![Bruce Bower](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/b_bower.jpg?resize=214%2C214&ssl=1)
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.
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All Stories by Bruce Bower
- Paleontology
Fine Toothcomb: New fossils add to primate-origins debate
The discovery of 40-million-year-old teeth and jaw fragments belonging to ancient forms of lorises and bushbabies doubles the age of the fossil record for a major primate group.
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Uncertainty fires up some neurons
In monkeys, a small set of brain cells that transmit the chemical messenger dopamine to various neural destinations works as an uncertainty meter.
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When autism aids memory
People with autism may often have a superior memory for factual details, possibly because of their inability to use context in remembering information.
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Looking for the brain’s g force
Controversial evidence suggests that a frontal-brain network underlies psychological measures of general intelligence.
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Study of stimulant therapy raises concerns
A community survey in North Carolina indicates that many children receiving stimulant treatment don't have attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
- Health & Medicine
Pressurized Pregnancies: Schizophrenia linked to fetal diuretic exposure
A Danish study has found that pregnant women who take diuretic medication for high blood pressure during the third trimester substantially raise the chances that their unborn children will develop schizophrenia by age 35.
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Brain training aids kids with dyslexia
Preliminary brain-imaging evidence indicates that after completing an intensive reading-remediation program, children with dyslexia not only read better but also exhibit signs of increased activity in key brain areas as they read.
- Anthropology
Ancient people get dated Down Under
New dating analyses indicate that people reached southeastern Australia between 50,000 and 46,000 years ago and that two human skeletons previously unearthed there were buried about 40,000 years ago.
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Working Out: Welfare reform hasn’t changed kids so far
A study conducted among low-income families in three states suggests that the emotional health and academic skills of preschoolers and young adolescents don't suffer when their mothers move off welfare and into the workforce.
- Archaeology
Grave surprise rises in Jamestown fort
Excavations in the 17th-century fort at Jamestown, Va., have yielded a grave containing the skeleton of a high-ranking male colonist.
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Sleepers yield memorable brain images
Rapid-eye-movement sleep may help consolidate some newly acquired memories, brain scans suggest.
- Anthropology
Pieces of a Disputed Past: Fossil finds enter row over humanity’s roots
Two new fossil discoveries have fueled scientific debates about the evolutionary status of a pair of species traditionally considered to have been our direct ancestors, Homo habilis and Homo erectus.