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. Animals

    Rock-wielding monkeys make adjustments when cracking nuts

    Videos show that monkeys carefully pound open nuts to avoid smashing kernels inside.

  2. Psychology

    Childhood bullying leads to long-term mental health problems

    U.S., British data raise bullying’s profile as a long-term mental health hazard for kids.

  3. Anthropology

    Pots from hunter-gatherer site in China tell tale of lifestyle shift

    Chinese foragers settled down and made pottery shortly before farming’s ascent.

  4. Anthropology

    Ritual cannibalism occurred in England 14,700 years ago

    Human bones show signs of ritual cannibalism in England 14,700 years ago.

  5. Psychology

    Saying ‘I’ and ‘me’ all the time doesn’t make you a narcissist

    People who utter lots of first-person singular pronouns such as "I" and "me" score no higher on narcissism questionnaires than peers who engage in little "I"-talk.

  6. Anthropology

    Beads suggest culture blocked farming in Northern Europe

    Baltic hunter-gatherers blocked farming’s spread from south.

  7. Anthropology

    Ancient Homo fossils found in Kenya

    Finds from three individuals add to skeletal diversity of early members of human genus.

  8. Anthropology

    Footprints offer clues about daily hominid life

    Early male members of the human genus spent a lot of time together by the water, as their footprints attest.

  9. Anthropology

    Kennewick Man’s bones reveal his diet

    Pacific Northwest man who lived 9,000 years ago ate from an almost entirely seafood menu, a new analysis finds.

  10. Anthropology

    ‘Little Foot’ pushes back age of earliest South African hominids

    Study suggests Lucy’s species had a South African foil nearly 3.7 million years ago.

  11. Anthropology

    Ancient hominids moved into Greece about 206,000 years ago

    New analysis puts people at a contested Greek site about 206,000 years ago.

  12. Psychology

    Long-term study complicates understanding of child abuse

    Sexual abuse and neglect get reported more if parents were maltreated as kids, which may lead authorities to overestimate some children’s risk of abuse.