Science News for Writers

Does the true-crime and crime fiction you research and write help criminals get smarter?  Does breaking down how a crime is investigated teach perps how to avoid detection?  To clean up clues left in a crime site? The answer seems to be no, they are still the lovable, inept dolts we've always made a buck off.  And will continue to exploit as there is no cure for outbursts of rage, greed, and just plain human stupidity anywhere on the scientific horizon. Here's the story: *  *  *  *  * The CSI effect: Watching TV crime shows does not make better criminals Does watching the work of fictional forensic investigators on TV influence viewers? There is a belief that this is the case and that the consequences of people watching shows such as the American crime drama television series "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" are filtering through into real life, a phenomenon that has been called the CSI effect. In the worst case, it is fe...

Credit: Patrick J. Lynch Some people avoid risks at all costs, while others put their wealth, health, and safety at risk without a thought. Researchers at Yale  School of Medicine find that the volume of the parietal  cortex  in the brain could predict where people fall on the risk-taking spectrum . The debate about whether human behavior is learned or results from genetic programming impacts the way a writer structures character in their stories.  It's accepted at least in the film industry that characters that learn and grow from their experiences in a story are the most appealing to audiences, and that those films do better in the box office.  Examples range from Jerry Maguire to Casablanca to A Christmas Carol, films in which the main character becomes a better person over the arc of the story. But, if some human behavior is genetic in origin, can people with certain behaviors actually change?  That is at the core of the Nature vs. N...

" The one who tells the story rules the world ." ~ Hopi proverb A particular type of viewer enjoys stories with plots, characters, and imagery that allow them to get lost in the narrative, according to a new study  scheduled to be published in the Journal of Consumer Research in February, 2014. "Stories have the power to change people's behavior," write authors Tom van Laer (ESCP Europe Business School), Ko de Ruyter (Maastricht University), Luca M. Visconti (ESCP Europe Business School), and Martin Wetzels (Maastricht University). "Contemporary examples include the persuasive power of Latin American telenovelas, which influence family planning choices and enrollment in adult literacy programs, as well as Internet users sharing written stories, photos, and videos about themselves and their market experiences." A telenovela is a limited-run serial dramatic programming popular in Latin American, Portuguese, Filipino, Spanish, and North Americ...