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. Groomed for Trouble: Mice yield obsessive-compulsive insights

    Mice lacking a gene that makes a certain brain protein display behaviors much like those of people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, a poorly understood psychiatric ailment.

  2. Archaeology

    Map yields new view of ancient city

    A new map shows that Angkor, the world's largest preindustrial city, covered more than 1,000 square kilometers of what is now Cambodia and possessed an elaborate canal system.

  3. Depression Defense: Sick elderly get mood aid from home treatment

    Instructional therapy to promote coping strategies helps elderly people with incipient blindness ward off depression—at least in the short run.

  4. Anthropology

    Red-Ape Stroll

    Wild orangutans regularly walk upright through the trees, raising the controversial possibility that the two-legged stance is not unique to hominids.

  5. Weighting for Friends: Obesity spreads in social networks

    Obesity spreads as a social contagion through networks of friends and relatives, apparently because associating with overweight people encourages a laxer attitude toward weight gain.

  6. Antidepressants trim suicide tries

    Treating depression with antidepressant drugs reduces the risk of suicide.

  7. Alcohol problems hit nearly 1 in 3 adults

    Nearly one in three recently surveyed U.S. adults reports having had serious alcohol problems at some time in their lives.

  8. Forget About It: How the brain suppresses unwanted memories

    Two newly discovered neural processes give people the ability to intentionally forget upsetting memories.

  9. Hidden Smarts: Abstract thought trumps IQ scores in autism

    Autistic children and adults do better on a nonverbal test of abstract reasoning than they do on standard IQ tests, suggesting that their intelligence has been underestimated.

  10. Oldest siblings show slight IQ advantage

    The oldest boys in families, including those who became oldest after the death of an earlier-born brother, have a slight IQ edge over their younger siblings.

  11. Blind people excel at serial recall

    Blind people recall strings of words better than sighted people do, perhaps because of their greater reliance on memory in dealing with the tasks of daily life.

  12. Trouble in Paradise

    Schizophrenia strikes inhabitants of the Micronesian nation of Palau, especially the men, at an unusually high rate, raising questions about culture's role in a disease usually regarded as purely biological.