Monthly Archives: May 2006

Developing Intelligence on the seven sins of memory

May 15, 2006 – 6:00 pm

The first part of a series on memory failures has just appeared on the increasingly compulsive cognitive science blog Developing Intelligence. The site is run by cognitive neuroscientist Chris Chatham who summarises the ‘seven sins of memory’ – Daniel Schacter’s famous description of the seven ways in which memory can become distorted or degraded. Schacter […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Remembering | Comments (1)

Dread pool

May 15, 2006 – 8:00 am

Neurofuture has collected a range of recent posts that have been inspired by recent research on the ‘neurobiological basis of dread’, although a particularly clear description of the study posted to Brain Ethics is, perhaps, a good one that’s missing. The research was probably best summarised in the mainstream media in an article from Science. […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Inside the Brain | Leave a Comment

National epilepsy week focus on children

May 14, 2006 – 2:00 pm

UK education and support charity Epilepsy Action has launched this year’s National Epilepsy Week, running from 14th-20th May. The theme of the 2006 event is children and young people and the charity is focusing on encouraging schools to maximise the potential of pupils with epilepsy. In a recent survey, only 19% of schools felt that […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Togetherness | Leave a Comment

Another day in the frontal lobe

May 13, 2006 – 11:00 am

Katrina Firlik is a neurosurgeon. She’s one of the few female neurosurgeons in a largely male dominated profession and has written a book about her work and experiences called Another Day in the Frontal Lobe. She’s recently been featured on numerous radio programmes and newspaper interviews (listed here), the best of which is probably an […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Inside the Brain | Leave a Comment

Neuroweapons

May 12, 2006 – 11:30 am

More neurologisms abound, as Zack Lynch posts about a recent conference on ‘neuroweapons’. In a previous post, he mentioned concerns about neurowarfare – the use of weapons that target the human central nervous system. Presumably this means nerve agents, neurotoxins and the like, rather than simply being bashed on the head with a rock (perhaps, […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in News | Leave a Comment

Neurologism spotting

May 12, 2006 – 8:19 am

I just read the recent New Sci article on mind reading with fMRI that Vaughan flagged up recently, and couldn’t help noticing two more neurologisms coined by the writer of the article, Douglas Fox. Neuronaut: Fox describes getting ready to enter the brain scanner – “As they prepared the experiment this morning, I felt like […]

By christianjarrett | Posted in Nonsense | Leave a Comment

2006-05-12 Spike activity

May 12, 2006 – 8:00 am

Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news: The New York Times examines the factors that contribute to exceptional talents and ‘expert performance‘. Cognitive Daily analyses research that shows that hypnotism can abolish the Stroop effect. New Scientist reports that women can pick out which men are child-friendly by looking at their […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Linkage | Leave a Comment

Psychoanalysis at the Institute of Contemporary Arts

May 11, 2006 – 4:30 pm

London’s swanky Institute of Contemporary Arts has an ongoing series of “psychoanalytic exploration of films representing various forms of psychopathology and other emotional conditions”. It’s been happening for a while and seems to be an ongoing project, but had totally passed me by. Films are shown, and then discussed by members of the Institute of […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in News | Leave a Comment

New infant language lab at Liverpool Uni

May 11, 2006 – 3:35 pm

Liverpool University‚Äôs new Child Language Study Centre hopes to become the first UK-based lab to replicate and expand upon American findings published in the 90‚Äôs that led to the ‚Äòsyntactic bootstrapping‚Äô hypothesis ‚Äì the idea that children as young as two use their innate understanding of syntax to help them learn new words. With a […]

By christianjarrett | Posted in News | Leave a Comment

‘Send in the Idiots’ author interviewed on NPR

May 11, 2006 – 12:00 pm

Kamran Nazeer, author of a new book on being a child in a school for kids with autism, called Send in the Idiots, is interviewed on NPR radio. Nazeer was mentioned earlier this week on Mind Hacks, and there’s some commentary and ongoing discussion about the interview on a post over at Autism Diva’s blog. […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in News | Leave a Comment

Trephination set on EBay

May 11, 2006 – 8:30 am

Someone has an EBay auction about to close in which they’re selling a genuine set of surgical tools for trephination – the surgical practice of drilling holes through the skull. The practice, also known as trepanation or trepanning, has been carried out since ancient times and has been thought to cure all sorts of conditions […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Nonsense | Comments (1)

NewSci on human optimisation

May 11, 2006 – 8:00 am

New Scientist has had a run of neuroscience-related articles recently, and this week’s cover story is no exception as it looks at developments in the science of human enhancement. For those seeking that advantage, more opportunities are just around the corner – a lot more. Around 40 cognition-enhancing drugs are in development right now, designed […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in News | Leave a Comment

Experimenting with theatre

May 10, 2006 – 3:00 pm

The Soho Theatre in London’s West End hosts an event on Monday 15 May where a production will be staged after several days of intense collaboration between scientists and writers, exploring the theme that both science and theatre are essentially driven by experiment. The event is being run by Tassos Stevens, who did his PhD […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in News | Leave a Comment

Are you comfortably numb?

May 10, 2006 – 8:26 am

This friday the Royal Insitution is asking Are you comfortably numb?, with an event about what we can learn about consciousness from unconsciousness: Until very recently it was thought that consciousness couldn’t be studied scientifically, but now the drive to find out how your brain can make you self-aware is one of the most significant […]

By tomstafford | Posted in News | Leave a Comment

Solaris and the philosophy of consciousness

May 10, 2006 – 8:00 am

Stanislaw Lem was a reknowned science fiction writer. It is less known that his books are repleat with carefully thought out philosophy about the nature of consciousness and knowledge acquisition. ABC Radio National’s The Philosopher’s Zone recently had a special examining Lem’s view on consciousness as demonstrated in his richly descriptive sci-fi works. The novel […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Integrating | Leave a Comment

Lightning is always seen, thunder always heard

May 9, 2006 – 12:33 pm

An old suggestion that crossing the visual and auditory pathways to the brain would lead to light being experienced as sound, and vice versa, has been tested and found to be false. Nicholas Swindale, in Current Biology, 2000 Okay, so this isn’t new news, but it was new to me and too good a story […]

By tomstafford | Posted in Inside the Brain | Leave a Comment
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