials, influenced legislation,…

The past decade brought a remarkable increase in the number and quality of biosocial studies of family processes. The current review summarizes recent advances in biosocial family research by providing key exemplars of emerging research paradigms. Research in the past decade has substantiated the claim in the previous Decade Review (Booth, Carver,…

Schizophrenia as mental illness is defined in terms of diagnostic criteria which do not include the full range of psychosocial difficulties that shape the lived experience of persons with this diagnosis and affect their quality of life. The biopsychosocial approach found in the World Health Organization's International Classification of…

Providing skilled treatment options for clients experiencing addiction is imperative to positive client treatment outcomes. As a prerequisite to providing efficacious addiction treatment, counselors-in-training are charged with the responsibility of understanding the affect of cravings on addiction relapse. This article presents 3 experiential,…

Healthy aging is characterized by a number of changes on brain structure and function. Several neuroimaging studies have shown an age-related reduction in hemispheric asymmetry on various cognitive tasks, a phenomenon captured by Cabeza (2002) in the Hemispheric Asymmetry Reduction in Older Adults (HAROLD) model. Although this phenomenon is…

Cognition, memory, safety, mental health, and weight are all affected by inadequate sleep. Biological studies indicate significant changes in sleep architecture during adolescence, such as changes in melatonin secretion, and a need for greater total sleep time. Yet, social contexts and cultural values impinge on these changing biological sleep…

The present study here investigated the role of the causal status of features and feature type in biological categorizations by young children. Study 1 showed that 5-year-olds are more strongly influenced by causal features than effect features. 4-year-olds exhibit no such tendency. There, therefore, appears to be a conceptual change between the…

Whereas some four year olds could draw a person with five fingers on each hand and a full set of facial features, others could barely hold a pencil. Some sat quietly in a small group, intently listening to and understanding a story, while others wiggled, fidgeted, and couldn't focus their attention. In those days, before the explosion of…

The lack of sex difference in left-handedness in Scandinavian countries reported by Papadatou-Pastou, Martin, Munafo, and Jones (2008) is questioned. We investigated the sex difference in left-handedness in two Finnish, one Norwegian, and one Swedish population-based sample not included in the Papadatou-Pastou et al. (2008) meta-analysis. The…

In this article, I consider three general issues raised by Haier and Jung (2008). First, I discuss the use of drugs for intellectual enhancement. Second, I reflect on prediction of performance based on biological measures. Third, I query whether biology can tell us what intelligence and creativity are. I conclude that biological assessments raise…

The importance of spatial ability in learning different school subjects and being successful at certain jobs has been recognized globally. The vast majority of the studies on the topic have focused on the nature of the phenomenon, the factors that affect its development), and the difference between males and females on spatial ability. However,…

The purpose of this paper is to present theoretical tools for understanding the dynamics of change and learning during the emergence and development of environmental management activities. The methodology consists of a historical analysis of a case of biogas production that took place in the Southwest region of Finland. The theoretical tools used…

This article considers the social problem of violence and the alternative of resolution through cooperation and compassion from the perspective of cognitive neuroscience. Violence is a social problem, the manifestations of which have a biological basis reflected in the development of aggression and the neural mechanisms that regulate it.…