Today in The Takeaway's Science segment, we talk about neuroscience. A handful of new studies suggest that in matters of weight loss, will power could lose out to brainpower. The brain, which is an organ designed to seek out calories, could outsmart the tricks we play on it, such as drinking diet soft drinks. Joining The Takeaway to talk about the brains behind our bulk is Jonah Lehrer. He is The Takeaway’s science contributor and author of the books "How We Decide" and "Proust Was a Neuroscientist." Todd Zwillich, The Takeaway's Washington Correspondent also joins the conversation to talk about how health policy could be used to encourage better eating habits.

Stuart Smalley’s famous words of self love: "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me" could be hazardous to your mental health. A new study out of the University of Waterloo suggests that people with low-self esteem actually sink into a darker state of mind when they articulate self-affirmations. This is just the latest from a new batch of self-esteem studies. Joining us for a look at how the self-esteem movement has morphed since it burst onto the scene nearly 30 years ago is Takeaway science contributor Jonah Lehrer. Jonah is author of How We Decide and Proust Was a Neuroscientist.

New scientific research suggests that the mind of a baby is a humming, buzzing, supercharged learning machine, capable of taking in and processing enormous amounts of information. Now that we know this, how should we interact with babies and support their developing minds? We talk to our science contributor Jonah Lehrer. He is the author of Proust was a Neuroscientist. He latest book is How We Decide.

Jonah Lehrer, editor at large for Seed Magazine, contributor to Radio Lab and the author of How We Decide, explains how humans make decisions using the latest insights from behavioral economics and neuroscience. What's the most rational or irrational decision you've ever made? What's your decision-making approach ...

It seems like there are two kinds of people: the ones who agonize over every decision and the ones who go with their gut. There’s the guy on line at the coffee house who takes ten minutes to decide on a latte and there’s the pilot who makes a split second decision to land a plane in the Hudson River. Neuroscientist Jonah Lehrer is the author of the new book, How We Decide, which explores what goes on in the brain when we make a decision.

Gained five pounds when you wanted to lose ten? Started smoking again after swearing you wouldn't? Not eat vegetables at every meal? Forget to not watch television? Who hasn’t had a New Year's resolution fail? The Takeaway’s science contributor Jonah Lehrer joins the show to tell us why our brain actually prevents us from changing everything at once.

Want more Jonah Lehrer? Read his book Proust Was a Neuroscientist. Guaranteed to make you smarter!

Feeling a little sheepish because you got your sister socks, and she got you a new purple iPod? Evolution can be blamed for the guilt — if not your poor taste in gifts. Jonah Lehrer, author of "Proust Was a Neuroscientist," gives us the dirt on why we feel the need to give as much as we receive.

"Just looking at a picture of nature was relaxing enough to actually produce some cognitive benefits." -- Jonah Lehrer

The very moment when a perfect solution arrives in the brain may now be boiled down to a series of synapses. New Yorker contributor Jonah Lehrer breaks down the science of insight.

The fifth taste, umami, is now at the forefront of modern cuisine. Gourmet magazine’s Ruth Reichl and Jonah Lehrer, author of Proust Was a Neuroscientist, tell us more about what umami is and why it has such a powerful effect on taste.

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In his new book Proust Was a Neuroscientist (Houghton Mifflin, 2007) Jonah Lehrer writes about how novelists and other artists intuited knowledge about the brain that scientists are only now figuring out.

Proust Was a Neuroscientist is available for purchase at Amazon.com.

Science writer Jonah Lehrer is just 26, but he’s already worked as a line cook at Le Cirque and in the lab of a Nobel Prize-winning scientist. In Proust Was a Neuroscientist, Lehrer looks at the surprising ways artists like Paul Cezanne and Walt Whitman ...

In his new book Proust Was a Neuroscientist (Houghton Mifflin, 2007) Jonah Lehrer writes about how novelists and other artists intuited knowledge about the brain that scientists are only now figuring out.

Proust Was a Neuroscientist is available for purchase at Amazon.com.

What is a memory? Science writer Jonah Lehrer tells us is it’s a physical thing in the brain… not some ephemeral flash. It’s a concrete thing made of matter. And NYU neuroscientist Joe LeDoux, who studies fear memories in rats, tells us how with a one shock, one tone, and ...