Monthly Archives: February 2010

On a literary trip

February 10, 2010 – 8:00 am

The Guardian books blog has a fantastic short piece on fictional mind-bending drugs from literature, stretching from the nightmare-inducing hallucinogens of William Burroughs to Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster from Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy. The most famous invented drug is probably soma in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. It was an integral part of the […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Other People | Comments (3)

A varied diet

February 9, 2010 – 6:00 pm

A 1964 article from the Archives of Surgery discusses how to treat psychotic patients who may have ingested inedible objects. It reports on one remarkable case where the following list of objects was found in one patient’s stomach. They also helpfully provided a photo of all the objects laid out on a table. Nickels (173), […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Integrating | Comments (1)

Brain skulls on the front, splatters on the back

February 9, 2010 – 12:00 pm

You wait ages for a neuroscience-themed dress to appear (and believe me, I have) and then two come along at once. After my discovery of neuro streetwear for the female fashonista last week, comes a brain themed tutu dress for the riotgrrl neuroscientist. The description is actually quite poetic: Brain skulls on the front, splatters […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Nonsense | Leave a Comment

One Hundred Years of Memory Loss

February 9, 2010 – 8:00 am

Neurology journal Brain has a fantastic article on the close parallels between the effects of semantic dementia, a degenerative brain disease that causes the loss of memory for the meaning of words and objects, and the novel A Hundred years of Solitude where a magical disease affects villagers’ memory for ‘the name and notion of […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Integrating | Comments (1)

Nine Legendary Hypochondriacs

February 8, 2010 – 8:00 am

ABC Radio National’s Late Night Live has a fascinating discussion with the author of a new book on nine famous hypochondriacs: James Boswell, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Darwin, Florence Nightingale, Alice James, Daniel Paul Schreber, Marcel Proust, Glenn Gould and Andy Warhol. I’m not sure Daniel Paul Schreber is necessarily the best example of someone with […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Other People | Comments (1)

Bonuses generate more heat than light

February 6, 2010 – 5:11 pm

The engaging behavioural economist Dan Ariely has just become a columnist for Wired UK and in his first article he describes how the promise of performance-related pay often backfires leading people to do more but perform worse. To see the effect of bonuses on performance, Nina Mazar (assistant professor of marketing, Toronto University), Uri Gneezy […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Reasoning | Comments (3)

2010-02-05 Spike activity

February 5, 2010 – 8:00 am

Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news: Sex addiction is a feminist victory, according to an article in Slate, apparently because it allows man shaming. Malevolence-based medicine rears its ugly head. The BPS Research Digest covers research finding CBT-based self-help books might do more harm than good for people who worry […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Linkage | Comments (2)

Eureka brain special and more fighting

February 4, 2010 – 6:00 pm

The Times has just released its monthly science magazine, Eureka, with a special issue on the brain and all the articles freely available online. There doesn’t seem to be a way to link to a whole issue, but inside you’ll find an excellent piece on the use of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to temporarily switch […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Inside the Brain | Comments (2)

Time to think

February 4, 2010 – 12:00 pm

Bioemphemera has found some wonderfully left-field brain illustrations by Dutch graphic designer Rhonald Blommestijn. The image on the left is a brain made out of clocks. Blommestijn’s blog is full of strikingly surreal eye-candy that manages both to inspire a feeling of wide-eyed wonder and illustrate scientific themes. They’re certainly very original takes on the […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Other People | Leave a Comment

On communicating through the coma-like state

February 4, 2010 – 8:00 am

A study just published in the New England Journal of Medicine reports on how a subset of patients diagnosed as being in a coma-like state can be trained to show specific brain activity to answer yes / no questions despite seeming to be unconscious and unresponsive. Many news reports seem to suggest that researchers have […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Inside the Brain | Comments (1)

Neuro street wear

February 3, 2010 – 10:00 pm

Herb is a hip Berlin fashion label who have a fantastic collection of women’s clothing with a subtle brain scan motif. The label is the work of designer Angela Herb and there are actually two collections inspired by the MRI scan. It’s definitely a street wear collection but the clothes have a wonderfully understated futuristic […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Nonsense | Leave a Comment

Death of a gladiator

February 3, 2010 – 12:00 pm

Roman gladiators took part in one of the most brutal sports in history, many dying by traumatic brain injury during their matches. A medical study published in Forensic Science International examined the skulls of deceased fighters, discovered in a gladiator graveyard from Turkey, and reveals exactly how they died and even what weapons delivered the […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Remembering | Comments (2)

The internet, depression and drinking a glass of water

February 3, 2010 – 8:00 am

A new study has made headlines around the world that claim that internet use is linked to depression despite better evidence from previous studies that there is no substantial link. The study itself is a fairly straightforward online survey with the key finding that out of 1,319 people who completed the questionnaires, 18 were identified […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Integrating | Comments (7)

Blue Brain Year One

February 2, 2010 – 10:00 pm

Film-maker Noah Hutton has just released an excellent 15-minute documentary on the Blue Brain project that captures the team as they work and explains the goals of the ambitious attempt to simulate animal, and eventually, human scale neural networks on computer. It’s an interesting look both inside the scientific mission and inside the mind of […]

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

Fight club debate on computers and kids’ brains

February 2, 2010 – 8:03 pm

On Thursday, I shall be taking part in a live debate hosted by The Times Online entitled ‘Is screen culture damaging our children’s brains?’ where I will be debating psychologist Tracey Alloway who recently made headlines by suggesting Facebook ‘enhances intelligence’ but Twitter ‘diminishes it’. It one of those online chat things but you are […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in News | Comments (2)

Injecting heroin with a doctor

February 2, 2010 – 8:00 am

Slate has two articles on an innovative but controversial service in Vancouver, Canada, that provides injecting drug users with a place to safely inject drugs with clean equipment and medical staff on hand. The project, ‘Insite’, is based on a ‘harm reduction‘ approach which is driven by the idea that users should be encouraged to […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Integrating | Leave a Comment
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