From the syllabus: Why Psychology?! Psychology 100 is the most popular course at nearly every university and there's a reason why. The science of psychology covers an amazing range of topics. After all, the mind can do many amazing things! Oh yeah, it also fulfils a GenEd requirement ;) Nearly everyone probably has a different idea of what psychology actually is. That's not surprising since even people who have been in the field for many, many years still disagree what should be a part of psychology and what should not. Psychology covers topics ranging from depression, anxiety, and…
It seems that a brilliant doctor in the UK has come up with an amazing piece of machinery and convinced a famous author to wear it in order to stave off the onset of Alzheimer's disease. Here's the machinery... looks like a mind control device or something - too bad It's not going to work. According to the news article about this amazing technology: The prototype anti-dementia helmet, which must be worn for ten minutes each day, was designed by British GP Dr Gordon Dougal. It works by directing intense bursts of infrared light into the brain to stimulate the growth of brain cells. Low-level…
In the never ending quest for death gadgets Mercedes has come up with a specialized screen that will show the driver one thing and the passenger another. Just think, now in addition to a driver watching a movie while they are going 70 mph they will be leaning all the way over into the passenger seat to see it. Unfortunately Mercedes hasn't created a system to keep stupid drivers from doing stupid things... like driving off a cliff while following the GPS directions on the screen they're allowed to see. Ok.. I jest - this seems like a pretty damn cool system and I totally want one. I'm…
I've always joked around about girls who would walk into a tattoo parlor and ask for a Chinese character that means something to them... like love, hope, or faith. Of course the tattoo artists don't know one damn character in Chinese so they just pick a random character from the internet and the girl ends up with something that actually says slut, pink slippery Christmas tree, or something else random. I never imagined a scientific magazine would fall prey to something absolutely ridiculous like this. Science journal mistakenly uses flyer for Macau brothel to illustrate report on China…
Seriously... I'm totally amazed. I've seen pigeons play ping pong (well more like real life pong). But this is amazing. Check it out:
Oh pareidolia. I mean I understand seeing something that maybe looks like something else in the clouds or one time I accidentally peeled an orange that looked like a penis. But thinking that there is something actually significant and spiritually meaningful in seeing a pattern in randomness is ridiculous. This is my favorite example so far. It was only a matter of time until someone saw something like Jesus or in this case the Virgin Mary in an MRI scan. After all the Hippocampus is named after the sea horse since it vaguely looks like one. Anyway here's the image - and if you want you…
A sports magazine writer asked me about the different techniques one could use to distract an athlete... here's what I said: About a year ago another graduate student and I were planning on doing some research in my lab to determine what the best way of distracting a free throw shooter was. We have a pretty cool motion tracking system that would allow us to track arm and ball position as well as project distractions onto a wall - either real world video or computer generated distractions. But this is as far as we got since I saw some other research with a similar goal that didn't seem to be…
Arguably the most important and certainly the most famous single case study patient in Psychology and Neuroscience passed away on Tuesday December 2nd. H.M. as he was known to probably every student of Psychology can now be revealed as Henry G. Molaison, 82, from Windsor Locks, CT. HM was a man with no memory (well... at least episodic). Early in his life he developed epilepsy which left him very much incapacitated, he would have numerous small and large seizures a day. After nearly lethal doses of drugs that sought (unsuccessfully) to control the seizures, doctors, namely William…
A State Legislature proclaimed an amazing thing recently which has just so made my day! They took time out of their busy schedule of shutting down state parks and getting in a fiduciary pissing match to proclaim that this week is grad student week or some such garbage. Here's the official proclamation: WHEREAS, Graduate Schools play an important role in enhancing the nation's economic competitiveness and innovation; and WHEREAS, the National Science Foundation cites State universities for attracting $5.4 billion in federally sponsored grants and contracts, over the past five years; and…
