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Editor's Selections: Blood Tests for Depression, the Axolotl, Dopamine, and The Bachelor

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Here are my Research Blogging Editor's Selections for this week.

  • "Imagine that there was a blood test that could detect depression," writes the Neuroskeptic. "Wouldn't that be useful?"

  • What can the axolotl - a weird-looking salamander - tell us about how our brains process smell? A lot, actually. Read about it at The Cellular Scale.

  • "Ah, dopamine," says Dirk Hanson. "Whenever it seems like researchers have finally gotten a bead on how that tricky molecule modulates pleasure and reward, and the role it plays in the process of drug and alcohol addiction, along come new findings that rearrange its role, deepening and complicating our understanding of brain function." Say Hello to Dopamine’s Leetle Friend.

  • Juliana Breines argues quite convincingly that The Bachelor is a lot like Zimbardo's famous Stanford Prison Experiment. Find out why at Psych Your Mind.

That's it for this week... Check back next week for more great psychology and neuroscience blogging!

Jason G. Goldman is a science journalist based in Los Angeles. He has written about animal behavior, wildlife biology, conservation, and ecology for Scientific American, Los Angeles magazine, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the BBC, Conservation magazine, and elsewhere. He contributes to Scientific American's "60-Second Science" podcast, and is co-editor of Science Blogging: The Essential Guide (Yale University Press). He enjoys sharing his wildlife knowledge on television and on the radio, and often speaks to the public about wildlife and science communication.

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