Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:
How much can you really learn while you’re asleep? Interesting piece that looks at what the research genuinely tells us in The Guardian.
Comedian John Oliver takes on mental health in America with a segment which is both funny and sharp.
Neuroecology has an excellent post looking at the latest mega-paper from the Blue Brain Project.
There’s a good piece on how cognitive biases affect the practice of doing scientific research in Nature. Thankfully, my training has made me immune to these effects, unlike my colleagues.
Braindecoder has some striking artistic renditions of neuroanatomy from artist Greg Dunn.
Is a Liberal Bias Hurting Social Psychology? Excellent piece in Pacific Standard.
BBC News has a good piece on the evidence behind the school shooting ‘contagion’ effect.
“A tumor stole every memory I had. This is what happened when it all came back.” Great piece in Quartz. Don’t get distracted by the inaccurate use of the term dementia. Recommended.
Mind Hacks 
I think you haven’t mentioned the new podcast “Hidden Brain” from NPR. Have you heard it? http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510308/hidden-brain I thought episode 3 was good.
Also, yesterday’s XKCD was quite amusing: http://xkcd.com/1588/
I’d be very interested in a comparison of Democrats vs Republicans on the “how conservative” personality test. In the US, Republican values have changed drastically over the past 30 years, and if universities want to encourage more “Conservative” students they’re not necessarily going to get that diversity by inviting Republicans, plus which I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to lean towards certain political stances or beliefs for college admittance.
The piece from Nature is a fine example of the senseless invocation of DA BRAIN’A.
E.g.
“Although the human brain and its cognitive biases have been the same for as long as we have been doing science…”– O DEAR! One could just say “human thinking or “human cognition”, couldn’t one? What in the world is improved by referring to a heap of neurons here? There is no research about cognitive biases of DA BRAIN’A.