People are astonishingly accurate when asked to judge the people's gender by the way they walk. A new study suggests that the human brain has specialized neurons for this task -- that there are neurons in the brain that fire if, and only if, they 'see' a male gait and others that fire if, and only if, they 'see' a female gait.

And a study involving 60 people with chronic pain has found that listening to music could reduce the pain by up to 21% and depression by up to 25%, as well as helping people feel more in control of their pain and less disabled by their condition. Participants listened to music for an hour every day for a week.

You'd think that a tough childhood would make you more suspicious and sceptical, but a new British study has come up with the surprising finding that it actually is more likely to make you more gullible, making you more open to suggestions by police interrogators, advertisers, etc. It's perhaps less surprising when you realize the cause -- that such a childhood renders most individuals less trusting of themselves -- but of course it's very sad that children take so much (completely unwarranted) responsibility for what happens to them, instead of laying it squarely where it belongs.

And relatedly, an American study has just come out with the finding that people who were verbally abused as children grow up to be self-critical and prone to depression and anxiety.

Another nail in the coffin of the search for abilities that are unique to homo sapiens -- 2 new studies, one involving orangutans and bonobos, the other jays, have found the ability to plan for the future (beyond the well-established behavior of food caching -- storing food for later does not necessarily involve forethought; it may simply be a fixed pattern of behavior). (Science report) It seems increasingly clear that all human cognitive attributes can be seen in more primitive form in other animals (something which I don't find to be a stunning conclusion, but then I've always talked about non-human animals, rather that the unadorned "animals", which implies we're not one of them).

And while we're on the subject, there's a report in about the apparent ability of a West African monkey called a putty-nosed monkey (isn't that a wonderful name?) to make sentences of a kind. It appears these monkeys can put together 2 different alarm calls to create urgent warnings.