Gina Stepp

Give Sorrow More than Words: The Neuroscience of Grieving

The last decade has seen great strides in understanding some of the brain science behind emotions like sorrow and joyâ€"at least of the mechanics. Using the latest technology, scientists can see what goes on materially in the brain when we have certain fe... Read >

Building Resilience in a Turbulent World

"I know that I need to deal with it to heal," says a woman we'll call Ramona. "But sometimes I just have to take a step away from it too. I have experienced very painful flashbacks. The memories get so vivid; I literally, physically feel the pain again.... Read >

If We Could Talk Like the Animals . . .

The ability to communicate is seen by some scientists as a key skill separating humans from "lower species" of the animal kingdom, but anyone who attended the What Makes Us Human? conference in Los Angeles last April might have found reason to question ... Read >

Green With Compassion

It can hardly be disputed thatâ€"barring natural disasters or other forces beyond our controlâ€"when human relationships are good, life is good. And humans have all kinds of important relationships. The most obvious would include those within families, am... Read >

In Vino Veritas: It's A Drink to Your Health

Hemingway called it "the most civilized thing in the world," Ambrose Bierce said it was, "God's next best gift to man," and the Scot scholar John Stuart Blackie went even further, declaring it "the drink of the gods." As for whether a god would drink w... Read >

Smart Men Make Passes at Women with Glasses

Meet Christine Whelanâ€"an attractive, 29-year-old woman with a PhD from Oxford University. When I spoke with her she happened to be single, having been dumped two years earlier by a man who told her she was intellectually intimidating. For a break-up lin... Read >

Feminism: The Complementary Angle

When it first dawned on Betty Friedan that something was wrong with the role of women in society, she was not incorrect. Nor, of course, was she the first in history to notice, or the first to hit on an inadequate solution. The problem, as she articulate... Read >