DUBAI // Imagine living with a rare disorder that drives a craving for inedible substances such as paper, soap, metal, charcoal and clay.Elena-Maria Andrioti, of the Psychology Centre at the Carbone Clinic in Dubai, has come across patients suffering with the rare, impulsive and untreatable craving disorder called pica, an appetite for non-food substances.And Ms Andrioti believed many more are hiding the disorder through shame. “I have had a patient who reported having consumed glue and paper when she was 10 years old to ‘try it out’ and, sometimes as a defence mechanism to reduce her anxiety >>>

Q. I think my mother, who is in her late 70s, is showing signs of Alzheimer’s. She is increasingly forgetful, and has become negative and nasty. She was never like this. My two brothers think that there is nothing wrong with her because they only visit once or twice a month and then stay for an hour or two. I’m with her on an almost daily basis. How can I convince them that she has a problem that we need to address?A. No one likes to see a parent age, and it is common for people to pretend that nothing is wrong until there are serious problems. I would suggest that you have a family meeting >>>

So it turns out sitcoms can erase bigotry.That’s the bottom line of a study recently presented before a conference of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. And it doesn’t even have to be a particularly good sitcom.To judge, at least, from a screening of its first two episodes, the Canadian sitcom on which the study is based was earnest, amiable, and about as funny as Schindler’s List. Apparently, however, Canadian television viewers liked it well enough. Little Mosque on the Prairie, a culture clash show about life at a Muslim worship house in small town Canada, premiered in >>>

A potential case of data manipulation has been uncovered in a psychology paper. The suspect article is ‘Why money meanings matter in decisions to donate time and money’ (2013) from University of Arizona psychologists Promothesh Chatterjee, Randall L. Rose, and Jayati Sinha. This study fell into the genre of ‘social priming‘, specifically ‘money priming’. The authors reported that making people think about cash reduces their willingness >>>

A potential case of data manipulation has been uncovered in a psychology paper. The suspect article is ‘Why money meanings matter in decisions to donate time and money’ (2013) from University of Arizona psychologists Promothesh Chatterjee, Randall L. Rose, and Jayati Sinha. This study fell into the genre of ‘social priming‘, specifically ‘money priming’. The authors reported that making people think about cash reduces their willingness >>>

In their Freakonomics-for-sports book, “This is Your Brain on Sports,” Jon Wertheim and Sam Sommers uncover the hidden influences in sports and use reams of data to investigate questions that tug at every fan. Why are quarterbacks so good-looking (or are they)? Why do we love the underdog? What’s the appeal of the stupid T-shirt cannon? In the following adapted extract, the authors – one a sports journalist, the other a psychology professor – consider whether defense truly wins championships. Super Bowl 50 will feature this season’s presumptive MVP, Cam Newton, against five-time MVP >>>

A Canadian study has found a new benefit to being bilingual, with children who speak two languages better at problem solving than monolingual children. Published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, the research looked at vocabularies of 39 bilingual children and 43 monolingual children at the age of 24 months and then again at 31 months. During the second assessment, the team tested the toddlers' cognitive flexibility and memory skills and found that "For the most part, there was no difference between the bilingual and monolingual toddlers," said Diane >>>

FRIDAY, Feb. 5, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- The influence of a husband or wife on their spouse's quality of life remains strong even after death, a new study says.Couples who have been married a long time develop a high level of interdependence, and one partner's quality of life at death continues to influence the survivor, the University of Arizona researchers said."If your partner has higher quality of life before they pass away, you're more likely to have higher quality of life even after they're gone. If he or she has lower quality of life before they pass away, >>>

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - Sioux Falls police are investigating two new rape cases reported on Thursday, both involving men the victims did not know.The first is reported to have happened late Wednesday night at an apartment on North Western Avenue.Police say a 22-year-old woman was entering the complex when a man smoking outside followed her in.She told police he pushed his way into her apartment and raped her in a bedroom.The second rape happened on the evening of December 23rd.A 47-year-old woman told police she went into the laundry room at her >>>

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - Sioux Falls police are investigating two new rape cases reported on Thursday, both involving men the victims did not know.The first is reported to have happened late Wednesday night at an apartment on North Western Avenue.Police say a 22-year-old woman was entering the complex when a man smoking outside followed her in.She told police he pushed his way into her apartment and raped her in a bedroom.The second rape happened on the evening of December 23rd.A 47-year-old woman told police she went into the laundry room at her >>>