Year: 2011
Are you and your significant other meant to be?
Well, no one truly knows the answer to that question until they’re looking back on their life and reminiscing about the time they spent with their partner. However, a new theory suggests that certain subtleties in language style can determine compatibility between two people. This includes speaking as well as personal writing styles, from Facebook […]
The Tell-Tale Brain from the neurObama
I began writing this post with feelings of guilt and inner turmoil because the article came out just one week too late – apparently V.S. Ramachandran was scheduled to speak about and discuss his new book The Tell Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us Human in Cambridge at the Harvard Book Store […]
Just Keep Swimming…
In Disney/Pixar’s “Finding Nemo,” Marlin and Dory are swimming through murky waters en route to Sydney Harbor. Marlin suddenly exclaims, “Wait, I have definitely seen this floating speck before. That means we’ve passed it before and that means we’re going in circles and that means we’re not going straight!” – and he is probably right. […]
Memory 101: Understanding How We Remember
Do you ever wonder how you are able to remember the name of your third-grade teacher, or the skills you use to ride a bike, or even lines from your favorite movie? Well, if you haven’t then you should, because it takes the workings of many regions of our brain to combine all the different […]
Zombies, brains, and media, oh my!
Zombies attack! – well, the media, anyway. From movies and television shows (this past Sunday on Glee!) to books and conventions, zombies are taking over. Last year, “Seattle, the self-proclaimed zombie capital of the world, was host to ZomBcon, the first ever Zombie Culture Convention, over Halloween weekend at the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall. A […]
Reality Television's Pica Craze
It seems that TLC’s latest tactic to garner higher ratings is by the exploitation of those suffering from pica, a disease where people feel the compulsion to eat things that are not food. See a video here: Kesha has an “addiction” to eating toilet paper! “My Strange Addiction” features a number of people with obsessions […]
A Real Life Terminator?
In the 1984 film The Terminator, an artificial intelligence machine is sent back in time from 2029 to 1984 to exterminate a woman named Sarah Connor. The Terminator had not only a metal skeleton, but also an external layer of living tissue as well, and was thus deemed a cyborg, a being with both biological […]
Neuro_________
Neuroscience has transformed itself into a highly interdisciplinary science rooted in biology that integrates psychology, chemistry, physics, computer science, philosophy, math, engineering, and just about every other type of science that we know of. Botany? Synthesis of new drugs. Oceanography? Animal models. I’m sure there must be some science that neuroscience hasn’t touched, but I […]
Music to my Ears?… Just Kidding
It was an average Wednesday night at 8, and I was channel surfing. As I changed the channels I heard singing; I knew instantly that the show was American Idol. Most of you watch or have watched the show in the past and time and time again it befuddles me to think how these individuals […]
Lasers: The Key to Mind Control?
As a neuroscientist, one typically becomes accustomed to thinking outside of the “box.” After all, the brain is incredibly complex and cryptic, and some creative thought is required to develop methods to uncover its secrets. Francis Crick advised that the greatest hurdle standing in the way of neuroscience is the inability to specifically stimulate a […]