Monthly Archives: February 2007

A transhumanist dictionary

February 14, 2007 – 6:30 pm

George Dvorsky has published a guide to the terms and buzzwords of transhumanism – an optimistic movement that seeks to apply current and future scientific discoveries to extending human experience and abilities. Transhumanists are interested in neuroscience as a way of improving on the natural human range, either through optimising the biological systems already present […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Theory | Comments (1)

Mad love

February 14, 2007 – 8:00 am

Highlighting the striking parallels between our least understood and most exalted states of mind, Nietzsche commented that “there is always some madness in love”. Perhaps the reason love has such a good reputation when compared to other forms of madness, is its effect on mood. Euphoria, arousal, elation, talkativeness and flights of fancy can fill […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Togetherness | Comments (1)

The power of praise

February 13, 2007 – 8:00 pm

There’s a fascinating article in The New York Magazine about the dramatic effects of different types of praise on a child’s success when tackling new challenges. A team of researchers led by Prof Carole Dweck asked children to complete a series of short tests, and randomly divided into groups. Each child was given a single […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Togetherness | Comments (1)

Extra Senses

February 13, 2007 – 9:49 am

A new five part series called ‘Extra Senses’ has just started on BBC Radio 4, looking into the science behind sensations beyond the ordinary touch, sight, smell and sound. Today’s show was on pain and features some excruciating sounds from a man eating a lightbulb (“the most painful part could be tomorrow morning”!) as well […]

By tomstafford | Posted in Linkage | Leave a Comment

Prescribe two, get one free

February 13, 2007 – 8:00 am

A new psychiatric journal called Clinical Schizophrenia is launching in April that will have a novel distribution policy. If you’re in the top 70% of antipsychotic drug prescribers in America, you’ll get your copy free. The journal is intending to publish prestigious studies on the treatment of schizophrenia. So it not only acts as an […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in News | Comments (1)

Stephen Pinker on The Colbert Report

February 12, 2007 – 5:30 pm

Cognitive scientist Steven Pinker was a guest on the comedy show The Colbert Report where he talks about the brain, language and having bad hair days. Pure Pedantry has embedded video of the interview if you want to catch the quickfire questions and cognitive one-liners. For those not familiar with the format of the show, […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Nonsense | Leave a Comment

Encephalon 16

February 12, 2007 – 4:30 pm

Welcome to the 16th edition of the psychology and neuroscience writing carnival Encephalon hosted this time on Mind Hacks. We’ve had a flood of articles submitted, covering everything from time perception to sexuality in dreaming, so continue reading for these and more!

By vaughanbell | Posted in Linkage | Leave a Comment

Beauty and the average girl

February 12, 2007 – 8:00 am

Flickr user Pierre Tourigny has created a series of composite images from popular portrait rating website Hot or Not? that nicely demonstrates our bias for perceiving average faces as beautiful. He’s made average images from a series of female faces but divided them up into the scoring categories, so there’s an average of faces rated […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Seeing | Comments (6)

Our memory is our coherence

February 11, 2007 – 8:30 pm

“You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all, just as an intelligence without the possibility of expression is not really an intelligence. Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Other People | Comments (2)

Neurophilosophers in The New Yorker

February 9, 2007 – 1:30 pm

The Feb 12th edition of The New Yorker has an extensive article on neurophilosophers Paul and Patricia Churchland. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the article is available online, even to subscribers, but is worth checking out if you catch a copy in the library or on news stands as it’s an in-depth look into their […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in News | Comments (1)

2007-02-09 Spike activity

February 9, 2007 – 8:00 am

Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news: Three psychiatrists have started producing a regular, engaging and somewhat quixotic podcast called My Three Shrinks. The Neurophilosopher investigates a new form of artificial limb that feeds back touch sensations. Approximately 6 out of every 100 words are affected by repetitions, corrections or hesitations. […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Linkage | Comments (1)

Drug breakthrough for fashionable new mental illness

February 8, 2007 – 8:30 pm

Life-changing new drug Havidol (chemical name Avafynetyme HCl) has just been marketed for the widely under-recognised disorder Dysphoric Social Attention Consumption Deficit Anxiety Disorder (DSACDAD). DSACDAD is a new diagnosis where sufferers experience symptoms such as “worrying about life, feeling tense, restless, or fatigued, being concerned about their weight, noticing signs of aging, feeling stress […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Nonsense | Comments (3)

A Whiter Shade of Searle

February 8, 2007 – 8:00 pm

The Boston Globe has a brief interview with philosopher John Searle where he’s quizzed about his views on consciousness, computation and consensus. Despite having a back catalogue stretching back to the 60s, prog rock band Procol Harum are popularly remembered as ‘the band who did A Whiter Shade of Pale’. Similarly, despite his wide-ranging work, […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Other People | Leave a Comment

The psychology of risk and security

February 8, 2007 – 8:00 am

Security expert Bruce Schneier has written a remarkably insightful article on the psychology of security trade-offs and risk assessment. He’s not a psychologist by trade, although has obviously spent a lot of time researching the various studies that are relevant to the sort of decision making we engage in when trying to estimate how risky […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Reasoning | Leave a Comment

Secret antipsychotic drug documents now online

February 7, 2007 – 9:30 pm

Pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly has been in the news recently over sealed documents leaked to the New York Times which suggest that they covered-up the dangers of their popular antipsychotic drug olanzapine. In particular, it has been alleged that Eli Lilly knew about the drug’s side-effects before they were widely known but deliberately tried to […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in News | Leave a Comment

Last call for the encephalon express

February 7, 2007 – 9:00 pm

We will be hosting the 16th edition of the psychology and neuroscience writing carnival Encephalon, next Monday (12th), here on Mind Hacks. If you have written a post or article about the mind, brain or behaviour for the web and want to share your hard work, you can submit a link here to have it […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in News | Comments (1)
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