violent crimes

11.23.09

An Apple By Any Other Name

Sticks and stones can break your bones but… names can make you commit crimes?

By Christina Hurtado Posted 02.05.2009 at 5:51 pm 7 Comments

A few weeks ago, some kids in New Jersey were removed from their home by Child Protective Services because their parents named them after Nazis. When the story got out, their dad told reporters that he didn’t think there was anything wrong with naming a kid Adolf Hitler Campbell. The media coverage around this story created an interesting new controversy. Is giving your child a bad name really a form of abuse?

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READ MORE ABOUT > children, crime scene investigation, Sci Cultcha, violent crimes

Phantom Memories

Stress wrecks your head -- and, sometimes, the truth.

By Gunjan Sinha Posted 01.23.2002 at 5:31 pm 0 Comments

Jessica Payne had seen and read much about false memories. In particular, she had read about witnesses to violent crimes who misidentified the perpetrators. But as a graduate student of neuroscience at the University of Arizona, she was shocked to discover that there was almost no research on the effect of stress in creating such memories. Payne decided to study the phenomenon herself, and her research strongly suggests that stress can alter memories by messing with the way they are consolidated.

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