omnibrain | March 11, 2008
Brain Network Linked To Contemplation In Adults Is Less Complex In Children
A brain network linked to introspective tasks -- such as forming the self-image or understanding the motivations of others -- is less intricate and well-connected in children, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have lear
(tags: brain neuroscience adult child introspection fMRI connection contemplation)
"Mechanical Brain" Works Out Mathematical Engineering Problems
A DIFFERENTIAL analyzer, or "mechanical brain," has been designed by Dr. Vannevar Bush, Dean of the School of…
omnibrain | March 10, 2008ScienceBlogs is starting a new feature: The ScienceBlogs Super Reader Club. Of Two Minds gets to choose two lucky readers to participate. So what is this anyway?
From Ginny:Every week, each Super Reader will tag three favorite posts from the entire ScienceBlogs network. These tagged posts will go into a constantly updated RSS feed that gets displayed on the ScienceBlogs.com homepage. (All of this will be run using a shared del.icio.us account, where you install bookmarking buttons in your browser that make tagging posts quite simple. Should you accept, we'll send you detailed instructions…
omnibrain | March 10, 2008We're having commenting problems here at ScienceBlogs... sorry for the pain... we'll be back soon. Allllll better.
omnibrain | March 10, 2008This is photoshopped right?!
Gosh I hope so! I'd be too embarrassed to take this little bugger for a walk! You need a cute dog to pick up girls at the park.
-via funnyjunk.com-
omnibrain | March 9, 2008Welcome to a new weekly feature here at Of Two Minds, the Sunday Morning Funny Pages - well more like the Sunday morning single comic. Shelley or I will have an exciting new comic here every Sunday morning that should, at the very least, make you roll your eyes - and maybe even chuckle once or twice. Hey! we're working with science here - the joke is only as funny as the source material. Perhaps one day we'll find something really really funny so you better be here to check!
So without further blabbering... here's our first comic:
-via Meningioma Mommas-
Wasn't funny enough for you?…
omnibrain | March 7, 2008So I hate daylight savings time. It doesn't save energy, I doubt it helps farmers like it supposedly did, and I always forget to set my clocks back. How many of you have a clock that is only correct half of the year because you don't want to set it?
Now I have something else to get pissed off at for messing with my sleep. According to a study entitled "Cues for Timing and Coordination: Latitude, Letterman, and Longitude," by Daniel S. Hamermesh, Caitlin Knowles Myers, and Mark L. Pocock published in the Journal of Labor Economics, television is impacting our circadian rhythms, especially…
omnibrain | March 7, 2008
The Internet Is Changing the Scientific Method | Wired Science from Wired.com
If all other fields can go 2.0, incorporating collaboration and social networking, it's about time that science does too. In the bellwether journal Science this week, a computer scientist argues that many modern problems are resistant to traditional scien
(tags: web2.0 collaboration science research trends)
Cooperation, punishment and revenge
Research from The University of Nottingham has shed new light on the way in which people co-operate for the common good -- and what happens when they don't.
(tags: science…
omnibrain | March 7, 2008
I swear I'm not being paid... but it does follow the theme of our blog.
Check out their merchandise as well :)
Ok.. who is going to buy me one of these shirts?
HT: Sandra!
omnibrain | March 6, 2008Ahhh... The Onion. It's so made for dorky scientists. This one is especially relevant to me.
DURHAM, NC--According to a study published Tuesday in the Journal Of Neuroscience, snapping three times in rapid succession is the most effective method for remembering the names of films and actors that have slipped one's mind. "When denied access to IMDb, subjects who were able to correctly remember semi-obscure movie trivia invariably used the tri-snapping method," head researcher Dr. Ward Connell said of the study, which consisted of asking volunteers several questions pertaining to a photograph…
omnibrain | March 5, 2008Ok... for reals... this is what Therapists actually do.
Recognize the young Gregory House? It's always a little weird hearing a British accent coming out of his mouth.
HT: Mitch Harden
omnibrain | March 5, 2008I'm a poor excuse for a psychologist. I have no idea, zero, ziltch, what clinical psychologists actually do on a day to day basis. I study vision - what do I need to know about the human psyche? I've never been anywhere even near a psych ward or a therapists office. Well unless I've walked by them unknowingly. I have a million and a half friends who are training to be clinicians and probably 1/3 of my friends parents are as well... but I still haven't been able to convince one of them to take me to the psych ward and observe. Promises have been made, "Come on Stacey! why won't you take…
omnibrain | March 4, 2008Over at 3.14, The Seed Overlords Official Blog(tm), Ginny (The overlord herself - is there a feminine version of that? The overlady? meh... doesn't have as good of a ring) wants to know whether teenagers can be scared away from drugs? D.A.R.E. is a complete and utter failure but there seems to be some evidence that the Len Bias cocaine OD scared a generation of kids away from the drug. meh...maybe? I don't believe it though. On the other hand all that "ecstasy will eat holes in your brain" scientific article publishing sure scared me. Even after much of it had to be retracted due to the…
omnibrain | March 4, 2008Whenever I walk down the hall someone pulls me aside and says "Help me Steve! I don't know what journal to submit my paper to. As a matter of fact, I'm not even sure who does research similar to me. I need to help find people to review my article. I don't know my own field that I'm publishing in!"
I tell each and every one of them that there's a new system out there called Jane (aka The Journal/Author Name Estimator) which allows you to put text (abstract, title, whatever) into a little text box and it will find journals and people who have written about your topic.
Ok so maybe this is a…
omnibrain | March 4, 2008A very shy guy goes into a bar and sees a beautiful woman sitting at the bar. After an hour of gathering up his courage, he finally goes over to her and asks, tentatively, "Um, would you mind if I chatted with you for a while?"
She responds by yelling, at the top of her lungs, "NO! I won't sleep with you tonight!" Everyone in the bar is now staring at them. Naturally, the guy is hopelessly and completely embarrassed and he slinks back to his table.
After a few minutes, the woman walks over to him and apologizes. She smiles at him and says, "I'm sorry if I embarrassed you. You see, I'm a…
omnibrain | March 4, 2008If you have kids you might have seen them make some very funny errors early in their lives. They do things like try to sit on miniature chairs, try to climb into small houses, or drive toy cars. Why in the world do children make these scale errors?! Can't they see that the small versions only represent the real larger versions?
Research by Judy DeLoache and colleagues has given us some great insights into this problem as well as one of the most entertaining methods for a psychology study ever. Let's first visit the reasoning for what Dr. DeLoache studies,My primary area of research is…
omnibrain | March 3, 2008Since I'm on a superhero kick today I figured I'd highlight a kid who messes up nearly every computer he comes across. According to Engadget:
Joe Falciatano III from Pulaski, New York, seems to have simply the worst luck ever -- and some think it could be do to an overly magnetized touch. While using PCs at this elementary school, Joe -- who dubbed himself "Magneto Man" -- found that every system he laid his hands on went totally haywire. Only after a teacher suggested he use a grounded, anti-static wrist strap did the systems experience relief from his Geek Squad-inducing grasp.
The kid has…
omnibrain | March 3, 2008
So how does Superman do it! He can see through buildings and clothing (he checks out Lois Lane's underwear in Superman 1 - more on this later). Many have attempted to answer this question of the ages yet few have explored this in as much depth as J.B. Pittenger who published a study in the journal Perception back in the stone ages (1983) entitled "On the plausibility of superman's x-ray vision"
But first, before we get into the meat of the paper, lets see what others around the InterWebs have said about Superman's amazing seeing through underwear powers.
In Correcting Misconceptions…