Your genes affect your betting behavior

Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, National University of Singapore and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) have shown that betting decisions in a simple competitive game are influenced by the specific variants of dopamine-regulating genes in a person’s brain. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter – a chemical released by brain cells to signal other brain…

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Nimble amoebas battle for world supremacy

I have no idea why I find this interesting. Whoosh!” bragged geneticist Michael Myre, spreading his fingers and pushing his hands away from his body. “That’s what they’ll do.” ‘Whoosh’ is not a word often applied to the slime mould Dictyostelium discoideum — affectionately called ‘Dicty’ by its devoted following of cell biologists and geneticists — but Myre,…

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Manipulate Me: The Booming Business in Behavioral Finance

It’s hard to find a place today where concepts of behavioral finance aren’t being applied to real-world situations. From London to Washington to Sydney, governments are experimenting with the psychology of decision-making and trying to “nudge” citizens toward better behaviors, whether that means saving more for retirement or signing an organ donation card. Meanwhile, businesses…

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