Much like Pinocchio, your nose could reveal that you're lying, though unlike the beloved character, your nose will heat up instead of growing longer when you tell a fib, new research claims.

Psychology researchers from the University of Granada in Spain used thermography to study the temperature of people's faces in experiments. They said they found a jump in the temperature around the nose and in the orbital muscle in the inner corner of the eye during lying. They also found that face temperature drops for people performing a difficult mental task and rises for people experiencing high anxiety.

The researchers said these effects could have something to do with the insula, a region of the brain involved in consciousness as well as the detection and regulation of body temperature. Lying boosted activity in this region, the team said.

Thermography could be used to study emotional or physiological states that become manifest through body temperature, such as sexual excitement, which heats up the chest and genitals, and even empathy. The researchers said that when highly empathic people see a person getting an electric shock in the forearm, they experience an increase in the temperature in their forearm as if feeling the other person's pain.

The work on the so-called "Pinocchio effect" was part of a doctoral thesis and has yet to be published in a scientific peer-reviewed journal.

It affects women as well as men, and it starts young. Joanna Moorhead on a secret that's ruining more and more lives

A few months before their wedding, David Prior (not his real name) told his fiancée Sue his biggest secret. Although the couple had a good sex life, and were committed to a future together, he was addicted to visiting prostitutes.

Perhaps surprisingly, the wedding went ahead. "I was horribly shocked, but I thought that with some therapy he'd get over it," says Sue, 42. Fifteen years and two children on, the couple are still together - but David's sex addiction, too, is with him still. "I don't think we could possibly have imagined that it would be as long-term, or as difficult, as it has been," says Sue.

David and Sue are clients of a sexual psychotherapist, Paula Hall, who last month published the UK's first comprehensive guide to what sex addiction is - she defines it as "a pattern of out-of-control sexual behaviour that causes problems in someone's life" - and how its sufferers can be helped. No one knows how many sex addicts there are in Britain but, says Ms Hall, in her professional judgement it's hugely on the increase.

Familiarity does not breed contempt, a new study suggests after it revealed that men find women with whom they share certain facial features more attractive.

To test the theory of homogamy, which states that individuals generally seek a sexual partner that looks like them, researchers compared the facial features of the men surveyed with those of the women that they considered most attractive.

French researchers from the Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier focused on certain facial characteristics like eye and hair color, lip and eyebrow thickness and the presence or absence of chin dimple, according to the study published Nov. 21 in the journal PLOS One.

Researchers said that there have been numerous studies on what physical characteristics make a woman more attractive. However, unlike the previous studies that focus on traits linked to hormone levels and fertility, the latest study focused on characteristics that offer no particular selective advantage such as eye color and lip thickness.

Researchers wanted to test two separate but non-mutually exclusive evolutional theories: homogamy and uncertainty of paternity.

Cancer and stress go hand-in-hand, and high stress levels can lead to poorer health outcomes in cancer patients. The Jefferson-Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine combined creative art therapy with a Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program for women with breast cancer and showed changes in brain activity associated with lower stress and anxiety after the eight-week program. Their new study appears in the December issue of the journal Stress and Health.

Daniel Monti, MD, director of the Jefferson-Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine and lead author on the study, and colleagues have previously published on the success of Mindfulness-based Art Therapy (MBAT) at helping cancer patients lower stress levels and improve quality of life.

"Our goal was to observe possible mechanisms for the observed psychosocial effects of MBAT by evaluating the cerebral blood flow (CBF) changes associated with an MBAT intervention in comparison with a control of equal time and attention," says Monti. "This type of expressive art and meditation program has never before been studied for physiological impact and the correlation of that impact to improvements in stress and anxiety."

Eighteen patients were randomly assigned to the MBAT program or an education program control group. All had received the diagnosis of breast cancer between six months and three years prior to enrollment and were not in active treatment. The MBAT group consisted of the MBSR curriculum (awareness of breathing, awareness of emotion, mindful yoga, walking, eating and listening), paired with expressive art tasks to provide opportunities for self-expression, facilitate coping strategies, improve self-regulation, and provide a way for participants to express emotional information in a personally meaningful manner.

Following a divorce or separation, many people are encouraged by loved ones or health-care professionals to keep journals about their feelings. But for some, writing in-depth about those feelings immediately after a split may do more harm than good, according to new research.

In a study of 90 recently divorced or separated individuals, psychological scientist David Sbarra of the University of Arizona and colleagues found that writing about one's feelings can actually leave some people feeling more emotionally distraught months down the line, particularly those individuals who are prone to seeking a deeper meaning for their failed marriage.

The findings, forthcoming in Clinical Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, came as a surprise to Sbarra, who initially set out to compare the effectiveness of two different styles of expressive writing on the emotional healing of recently separated or divorced individuals.

Everyone knows that men and women tend to hold different views on certain things. However, new research by scientists from the University of Bristol and published in PLoS ONE indicates that this may literally be the case.

Researchers examined where men and women looked while viewing still images from films and pieces of art. They found that while women made fewer eye movements than men, those they did make were longer and to more varied locations.

These differences were largest when viewing images of people. With photos of heterosexual couples, both men and women preferred looking at the female figure rather than the male one. However, this preference was even stronger for women.

While men were only interested in the faces of the two figures, women's eyes were also drawn to the rest of the bodies - in particular that of the female figure.

Felix Mercer Moss, PhD student in the Department of Computer Science who led the study, said: "The study represents the most compelling evidence yet that, despite occupying the same world, the viewpoints of men and women can, at times, be very different.

"Our findings have important implications for both past and future eye movement research together with future technological applications."

The brain waves of two musicians synchronize when they are performing duet, a new study found, suggesting that there's a neural blueprint for coordinating actions with others.

A team of scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin used electrodes to record the brain waves of 16 pairs of guitarists while they played a sequence from "Sonata in G Major" by Christian Gottlieb Scheidler. In each pair, the two musicians played different voices of the piece. One guitarist was responsible for beginning the song and setting the tempo while the other was instructed to follow.

In 60 trials each, the pairs of musicians showed coordinated brain oscillations - or matching rhythms of neural activity - in regions of the brain associated with social cognition and music production, the researchers said.

"When people coordinate their own actions, small networks between brain regions are formed," study researcher Johanna Sänger said in a statement. "But we also observed similar network properties between the brains of the individual players, especially when mutual coordination is very important; for example at the joint onset of a piece of music."

Excerpt from the excellent documentary about John Trudell, American philosopher, poet, musician, actor and activist.

Excerpt from the excellent documentary about John Trudell, American philosopher, poet, musician, actor and activist.

Recent research has found that people with so-called dark personality traits - narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism - are rated as more attractive than their more ethical, less selfish peers.

It seems that it's a cliché for a reason: "nice guys finish last". Recent research has found that people with so-called dark personality traits - narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism - are rated as more attractive than their more ethical, less selfish peers. That finding validates just about everyone's middle school experience. But why is that true?

A new study finds that those three traits, known as the "dark triad", are linked with an increased ability to successfully enhance a person's appearance. The study also suggests that people who possess the dark triad are more skilled at presenting and carrying themselves, which is why they are generally immediately liked.

Researchers Nicholas Holtzman and Michael Strube hailing from Washington University in St. Louis performed a study with 111 college students, 64 percent of whom were women. In order to test their level of attractiveness, each student was photographed shortly after their arrival at the research facility.

Afterwards, each person was asked to change into gray sweatpants. Women were asked to scrub make-up from their faces and anyone who had long hair was asked to tie it back in a ponytail. Researchers took a second picture of each participant in a natural state.