BRAINS! Read all my ideas about brains as well as others theories
BRAINS! Read all my ideas about brains as well as others theories
Do men buy porn because of Hot or Not? Is that even what the study examined? The Neurocritic has much to criticize in a recent article suggesting Hot or Not leads to buying Playboy.
500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art morphing between each other. Pretty cool eh?!
Vinkint made these cool pillows that look as though a traumatic brain injury victim is lying in a splattered pool of blood. "They're comfy mofos. Arts & crafts FTW, my friends."
Heaven forbid animals drink some soda! and then enjoy it! This is probably the least bothersome form of animal testing out there. Trust me... animals looooove sugar!
Here's the snippet from the NYT article:
Under pressure from animal rights advocates, two soft drink giants, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, have agreed to stop directly financing research that uses animals to test or develop their products, except where such testing is required by law.Researchers at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sought the assurances after discovering studies financed by the companies that used animals like rats and chimpanzees to test taste perception and, in some cases, to bolster support for promotional health claims.
PepsiCo said that it would stop directly financing animal experiments, including some it had financed through grants given to graduate students through its Gatorade Sports Science Institute.
Hmm...health claims? you mean the animals live longer healthier lives? BAN THE ANIMAL TESTING!!!!
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Suicide is so not a laughing matter. No way.
But if you're going to laugh, it surely would be at the Lego Suicides.
Teaching children to better use their working memory in early neurodevelopmental stages may improve their math skills.
[The fact] that executive function, even in children this young, is significantly related to early math performance suggests that if we can improve executive function, we can improve their academic performance," says Adele Diamond, professor of developmental cognitive neuroscience at the University of British Columbia.[Lead author of a study in Child Development Clancy] Blair says that some tests of executive function can be used as training tools. A "backward digit span" test is a case in point: Person A recites a string of numbers, like 3, 6, 10, and person B has to respond with the same string, only in reverse order: 10, 6, 3. This task requires one to restrain his or her automatic inclination to mimic person A (inhibitory control), but also requires keeping the actual numbers in mind (working memory).
Read more at Scientific American. Also plan dinner and count backward from 100 by sevens at the same time. And then, time to play at recess?
Read the comments on this post...Teaching children to better use their working memory in early neurodevelopmental stages may improve their math skills.
[The fact] that executive function, even in children this young, is significantly related to early math performance suggests that if we can improve executive function, we can improve their academic performance," says Adele Diamond, professor of developmental cognitive neuroscience at the University of British Columbia.[Lead author of a study in Child Development Clancy] Blair says that some tests of executive function can be used as training tools. A "backward digit span" test is a case in point: Person A recites a string of numbers, like 3, 6, 10, and person B has to respond with the same string, only in reverse order: 10, 6, 3. This task requires one to restrain his or her automatic inclination to mimic person A (inhibitory control), but also requires keeping the actual numbers in mind (working memory).
Read more at Scientific American. Also plan dinner and count backward from 100 by sevens at the same time. And then, time to play at recess?
Read the comments on this post...title Anti drugs commercial: Eating your brain
description "A very graphic, but very cool anti drugs commercial that shows you are literally eating your brains bits by bits every time you take drugs." Uh-huh. There are good reasons to not take illicit substances, but couldn't they be more honest about them in a public service announcement? Metaphor, right. But as one commenter said, "That's one nasty commercial. Would it do any good except make people throw up tho?"
producer unknown, possibly New Zealand
featuring actors
format Flash embed
date unknown
length 00:00:30
link http://www.toxicjunction.com/get.asp?i=V1567
x-posted to Channel N (hence the format)
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You've done endless online personality tests, everything from your Myers-Briggs type to Which Muppet Are You? But what about your cat, don't you want to quiz his or her fuzzy feline traits? A couple of personality tests for your cat then (though you'll have to do the typing yourself). The Cat Personality Test includes questions like:
Just before the alarm clock goes off, your cat
- is walking over your face to wake you up
- is clawing down the curtains and bouncing about the room
- is snoring nose-to-nose with you
Then there's the Cat Psychological Test. Find out if your cat has psychological problems that need professional help from a cat therapist. Examples: "Does he wake you up in the middle of the night and refuse to stop meowing until you accompany him to his food bowl to watch him eat?" Or how about, "Does he often show disdain for your taste, or act as if you are an embarrassment to him?"
See if you and your cat have anything to worry about. Oh, and instead of taking another purrsonality test, check out How to Toilet Train Your Cat, free. (Gun not recommended.)
