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. No Place Like Om: Meditation training puts oomph into attention

    Intensive meditation training boosts a person's control over attention and expands a person's ability to notice rapidly presented items.

  2. Automatic Networking: Brain systems charge up in unconscious monkeys

    Even when monkeys are anesthetized, their brains show patterns of electrical activity similar to those exhibited during wakeful activity.

  3. Anthropology

    Kin play limited role in chimp cooperation

    Male chimps collaborate in a variety of ways and, like people, often find partners outside of their immediate families for cooperative ventures.

  4. Sleep on It: Time delay plus slumber equals memory boost

    Sleep revs up a person's ability to discern connections among pieces of information encountered in novel situations.

  5. Anthropology

    Children of Prehistory

    Accumulating evidence suggests that children and teenagers produced much prehistoric cave art and perhaps left behind many fledgling attempts at stone-tool making as well.

  6. Violent Justice: Adult system fails young offenders

    Laws that allow people under age 18 to be tried and imprisoned as adults have unintended effects, promoting an increase in new violent offenses among youth handled by the adult justice system.

  7. Psychotherapy aids bipolar treatment

    Any of three forms of psychotherapy enhances emotional stability in people with bipolar disorder who already receive standard medications for that severe psychiatric ailment.

  8. Anthropology

    Disinherited Ancestor: Lucy’s kind may occupy evolutionary side branch

    A controversial analysis of a recently discovered jaw from a 3-million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis puts Lucy's species on an evolutionary side branch that eventually died out.

  9. Rats take fast route to remembering

    Rats use background knowledge about what they have already learned to remember relevant new material surprisingly quickly.

  10. Anthropology

    Asian Trek: Fossil puts ancient humans in Far East

    A 40,000-year-old partial human skeleton from a Chinese cave intensifies a debate over whether Stone Age people dispersing from Africa interbred with humanlike species that they encountered.

  11. Bipolar Surprise: Mood disorder endures antidepressant setback

    Severe depression in patients with bipolar disorder responds no better to a combination of antidepressants and mood-stabilizing drugs than to mood stabilizers alone.

  12. Feeling Right from Wrong: Brain’s social emotions steer moral judgments

    A new study of people who suffered damage to a brain area involved in social sentiments supports the notion that emotional, intuitive reactions typically guide decisions about moral dilemmas.