So I'm teaching Psychology 100 this semester for the first time and part of the whole thing is that we're supposed to do certain things to get a graduate teaching certificate (which I think is the schools attempt at giving us grad students some teaching training as opposed to the norm of none). One of the requirements is to have a mid-term student and faculty evaluation and then write a little pageish thing on what it taught us. Here's mine... Hey if I have to do something I might as well make it entertaining ;) What the midterm evaluation taught me. 1. Be specific with your language.…
According to a recent National Geographic article primates pay a lot of attention to their friends asses. But not only that, they can actually identify them based on their fabulous booties. In humans facial recognition is based on a region coined as the Fusiform Face Area (FFA) and I believe a similar region has been found in primates. There is also an area of the human cortex dedicated to processing the body, call the Extra Striate Body Area (EBA). The big question here is whether primates have a particular area of the brain dedicated to only ass processing or they are using one of…
well... if PETA had their way they would. WATERBURY, Vt. -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc., urging them to replace cow's milk they use in their ice cream products with human breast milk, according to a statement recently released by a PETA spokeswoman. "PETA's request comes in the wake of news reports that a Swiss restaurant owner will begin purchasing breast milk from nursing mothers and substituting breast milk for 75 percent of the cow's milk in the food he serves," the statement…
We've settled on some final plans for the Midwest middle of nowhere cornfield Scienceblogs millionth comment party!. Here's the details: Time and Place Date: Saturday, September 27, 2008 Time: 7:00pm - 9:00pm Location: Jupiter's Pizza Street: 39 Main St City/Town:Champaign, IL You can also check out the event (and RSVP) on facebook.com We look forward to seeing you there! We'll even be buying a round or two!
"I guess a lot of you already know that "liberel" isn't a real word. But it sure was news to me! And now my face is as red as a mooseburger cooked up rare and painted in lipstick!" haha....
Let me first start by saying that if your doctor tells you that praying is your last hope of your loved ones survival GET A NEW DOCTOR. Now that I've said that let me show you part of this ridiculous article from CNN's medical correspondent, who is clearly in the wrong specialty of journalism (don't they have a religion or faith section?!) Christopher was just a few days old and had a rare blood infection and fungal meningitis, a brain infection. "I could tell in their eyes they had no hope for my son," Gorman said. "They told me to prepare for his death. They told me he might not make it…
Are you concerned that you are just sleeping with waaaay too many people? Do you want to avoid getting STD's? Do your neighbors give you dirty looks in every morning when a new person comes waltzing out of your apartment? Just place this wonderful pez like condom dispenser on your nightstand table. Not only will it ensure that you have safer sex - it will ensure that you have NO sex. When your prospective partner see's it they will realize that you probably carry many many diseases that they simply do not want. But hey... it's only 28$ I'm not sure how you can afford to NOT get one! -via…
Alice Pawley of Sciencewomen fame is heading down to Champaign on September 27th to help me throw a millionth comment bash. We'll even buy you a round of booze and perhaps some yummy foods thanks to some wonderful financing by ScienceBlogs! We have tentatively planned on meeting at the Blind Pig or Jupiters Pizza (it's a bar too - don't worry!) We look forward to meeting all you ScienceBlogs fans here in Champaign-Urbana. Home of.... uhh... the University of Illinois and uhh... corn?
There was a request for a Millionth Comment party here in Champaign-Urbana Illinois... I would totally be up for getting together with a bunch of like minded folk and throwing a few down.... say at the Blind Pig? Anyone else up for meeting up for some beers? (Or Soda... or I guess even water) Any date preferences?
A classic Candid Camera prank using some social psychology. I'll be posting many more of my Psych 100 videos as I run across them for the rest of the semester :)
Thanks to a reader, Daniel Keogh, we have a wonderful video detailing what the Imperial March from Star Wars would taste like to one particular synaesthete who has some particularly odd sensation pairings. Check it out: The Professor Funk also has a whole bunch of other entertaining looking videos about other aspects of science. We give them 4 thumbs up. I never did understand why Ebert, et. al. could only ever give a single thumbs up. After all there were two people with four total thumbs. Meh whatever, not everyone can be as awesome as Shelley and I.