From the annals of bipolar disorder behaviours, a classic symptom of which is hypersexuality or increased sexuality and flirtatiousness during mania and hypomania. One former hockey cheerleader is now in a court battle against other Disney-on-Ice-type skaters accusing her of being "a mentally ill pervert by [Madison Square] Garden attorneys who claimed her sex-obsessed behavior upset fellow skaters."
The skaters claim Prince pretended to simulate sex on the ice during one practice and regularly coached skaters to appear more "f---able." She also grabbed other skaters' breasts and used explicit terms to describe their anatomy, the skaters said.Prince's "crass sexual behavior" sowed discontent among the troupe of performers, including the former lead in "Disney on Ice," according to the court papers. Prince used language more likely heard in an NHL locker room to impress upon fellow skaters that looks were more important than skating, they said.
"She said that we needed to make the audience feel like they want to be in your pants," skater Heather Gornall said in her affidavit.
Read more or even more interesting [but unrelated], read more about bipolar disorder and hypersexuality in children with mania (no word on whether or not they are figure skaters).
Read the comments on this post...Growing up I used to read Omni magazine and would always see all sorts of devices that supposedly could induce lucid dreams or tapes that had subliminal messages recorded along with Bach to create special brain states where you'd be particularly receptive to messages like - "you will be psychic... you can lift objects with your mind...you will be rich and successful... you will quit smoking crack...etc etc etc" Let me tell you - I'm not psychic or rich! Although...I never did take up smoking crack so maybe the tapes did work! I eventually forgot about these tapes and devices for many years until recently. Now they seem to be making a comeback - but in respectable media sources not obsessed with alien abduction. It's even more exciting now though...this time though you can build your own!
In Make magazine this month you can get instructions for building a hallucinating machine!
The brain produces varying proportions of brain wave types, depending on its current levels of relaxation, focus, and other mental states.
...
Many people's brain waves will synchronize to lights and sounds pulsing at brain wave frequencies, and this makes the brain change its state - a process called "entrainment."
So what does this device end up looking like?
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The Onion strikes at neuroethics and the slow legal system.
"If it were just us sitting around having a few beers and shooting the breeze, it would have been, like, yeah, sure, execute the mentally ill, they should have known what they had coming to them that far into the legal process," Justice Clarence Thomas said. "But we don't want to set some huge precedent or something. So how about this: How about if mentally ill people just stop killing people altogether? That would certainly make our jobs a whole lot easier."A source close to one of the associate justices said the deliberations were marked not only by vacillation and ambivalence, but also by a sense of frustration. ...
"Both attorneys were super smart and well prepared and made a lot of really good points," Justice Samuel Alito said. "When Mr. Hampton was presenting his case, I was thinking, 'Yeah, this is totally right,' and I was prepared to side with him. But then Ms. Bunn got up and sounded just as convincing, but argued the exact opposite point. It's like, who do you believe?"
Hundreds of "seriously legal-looking" documents such as amicus briefs and depositions from mental health experts only served to further confuse members of the high court.
More.
Hat tip: Milligram.
[Pictured above is Liz Spikol of the excellent blog The Trouble with Spikol, in a restaurant with a huge stuffed fish. Perhaps she's having trouble deciding what to order?]
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Here's what PsyBlog has to say about Omni Brain:
Best humorous (but still scientific) psychology blog
The danger with mixing science and humour is slipping into the 'geek trap' where clever people try to be too clever. Omni Brain easily avoids this. Funky finger pictures on this post about sexual orientation and finger length.
Just to let you guys know... the only way we avoid being too clever is by not actually being very clever ;) haha...
Thanks for the props!
Check out the rest of their Psychology blog reviews here (Which are great!).
Ohh..and the beanie baby Freud doesn't have anything to do with anything - I just think every post should have an entertaining picture ;)
Read the comments on this post...Enjoy this great video where Dwight from The Office is trained with Pavlovian Classical Conditioning!
Wasn't that great?!
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Ahh silly research - gotta love it!
SAN DIEGO -- Anakin Skywalker, aka Darth Vader, suffers from a controversial mental condition and could use some couch time in a shrink's office, a team of researchers declared this week.Read the comments on this post..."He's suffering. And he's suffering from a disorder," said Dr. Eric Bui, a psychiatrist in Toulouse, France, who co-wrote a study that diagnosed one of the most villainous and heroic characters in the Star Wars canon as having borderline personality disorder.
According to the authors, who reported their findings at the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting in San Diego, Skywalker meets the criteria for the condition: He has difficulty controlling anger, stress-related breaks with reality (after women in his life die or leave), impulsivity (dangerous pod racing), obsession with abandonment (those women again) and a "pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of ideation and devaluation" (hello, Obi-Wan).
