Bruce Bower

Bruce Bower

Behavioral Sciences Writer

Bruce Bower has written about the behavioral sciences since 1984. He often writes about psychology, anthropology, archaeology and mental health issues. Bruce has a master's degree in psychology from Pepperdine University and a master's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. Following an internship at Science News in 1981, he worked as a reporter at Psychiatric News, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association, until joining Science News as a staff writer. In 1996, the American Psychological Association appointed Bruce a Science Writer Fellow, with a grant to visit psychological scientists of his own choosing. Early stints as an aide in a day school for children and teenagers with severe psychological problems and as a counselor in a drug diversion center provided Bruce with a surprisingly good background for a career in science journalism.

All Stories by Bruce Bower

  1. A Fetching Lexicon: Language clues come from dog’s vocabulary

    A research team finds that a 9-year-old border collie displays a keen facility for learning word meanings, providing new support for the theory that simple types of thinking practiced by some nonhuman animals also make word learning possible in toddlers.

  2. Chimp DNA yields complex surprises

    A molecular comparison of chromosome 22 in chimpanzees with its counterpart in people reveals surprisingly complex genetic differences between the two species.

  3. Death Waits for No One: Deferred demises take a couple of hits

    Two new reports challenge the idea that elderly people suffering from serious physical illnesses can prolong their lives just long enough to experience a personally meaningful event.

  4. Sexing Brains Down and Up: Early aspirin dose hits male rats below the belt

    Prenatal exposure to a certain class of drugs, which includes aspirin and acetaminophen, leads to adult sexual difficulties in male rats, raising concerns about the use of such drugs by pregnant women.

  5. Anthropology

    Out on a Limb

    The science of body development may make kindling out of evolutionary trees.

  6. Pot on the Spot: Marijuana’s risks become blurrier

    A research review challenges the assumption that scientists have demonstrated a causal link between teenage marijuana use and later psychological and behavioral problems.

  7. Archaeology

    Guatemalan sites yield Maya insights

    Excavations at three archaeological sites in Guatemala have provided new insights into both the early and late stages of ancient Maya civilization.

  8. Neurons slow down for placebo effect

    A placebo treatment temporarily quelled symptoms of Parkinson's disease in six people by decreasing the electrical activity of brain cells crucial to the condition.

  9. Anthropology

    Humanity’s Strange Face

    New fossil finds in a Romanian cave fuel controversy over whether different, closely related species interbred on the evolutionary path that led to people.

  10. Toddlers’ Supersize Mistakes: At times, children play with the impossible

    Toddlers will sometimes try to climb into a toy car or otherwise treat small objects as if they were large ones, possibly because their brains occasionally fail to integrate visual information about object size with object identity.

  11. Anthropology

    Neandertals may have grown up quickly

    A new analysis of fossil teeth indicates that Neandertals grew to maturity at a faster pace than people do.

  12. Words in the Brain: Reading program spurs neural rewrite in kids

    Children who are deficient readers show improvement in both reading skills and brain function when given intensive instruction in how written letters correspond to speech sounds, a brain-imaging study finds.