Top 10 Neuro(world) Stories of ‘09

Image by Pink Sherbet Photography via Flickr

This blog started roughly in March — though, it was off the grid for a while until True/Slant got up and running. In that almost-a-year, Neuroworld has covered big stories and little stories, smart stories and very stupid stories, and a little bit of everything in between. So, in the tradition of lazy journalists throughout history, rushing to put something together before the drinking starts on New Year’s Eve, here’s a list of the Top 10 Neuro(world) stories of 2009 — ranked by how much you, the reader, clicked on them:

10) Birther FAIL: 2009 was the year of the conspiracy theory. Why, so many of us want to know, are so many people convinced of stupid things like the idea that Barack Obama wasn’t born in America, contrary to all evidence? In this post, we looked at one (stupid) answer: Since they don’t believe Hawaii’s a state, of course they think Obama was born overseas! Hawaii is overseas!

9) Ten things you didn’t know about orgasm: A video. Was it the word “orgasm” that made this so popular? Yeah, it probably was.

8 ) Rebellion-B-Gone: Chemical Neurowarfare: You think the Iranian dissident crackdown is bad now? Imagine a world where dictatorial regimes have access to non-lethal, weaponized drugs designed to decrease aggression and increase trust. That’s the future we considered in this post, and that’s the future that still may lie ahead of us.

7) Bush’s Brain: Smart, but Too Certain: You think Bush was (is) an idiot? Well, his IQ’s not actually all that low, so far as anyone can tell. So what was really behind his terrible decision making and general incompetence as a president? This post looks at one possible answer: It’s the certainty, stupid.

6) Grocery Line Guessing: Here’s one we’ve all faced: How do you pick the best grocery line? When we look at lines, our brains want to use a “length = number” strategy, but there’s so much more we need to take into account. The real time suck, it turns out, is people paying — not the number of items they’re paying for.

5) 10 Reasons to Dump Daylight Saving Time: A top 10 list nested inside a top 10 list. Not quite the latest season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” but still a bit recursive.

4) Diet Soda: The Brain Knows Better: Is diet soda doing more harm than good? Science says yes. Sweetness is meant to signal to the body that it’s getting something it wants desperately: metabolic energy. If a certain amount of sweetness (the artificial sweetener) suddenly represents significantly less metabolic energy (fewer calories), the brain will want more and more sweetness as it fails to be satisfied.

3) Swine Flu: Is Matt Drudge a National Hero?: Not the first question that would jump to most people’s minds. But still a legitimate one. Swine Flu didn’t end up being that big a deal (surprise, surprise). But what role does panic have in preventing the spread of pandemics? I argue panic has a positive value for “protecting the herd.”

2) The Science of a Butterface: I mentioned stupid up top, right? Well, this was a stupid one, but man did people click on it. Made some friends over at Jezebel and advanced the cause of really pointless science. All in a day’s work.

1) Women and Salads: All for Show: This one had a late surge, but ended up the top post of the year. Women, according to the study written up here, tend to eat fewer calories when they eat in front of men. And, for whatever reason, we as a species find this fascinating.

Why do I have the sinking feeling that if I’d just posted the YouTube of Susan Boyle, that would be the highest ranked post here? Oh well. I’ll save it for my inspirational-yet-still-ultimately-sad British women blog, set to launch in January. Until then…