The
News in Brain and Behavioural Sciences Newsletter
is full of fun stuff this week:

• The fraction of left-handed people today
  is about the same as it was during the Ice Age
• People with a history of the digestive
  disorder celiac disease are three times more
  likely to develop schizophrenia than those without the disease
• The ability to appreciate other people’s agony
  is achieved by the same parts of the brain
  that we use to experience pain for ourselves
• Just missing breakfast makes you more
  sensitive to sweet and salty tastes
• Changes in hormone levels cause many women to be
  more critical of other women, according to a recent study
  
  [this is one of those "duh" things -- women, and
  the men who live with them, have known this for
  years. --MB]
  
• Human beings are the only animals
  that have asymmetrical brains
• A new study of young mothers by researchers at
  University College London (UCL) has shown that
  romantic and maternal love activate many of the
  same specific regions of the brain, and lead to a
  suppression of neural activity associated with critical
  social assessment of other people and negative emotions.
  The findings suggest that once one is closely familiar
  with a person, the need to assess the character and
  personality of that person is reduced,
  and bring us closer to explaining why,
  in neurological terms, ‘love is blind.’
• Researchers have identified areas of the brain
  where what we’re actually doing (reality) and what
  we think we’re doing (illusion, or perception) are processed.