omnibrain

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March 29, 2007
Here's a music video that some students from a neuroscience lab made. Perhaps they should be given more work to do?!
March 29, 2007
There's an interesting debate happening at I believe, Cognitive Science, this year. Jerry Fodor has come out with a full force denial of evolutionary psychology and in the process has managed to piss off Daniel Dennett who has responded with a very nasty paper of his own. I'll give you a couple…
March 29, 2007
This type of new age crap bothers me a whole lot. There's always a whole lot of words and ideas but no content or real evidence. It bothers me even more when evidence is used that is so very distal to the actual point. Physics and vibrations?! you've got to be kidding me! So enjoy the video…
March 29, 2007
I'll bet this foolish school district would also have a problem with a kid deciding they were Muslim and wearing a Burka to school. In all seriousness though I'm sure this kid did this just to be an obnoxious teenager and push some peoples buttons, but come on?! who is the school district to…
March 28, 2007
It seems that college dropout of Facebook fame, Mark Zuckererg, may need to go back to college and take some psychology courses to learn something about aging and intelligence. According to VentureBeat, Zuckerberg told attendees at the Y Combinator Startup School event at Stanford this weekend that…
March 28, 2007
The new Mini-AIR brought this wonderful article to my attention: James K. Beggan, Scott T. Allison (2005) Tough Women in the Unlikeliest of Places: The Unexpected Toughness of the Playboy Playmate The Journal of Popular Culture 38 (5), 796-818. Here's an excerpt: The contradiction created by the…
March 27, 2007
It seems that perhaps pandas don't have mirror sex neurons or something? Chuang Chuang the panda has been spending his days in front of a big-screen television watching panda porn. Authorities at the Chiang Mai Zoo in northern Thailand hope the images will encourage him to mate with his partner,…
March 27, 2007
Remember those classic psychology experiments where people walk around for a couple days with glasses that either flip the image up/down or right/left and then their brain seems to adjust to the swap? I'm curious about the effect and would love to get a hold of some of the glasses they used. Does…
March 27, 2007
The first story is from Wired and focusses on the use of neuroscience techniques (fMRI, EEG, etc.) to help soldiers be more effective killers. Since 2000, Darpa, the Pentagon's blue-sky research arm, has spearheaded a far-flung, nearly $70 million effort to build prototype cockpits, missile control…
March 27, 2007
Sometimes when I'm futzing around the web looking for interesting pieces of news a theme just seems to pop out at me. Today it happens to be the over reliance and distractions of technology. The first story is an old one...The elderly German motorist set out sans a clue of what route(s) he'd be…
March 27, 2007
I just though you all would be interested in this ;) There's a new Chinese saying: When life hands you panda poop, make paper. Researchers at a giant panda reserve in southern China are looking for paper mills to process their surplus of fiber-rich panda excrement into high quality paper. ... The…
March 26, 2007
I think I'm going to be sick... I am glad I studied the bible in school... although it was in the context of literature (we also read the Koran, etc.) This is a bit different. Chuck Norris is the spokesman for a religious organization with shady goals. It seems that they are saying one thing…
March 26, 2007
Got you! haha... just kidding ;) This story is a bit less controversial than the whole Bell Curve thing ;) According to a EurekaAlert press release, Although intelligence is generally thought to play a key role in children's early academic achievement, aspects of children's self-regulation…
March 26, 2007
I just added two new blogs to the blogroll (which I hate doing for some reason). The first is Ginny's who is a staffer here at ScienceBlogs and is a freelance science writer. Her blog is named Sequitur. You can also find links to all her science writing on the sidebar. What's that blog name…
March 25, 2007
If you hadn't noticed, the posting was pretty light last week. Here's why: You can visit my flickr page for the whole set - which should actually be growing by hundreds of photos in the next week or so as I add the other peoples pictures to the set.
March 23, 2007
I almost forgot about Multimedia Friday! Here's some brain surgery! [edit by Sandra - the procedure in the video is removal of a Hydatid cyst. It's a tapeworm, eww!] Hahaha.... soooo cheezy. Wilder Penfield - the greatest Canadian alive!
March 23, 2007
I found this entertaining snipit on some random website. I never realized that Tony Robbins (whose whole sctick revolves around firewalking) was such a fraud. It seems that you can delete a single memory (this time without that crazy drug) by visualizing it, making it black and white and then '…
March 23, 2007
I just made it back from backpacking (pictures forthcoming) in the Chisos mountains and figured I'd post a little short neato study I found since I'm way too tired to write anything with actual content (not that I ever really do anyway). In the study, the researchers used genetic engineering to…
March 21, 2007
I started a thread on the old Omni Brain asking what the coolest name in science was. These are a few we came up with: James Intrilligator (Psychology - vision) Ray Jackendoff (Psychology - language) Dr Martin S. Angst (Neuroscience - Pain) Dr Jules Angst (Psychiatry) There are some great names…
March 20, 2007
It was one year ago today that I made the first post to Omni Brain. I never imagined we would do this well. In the last year Omni Brain has undergone many many changes, the biggest of which have been Sandra of Neurofuture fame joining the blog, and moving to ScienceBlogs. We started with not-even…
March 19, 2007
Since I'm away I scheduled this Ali G video post I found on Ginny's blog, Sequitur. Enjoy!
March 18, 2007
I'll bet you'll never guess! Give up? It's a drunken orgy! (from the old blog)
March 17, 2007
March 16, 2007
It sounds good doesn't it?! Just read a bit further until you realize what they're actually saying... The president of the leading Southern Baptist seminary has suggested that a biological basis for homosexuality may be proven, and that prenatal treatment to reverse gay orientation would be…
March 15, 2007
Nothing neuroscience/psychology related today only videos of Big Bend National Park in Texas that I should be on my way to right about now. So enjoy...and be jealous! ;) I'll be back next Wednesday. See you then! (there are a couple more videos below the fold)
March 15, 2007
Ahh... about 20 years after beginning the project our paper was finally accepted at the Journal of Neurophysiology. If you'd like a copy go to my reprint website which will let you request a reprint and will email you a copy. A great sneaky way of dealing with copyright/distribution laws ;) Here'…
March 15, 2007
A company in Korea is applying for a patent of their new technique to help all those poor video game addicted kids in korea (think kids playing video games for 4 days straight and then dying). The only problem with the patent... the chances of it working in Korea are about the same as them working…
March 14, 2007
For those local blog readers: CAS/MILLERCOMM2007. Daniel C. Dennett, Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, Tufts University will give a CAS/MillerComm lecture entitled The Domestication of Wild Religions. The lecture will be given on Friday, March 30, 2007 at 4:00 p.m. in 112 Gregory Hall…