Why can booze or food tempt us? How can AI help betting and medicine? Find out in ScienceSeeker's picks of the best posts for the week of June 18-24 2018 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

I'm fascinated by the question of why, when we know we shouldn't consume something, we so often do. Are there different parts of our selves that disagree? Or are there chemical processes overwhelming us? This is just one of many topics touched on by ScienceSeeker editors' favourite posts within their respective areas of interest and expertise for the past seven days. Here is the full round-up of the ScienceSeeker Editors’ Selections:

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  My brain made me eat it - but if my brain is a part of me,
  is that a good excuse? Credit: Valerie Bennett
  used via Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0 licence

  Your brain absolutely cannot resist doughnuts – here’s why by Alison George at New Scientist
• Scientists Pinpoint Brain Region That May Be Center of Alcohol Addiction by Bret Stetka at Scientific American
• Spectacular Strawberry Science! by Kat Day at The Chronicle Flask
• NASA’s Kepler K2 Mission Discovers 78 New Exoplanet Candidates at Sci-News.com
• The Surprising Reason Why Neutron Stars Don’t All Collapse To Form Black Holes by Ethan Siegel at Starts With a Bang
• A Geological Review Of 'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom' by David Bressan at Forbes
• To beat Vegas bookies at the World Cup, these statisticians turned to artificial intelligence by Amanda Grennell at PBS News Hour
• Could Artificial Intelligence Take the Art out of Medicine? by Pamela E. Hepp at Scientific American
• New therapy helps your own immune system kill cancer cells by Emma Pettengale at The Biochemist
• When Do Children Become Right- or Left-Handed? by Richard Berks at The Geekfather
• Global Insect Extinction – a never ending story by Simon Leather at Don't Forget the Roundabouts
• Bees get stressed at work too (and it might be causing colony collapse) by Amélie Cabirol and Andrew Barron at The Conversation
• Think Your Body Is Infested With Insects? You're Not Alone. by Erika Engelhaupt at Gory Details
• Putting a Weapon in Reverse by Karen Bonuck at The Doctor's Tablet
• Trump’s new oceans policy washes away Obama’s emphasis on conservation and climate by David Malakoff at Science
• Animals are becoming night owls to avoid humans by Shreya Dasgupta at Mongabay
• How to recognize and stop your need for magic: the cautionary tale of vaccines and autism by Gaia Cantelli at Science Blog
• As I predicted, the exploitation of desperate patients using right-to-try begins by Orac at Respectful Insolence
• Why Does Exploding Dots Work? by James Propp at monthly writings in and around mathematics 
• Science Rendezvous by Cat Lau at Art the Science
• Is globalization causing inequality? by José Luis Ferreira at Mapping Ignorance

Check back next week for more great picks!