The hunger strike is a strange technique of civil war. Physical suffering—possibly even death—is inflicted on oneself, rather than on the opponent. The technique can be conceived as a paradoxical inversion of hostage-taking or kidnapping, analyzed by Elster (2004). With kidnapping, A threatens to kill a victim B in order to force concessions from the target C; sometimes the victim is also the t...

Hunger drives animals to search for food, a behavior that is heavily dependent on the olfactory system. The neuronal mechanism by which hunger modulates the behavioral response towards food odor, however, is not well understood. In this study, using a single-fly behavioral assay and single-unit recording, we have demonstrated that starved flies exhibit enhanced attraction towards an attractive ...

This study examined whether young men adjusted their snack-food intake to that of a same-sex eating companion. Additionally, hunger was assessed as a possible moderating variable. A total of 59 young men (M age=21.73) participated. An interaction between participants' hunger and confederate's intake on the total amount of snack food (in grams) consumed was found. Only those males who were hungr...

The Transformation of Hunger Revisited We examine Trevon Logan’s 2009 claim to have found low levels of nutrition among British worker’s households in the late 19 century. Using the same data, we conclude that Logan’s estimates are thirty percent too low. Logan buttressed his estimates by claiming that the income elasticity of calories demand was unusually high among these households, relative ...

This article examines the notion of symbiosis as it was originally presented (Schiff & Schiff, 1971). It is suggested that there has been a largely unstated assumption as to what symbiosis actually is: that is, it has referred to the notion of attachment. Recognizing this assumption allows for a more accurate definition of symbiosis. In addition, it brings into question the notion of stimulus h...

Although AgRP and POMC neurons in the hypothalamus have long been associated with regulation of food intake, in this issue of Cell, Chen et al. use direct imaging in vivo to demonstrate rapid changes in their activity upon food presentation. The rapidity of their altered responses challenges classic notions of their functions and raises new hypotheses.

This column started out to highlight hunger in American children. But one quickly finds that you cannot discuss hunger without its partner, poverty, since hunger is principally caused by poverty. We also discovered in 2006 the twenty-first century lexicon term of food insecurity. While hunger in the sense of “the uneasy or painful sensation caused by want of food”(Oxford English Dictionary 1971...