Category Archives: Other People

A slice of the pusher man

January 20, 2011 – 12:11 am

New York Magazine has an in-depth article on a low-level drug dealer in the Big Apple who is trying, somewhat half-heartedly, to get out of the game. It is neither glamorisation nor condemnation, but is a carefully observed slice of life from a business minded, spreadsheet obsessed, upper middle class cocaine dealer. Lenny sighs, rubs [...]

By vaughanbell | Leave a Comment

I can smell burnt toast

December 8, 2010 – 4:26 pm

Pioneering neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield was the subject of one of Canadian television’s ‘Heritage Minutes’ in a melodramatic classic that celebrates his stimulating brain research. It really does just last one minute and looks like a cross between Hammer Horror and Gone With The Wind with the dramatic stares and hammy acting to match. Penfield is [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Remembering | Comments (3)

Interview with Wade Davis: Part II – culture clashes

December 7, 2010 – 1:14 pm

This is Part II of our interview with ethnobotanist and explorer Wade Davis where we discuss technology, culture and the slippery concept of human nature. Davis kindly spoke to myself and science journalist Ana María Jaramillo while visiting Medellín’s excellent science museum Parque Explorer and in Part I we discussed altered states of consciousness and [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Togetherness | Comments (2)

Interview with Wade Davis: Part I – altered states

December 6, 2010 – 12:51 pm

Anthropologist and explorer Wade Davis recently gave a talk at Medellín’s fantastic science museum Parque Explorer and myself and science journalist Ana María Jaramillo managed to grab some of his time to discuss altered states of consciousness and cultural diversity. If you’re not familiar with Davis’ work, his TED talk on ‘Cultures at the far [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Togetherness | Comments (15)

Mental air

November 24, 2010 – 3:40 am

A poem by the great Irish writer William Butler Yeats on the difficulties of getting the balloon of the mind into its narrow shed. No, I’m not really sure what it’s about either, but I wonder if that’s the point. The Balloon Of The Mind by William Butler Yeats Hands, do what you’re bid: Bring [...]

By vaughanbell | Comments (5)

I’ve got a certificate in armchair psychology

November 17, 2010 – 9:24 pm

The Guardian’s Lay Scientist blog has an excellent piece on the misguided and intrusive habit of getting psychologists to comment on the mental state of people in the public eye. Although the media must take some responsibility for encouraging such crass and unhelpful speculation the responsibility lies squarely on the shoulders of the psychologists and [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Nonsense | Comments (2)

A shrink among the shady in 1920s New York

November 6, 2010 – 3:12 pm

Neurophilosophy has a wonderful profile the pioneering forensic psychiatrist and criminologist Carleton Simon who was working the street in prohibition-era New York in the 1920s and 30s. Apparently, a minor celebrity in his day owing to a constant stream of headline-grabbing busts and scientific discoveries, he has since faded into obscurity but this excellent new [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Remembering | Comments (1)

Ted Hughes On Thinking

October 31, 2010 – 6:10 pm

Editor of The Psychologist and man about town, Jon Sutton, just sent me a fantastic monologue by poet Ted Hughes on the experience of thinking. I’ve uploaded the piece to YouTube where you can hear Hughes’ remarkable analysis in his own characteristic voice. The piece is almost nine minutes long but in this part Hughes [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Integrating, Reasoning | Comments (6)

A previously unseen species of hallucinated moth

October 19, 2010 – 1:50 am

I’ve discovered H.G. Wells’ amazing short story The Moth about a scientific feud between two leading entymologists that ends with one’s premature death and the other being driven insane by an hallucinated moth. It’s a deftly written piece because it captures the method of scientific grudge matches – devastating and savage critiques in scholarly journals [...]

By vaughanbell | Comments (1)

Campaign man

October 7, 2010 – 1:49 am

Wired Science has an exclusive interview with Ari Ne’eman, the first openly autistic White House appointee in history, who has been given a place on the National Council on Disability that advises the president on equality for disabled people. Ne’eman is an advocate of neurodiversity, which rather than automatically seeing conditions like autism and Asperger’s [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Togetherness | Comments (3)

Edvard Munch in 100 words

October 5, 2010 – 1:38 am

This month’s British Journal of Psychiatry has the latest in their ’100 words’ series on the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch, famous for his iconic painting ‘The Scream’ and his own struggles with mental illness. The Norwegian Expressionist Edvard Munch caused outrage when his paintings were first shown in Berlin but became one of the most [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Remembering | Comments (2)

Visual science in the art of Chuck Close

October 1, 2010 – 2:08 pm

I’ve just found this amazing article on the work of artist Chuck Close from a 2008 edition of the Archives of Ophthalmology. It examines the visual science behind his pixelated style and how a stroke left the artist paralysed – after which he has produced some of his finest work. Chuck Close (1940- ) is [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Seeing | Leave a Comment

An Opthamologist on Mars

September 1, 2010 – 9:07 pm

Oliver Sacks is interviewed on NeuroTribes where he talks about his forthcoming book and his own experience of spectacular hallucinations that occurred after he developed a tumour behind his retina. NeuroTribes is a new blog by ace science writer and Wired veteran Steve Silberman. It is part of the new PLoS science blog network and [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Seeing | Comments (3)

A series of famous cases

August 15, 2010 – 7:20 pm

BBC Radio 4 have just started a new season of Case Study that looks at some of the most famous and important cases in the history of psychology. The first is on HM, and although there’s nothing in the programme that’s particularly new about the science of memory, it does give a much fuller account [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Remembering | Leave a Comment

A neuroscientist’s psychosis

August 10, 2010 – 4:10 pm

As well as publishing scientific papers about mental illness, Schizophrenia Bulletin also publishes personal accounts of psychosis and schizophrenia. I’ve just discovered this incredible 2006 article where a neuroscientist recounts her personal experience of becoming psychotic. It’s not only vividly descriptive but wonderfully lyrical as well, written with both honesty and insight. I was awash [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Togetherness | Comments (2)

The legend of Lester D

August 10, 2010 – 1:27 am

When searching for psychology research, I inevitably come across a study by ‘Lester D’, who is apparently a psychologist in an obscure college in New Jersey who seems to be interested in everything. Mostly, the things you’ve never thought of, and probably never even thought of thinking of, and perhaps don’t even have the capacity [...]

By vaughanbell | Comments (3)
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