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3 Factors Predict Mental Illness
The causes of psychiatric disorders are poorly understood. Now, in work led by researchers at McGill University, there is evidence that a...
Phil Harris
Dec 9, 20212 min read


Night Owl or Lark? Personality Traits Predict Sleep Patterns
The link between the different hierarchies of personality, sleep patterns and even genetics has been discovered by researchers from the...
Phil Harris
Jun 23, 20213 min read


Personality Part I: The Research Base
I recently watched the Netflix documentary “Three Identical Strangers.” Without too much of a spoiler alert, triplets who were separated...
Phil Harris
Apr 27, 202017 min read


New Insights into Psychopathic Behavior
The expression of many genes that have previously been associated with autism is abnormal also in violent psychopathy, a new study shows....
Phil Harris
Sep 2, 20192 min read


Trauma: Are We Genetically Sensitive?
Researchers from the VA Connecticut Healthcare System, Yale University School of Medicine, the VA San Diego Healthcare System, and the...
Phil Harris
Jul 30, 20193 min read


Poverty Written into Your Genes?
A new Northwestern University study challenges prevailing understandings of genes as immutable features of biology that are fixed at...
Phil Harris
Apr 8, 20192 min read


Babies Detect Individual Words at 3 Days Old
Babies are not blank slates. They come with a lot of pre-programming that is awaiting activation. A great example of this is language. ...
Phil Harris
Jan 30, 20192 min read


ADHD Gene Breakthrough
A major international collaboration headed by researchers from the Danish iPSYCH project, the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT,...
Phil Harris
Dec 2, 20184 min read


University Attendance Predicted by Genes
Research from King's College London has shown for the first time that genetics plays a significant role in whether young adults choose to...
Phil Harris
Oct 19, 20183 min read


Gene-Parent Interactions Predict Aggression
In lectures on child development I stress the role of gene-parent interactions in shaping a child's behavior. This is an interesting...
Phil Harris
Oct 15, 20184 min read


Agreeable People in Business
In lectures I often reference the differences in inherited personality traits have on human development. Agreeableness is an interesting...
Phil Harris
Oct 15, 20183 min read


Is Addiction a Virus?
New research from an international team led by Oxford University's Department of Zoology and the National-Kapodistrian University of...
Phil Harris
Sep 27, 20184 min read


What the Fruit Fly Tells Us About Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll.
Nothing cheers me up as much as a quirky research study on the humble fruit fly. We share approximately 65 per cent of our DNA with...
Phil Harris
Jul 19, 20185 min read


Autism: New Insights
Whilst autism is not really my area, I am often asked about elements of the disorder. So I thought I would share some of the latest...
Phil Harris
Jul 4, 20186 min read


Epigenetics: Major Data Error Identified
In lectures and training I always emphasis that genetic expressions are not fixed but change over time. Epigenetics is the study of how...
Phil Harris
Jun 27, 20183 min read


Important Break Through in Understanding Alcohol and Genetics?
I have always been skeptical of primary genetic addiction models. The idea that disorders such as alcoholism was driven by gene actions...
Phil Harris
Jun 22, 20182 min read


Age Deviancy: Mechanism for Age Related Behavior Discovered
In lectures on the life course I often discuss two central issues about aging. Firstly is the concept of age deviancy. This is the...
Phil Harris
Feb 18, 20181 min read


Women: Born Survivors
In lectures on human development it always causes a stir when I point out that men are not only genetically weaker than women but are...
Phil Harris
Jan 12, 20181 min read


Pre-Lived Futures: The Evidence is In?
In training and adolescent development I often refer to the emotional brains inability to see the future. As a result, the more distant...
Phil Harris
Jan 8, 20184 min read


Aggression in Childhood: Genes Influenced by Environment
In a new Canadian study, researchers from the Université de Montréal set out to investigate the genetic and environmental factors in...
Phil Harris
Jan 2, 20182 min read
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