Researchers studying yellow warbler responses to the parasitic cowbird realized that red-winged blackbirds were eavesdropping on the calls and reacting to them, too.

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New research in mice suggests that a pregnancy hormone contributes to brain and behavioral changes caused by childhood adversity

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It is time for a fresh approach to the illness

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Fresh approaches and hopeful clues in the search for novel therapies

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Originally published in June 1899

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Painted images of intriguing human-animal hybrids are signs of modern thought

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As psychologist Abraham Maslow wrote, “Perhaps human nature has been sold short”

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Cognitive-behavioral therapy improved both symptoms and markers of senescence in people with anxiety

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“Conversational receptiveness” can be learned

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Health journalist Judy Foreman talks about her new book Exercise Is Medicine: How Physical Activity Boosts Health and Slows Aging.

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Resilience and strength can often be attained through unexpected routes

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Hero worship alone doesn’t protect frontline clinicians from distress

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 The best way to have a good death is to live a good life

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Neither approach is ideal. The best option is to temper your negative emotions by focusing on positive ones

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Being female is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s. Why?

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Rigorous new studies should be able to settle the matter

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America is awash in secrets and conspiracies. Moviegoers are agog over the 2,000-year-old conspiracy theory in "The Da Vinci Code," which suggests that Jesus may not have died celibate. In a conspiracy exactly one order of magnitude smaller, Brad Meltzer's new novel, "The Book of Fate," tells about...

You don't have to be a sports fan to know that something extraordinary happened in the World Cup soccer final last week. Ten minutes from the climactic end -- with his country's hopes, the championship and his place in the history books at stake -- French captain Zinedine Zidane violently...

You could be forgiven for thinking the television images in the experiment were from 2006. They were really from 1982: Israeli forces were clashing with Arab militants in Lebanon. The world was watching, charges were flying, and the air was thick with grievance, hurt and outrage.

President Bush came to Washington promising to be a uniter, but public opinion polls show that apart from a burst of camaraderie after Sept. 11, 2001, America is more bitterly divided and partisan than ever.

So the bad news is that it is hot and sticky and muggy. Your skin makes tearing sounds when you get up from a plastic chair. On the Metro, you start to tell people apart by how they smell.

Office managers are under siege. They know that if they set the temperature to 74, they hear from the woman in human resources who says it is too cold. If they turn it up to 76, they hear from the man in marketing who wants to know why it is sweltering hot.

Both athletes were stars. Both faltered, then staged dramatic comebacks -- displaying the tenacity that separates heroes from also-rans. Both now face drug charges that could end their careers.

Is Pluto a planet? The world's astronomers met in Prague last week to vote on this question, and in a sort of cosmic game of "Survivor," they voted Pluto off the solar system.

For years, economists have taught their students a simple maxim: As employers hunt for workers, they want to get the best talent at the lowest price.

Antiwar liberals last week got to savor the four most satisfying words in the English language: "I told you so."

Here's a question with three different answers. The first answer is derived from arithmetic. The second comes from common sense. The third is based on psychology.

When George W. Bush takes the podium tomorrow night to deliver his sixth State of the Union address, what are the chances he will say this? "The war in Iraq has been one gigantic mistake. I am sorry I got us into this mess. I am going to bring the troops home right away."

Whenever the United States goes to war, pro-war and antiwar advocates immediately reach for different history books. Hawks always equate the situation to a Hitler-Chamberlain standoff to show why hesitation can be fatal. Doves invariably pull the Vietnam War off the shelf to argue that plunging...

So, Valentine's Day is two days away, but you know he isn't going to bring you any flowers. And instead of a cuddle and a kiss, you know she is going to dig up that old canard about your mother.

The conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby last week gave Americans a chance to pick at the scab of what has become a favored obsession -- the debate over the motives of the Bush administration in the run-up to the war in Iraq.

In Shakespeare's "King Lear," a powerful man comes to a tragic end because he surrounds himself with flatterers and banishes the friends who will not varnish the truth to please him.

The NCAA men's college basketball championship game was on the line. People in office pools around the country were holding their breath. Louisville was down by four points with a few minutes left on the clock. A UCLA player stole a pass and raced down the court where, after being bumped by a...

If Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama ever took a break from fundraising to bone up on psychology, they might realize the need to talk up . . . John Edwards.

President Bush said last week that his thinking on the U.S. situation in Iraq was informed by an analogy: the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. The lack of a sufficient American response to that and other al-Qaeda attacks, Bush said, led to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Four years ago tomorrow, President Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln and dramatically strode onto the deck in a flight suit, a crash helmet tucked under one arm. Even without the giant banner that hung from the ship's tower, the president's message about the progress of the war in Iraq was u...

Here is a measure of the state of the war in Iraq: The number of Iraqis dying each month now rivals the total number of people who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Like lunar and solar eclipses, there are some Washington phenomena that are so common they ought to have distinct names. Here is one: A public figure comes to be hated by large numbers of people. But the person cannot be prosecuted or punished, perhaps because his behavior did not involve a crime so...

The ambitious immigration overhaul package that Congress is studying has drawn criticism from conservatives who say it offers amnesty to lawbreakers, and from immigration advocates who say it will not do enough to bring millions of people out of the shadows.

In the year 65, the Roman emperor Nero discovered that a group of nobles had hatched a conspiracy to kill him. The tyrant captured the suspects one by one and threatened them with torture; most confessed and implicated others. One of the conspirators, Epicharis, was publicly tortured -- her bones...

This year's National Basketball Association playoffs recently provided not one but two examples of a very interesting facet of human decision making. Even if you are not a sports fan, these moments tell you something about human nature.

A few days ago, Hamas fighters stormed Fatah strongholds in Gaza that were allied with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and effectively took control of one of the two pillars of the evolving Palestinian state. Fatah groups struck back in the West Bank, the other Palestinian pillar, and...

Psychologists once conducted a simple experiment with far-reaching implications: They asked people to describe an instance in their lives when they had hurt someone and another instance when they had been hurt by someone else. The incidents that people described were similar whether they saw...

John Duffy lost 67 of his colleagues at the firm of Keefe, Bruyette & Woods six years ago during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Among the dead was Duffy's son Christopher. The investment banking firm, located in the South Tower of the World Trade Center, was among the companies hit hardes...

In the courts and in Congress, Sen. Larry Craig is fighting to withdraw his guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge that may suggest he tried to solicit sex from a man in June at a Minneapolis airport bathroom. Rather than resign yesterday, as the senator had promised and Republicans had hoped, Craig...

If you were Barack Obama, you would be scratching your head, too.

Last week, a gallon of gas at an Exxon station in the tony suburb of Bethesda cost $2.99.

When Columbia University sociologist Peter Bearman dived into the world of the white-gloved workers who open the front doors of expensive New York apartment buildings, he found that most people who applied for jobs as doormen never got one. Most doormen, however, had not applied for their jobs.

With just over five minutes to play in yesterday's game against the New York Jets, the Washington Redskins found themselves on their own 23-yard line facing a fourth and one. The team, which was ahead by just three points, elected to do what teams normally do in such situations: They played it safe...

What do the war in Iraq, your Christmas shopping and this week's Thanksgiving dinner have in common?