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I also recently watched They Cloned Tyrone on Netflix - it is a sci-fi take on the blaxploitation genre, featuring Jamie Foxx in his element, plus John Boyega (pictured above) and Teyonah Parris showing off their range. There are spiders with astonishing humanity, octopuses who communicate through colours rippling over their skin and all sorts of adventures. I didn't know there was a third book in Adrian Tchaikovsky's fantastic Children of Time series until I was looking it up to recommend to a friend. [Extracted from the article]

The article looks at extremism which are caused due to factors such as religious bigotry, brainwashing ideology and evil nature; and reflects on the need to promote study on extremism in order to identify facts that lead people into it in order to tackle it.

The article discusses research into the psychology of jihadist recruits, focusing on efforts to understand the radicalisation process in militant groups such as the Islamic State (IS) for counterterrorism purposes. Topics include data suggesting theories of brainwashing and coercion of Westerners are false, research by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) at King's College, and evidence that Western jihadists are influenced by their own social groups.

Several letters to the editor are presented in response to articles from previous issues, including an article about the cognitive effects of jet lag by Thomas Smith in the February 18, 2012 issue, "Mind wars of the future" from the February 11, 2012 issue, and an article about the U.S. Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program from the February 11, 2012 issue.

An introduction is presented which discusses articles in the issue on the psychology of evil, including criticisms of the "banality of evil" idea, reevaluation of the work of psychologist Stanley Milgram, and the effectiveness of brainwashing in radicalisation such as by the Islamic State militant group.

This article discusses a study which explained how tactics like organized marching and propaganda can work to exert mass mind control. Conducted by Scott Wiltermuth of Stanford University in California and colleagues, the study separated 96 people into four groups who performed different tasks together. The study found that activities performed in unison, such as marching or dancing, increase loyalty to the group.

Last year, Jiang Yanyong, a 72-year-old army doctor, exposed the Chinese government's cover-up of the SARS epidemic in Beijing, an act of courage that saved lives and helped defeat the disease. Last month, Yanyong was imprisoned. His crime being that months earlier, he had used his public standing to call on the country's Communist Party, of which he is a member, to admit its mistake in suppressing the student protest in Tiananmen Square in 1989, when he was among the doctors treating bullet-riddled victims. Reports have now emerged that his jailers are using brainwashing techniques to try and make him recant.

Reports on sociology and judicial studies professor James Richardson's belief that psychologists who argue that religious cults brainwash new converts from testifying in courts. Jurors' belief in brainwashing despite scientific arguments that it does not exist; Ways in which cases of brainwashing are little different from the institutionalization evident in accepted organizations; Invocation of the concept of brainwashing in U.S. courtrooms as a defense.