Bruce Bower

Bruce Bower

Behavioral Sciences Writer

Bruce Bower has written about the behavioral sciences since 1984. He often writes about psychology, anthropology, archaeology and mental health issues. Bruce has a master's degree in psychology from Pepperdine University and a master's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. Following an internship at Science News in 1981, he worked as a reporter at Psychiatric News, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association, until joining Science News as a staff writer. In 1996, the American Psychological Association appointed Bruce a Science Writer Fellow, with a grant to visit psychological scientists of his own choosing. Early stints as an aide in a day school for children and teenagers with severe psychological problems and as a counselor in a drug diversion center provided Bruce with a surprisingly good background for a career in science journalism.

All Stories by Bruce Bower

  1. Anthropology

    Children of Prehistory

    Accumulating evidence suggests that children and teenagers produced much prehistoric cave art and perhaps left behind many fledgling attempts at stone-tool making as well.

  2. Violent Justice: Adult system fails young offenders

    Laws that allow people under age 18 to be tried and imprisoned as adults have unintended effects, promoting an increase in new violent offenses among youth handled by the adult justice system.

  3. Psychotherapy aids bipolar treatment

    Any of three forms of psychotherapy enhances emotional stability in people with bipolar disorder who already receive standard medications for that severe psychiatric ailment.

  4. Anthropology

    Disinherited Ancestor: Lucy’s kind may occupy evolutionary side branch

    A controversial analysis of a recently discovered jaw from a 3-million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis puts Lucy's species on an evolutionary side branch that eventually died out.

  5. Rats take fast route to remembering

    Rats use background knowledge about what they have already learned to remember relevant new material surprisingly quickly.

  6. Anthropology

    Asian Trek: Fossil puts ancient humans in Far East

    A 40,000-year-old partial human skeleton from a Chinese cave intensifies a debate over whether Stone Age people dispersing from Africa interbred with humanlike species that they encountered.

  7. Bipolar Surprise: Mood disorder endures antidepressant setback

    Severe depression in patients with bipolar disorder responds no better to a combination of antidepressants and mood-stabilizing drugs than to mood stabilizers alone.

  8. Feeling Right from Wrong: Brain’s social emotions steer moral judgments

    A new study of people who suffered damage to a brain area involved in social sentiments supports the notion that emotional, intuitive reactions typically guide decisions about moral dilemmas.

  9. Novel DNA changes linked to autism

    Genetic alterations that occur in children without being inherited from the parents contribute to certain cases of autism and related developmental disorders.

  10. Mental fallout among recent-war veterans

    Almost one in three veterans of military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq receiving medical care at Veterans Affairs facilities displays mental disorders or less-severe problems that still require mental-health treatment.

  11. Anthropology

    Mysterious Migrations

    Controversial new studies report that modern humans from Africa launched cultural advances in Europe at least 36,000 years ago and reached what's now western Russia more than 40,000 years ago.

  12. Anthropology

    Ancient Slow Growth: Fossil teeth show roots of human development

    An extended period of childhood evolved in people at least 160,000 years ago.