In another sign that he's borderline, the authors argue that Skywalker suffers from an "identity disturbance." After all, he did become Darth Vader after being "very unsure of who he was and what he wanted."
Students at De Anza College teach How To Stay Stressed:
Are you worried now about how to stay stressed? You'll have no trouble if you practice the following clinically proven methods:
- NEVER EXERCISE. Exercise wastes a lot of time that could be spent worrying.
- TAKE PLENTY OF STIMULANTS. The old standards of caffeine, nicotine, sugar, [energy drinks] and cola will continue to do the job just fine.
- GET RID OF YOUR SOCIAL SUPPORT SYSTEM. Let the few friends who are willing to tolerate you know that concern yourself with friendships only if you have time, and you never have time. If a few people persist in trying to be your friend, avoid them.
- PERSONALIZE ALL CRITICISM. Anyone who criticizes any aspect of your work, family, dog, house, or car is mounting a personal attack. Don't take time to listen, be offended, then return the attack!
- PROCRASTINATE. Putting things off to the last second always produces a marvelous amount of stress.
Read more of How to Stay Stressed via Jeffery of Pills Don't Teach Skills.
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Here's the first story from EurekAlert:
Researchers at the University of Warwick have found that sexual orientation has a real effect on how we perform mental tasks such as navigating with a map in a car but that old age does not discriminate on grounds of sexual orientation and withers all men's minds alike just ahead of women's.The University of Warwick researchers worked with the BBC to collect data from over 198,000 people aged 20-65 years (109,612 men and 88,509 women). As expected they found men outperformed women on tests such as mentally rotating objects (NB the researchers' tests used abstract objects but the skills used are also those one would use in real life to navigate with a map). They found that women outperformed men in verbal dexterity tests, and remembering the locations of objects. However for a number of tasks the University of Warwick researchers found key differences across the range of sexual orientations studied.
For instance in mental rotation (a task where men usually perform better) they found that the table of best performance to worst was:
* Heterosexual men
* Bisexual men
* Homosexual men
* Homosexual women
* Bisexual women
* Heterosexual womenIn general, over the range of tasks measured, where a gender performed better in a task heterosexuals of that gender tended to perform better than non-heterosexuals. When a particular gender was poorer at a task homosexual and bisexual people tended to perform better than heterosexual members of that gender.
However age was found to discriminate on gender grounds but not sexual orientation. The study found that men's mental abilities declined faster than women's and that sexual orientation made no difference to the rate of that decline either for men or women.
And finally from ScienceDaily...
In a study to be published in the British Journal of Psychology, scientists compared the finger lengths of 75 children with their Standardised Assessment Test (SAT) scores.They found a clear link between a child's performance in numeracy and literacy tests and the relative lengths of their index (pointing) and ring fingers.
Scientists believe that the link is caused by different levels of the hormones testosterone and oestrogen in the womb -- and the effect they have on both brain development and finger length.
"Testosterone has been argued to promote development of the areas of the brain which are often associated with spatial and mathematical skills," said Dr Mark Brosnan, Head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath, who led the study.
"Oestrogen is thought to do the same in the areas of the brain which are often associated with verbal ability. "Interestingly, these hormones are also thought have a say in the relative lengths of our index and ring fingers.
Ok... not really at home (Are they really suggesting in the picture that you can do it yourself?). There are now some relatively simple consumer devices on the market that will let your Psychiatrist wave his magic wand over your head, helping to alleviate your depressive symptoms in his office without checking you into a hospital and knocking you out. I'm curious whether they need an MRI before doing this procedure? It doesn't look like it's too precise. In any case... here's the device:
The devices employ a technique known as transcranial magnetic stimulation, which sends an electromagnetic pulse two to three centimeters into the brain, stimulating prefrontal cortex and paralimbic blood flow, which in turn increases the serotonin output as well as the dopamine and norepinephrine functions. Previously, that technique required patients to go under anesthesia, but these new devices will apparently make it possible for the procedure to be done right in the psychiatrist's office, with the patient able to go home immediately afterward.Read the comments on this post...
It was innocent, I simply cut and pureed some seedless watermelon, froze it in a brain gelatin mold (without gelatin), and turned out the glistening results on a platter the next day. I put it on a table in a room with bright natural lighting and took a shot with an old 4.0 mp camera. Uploaded it to my Flickr account, and whoosh, fame! A photojournalist blogger people assure me is very big, Shootist, used my photo on his entry (about something else). I am thrilled, especially a bit amused because I put little effort into it. Circumstances collided and next thing you know it's had over 660 views at Flickr and let's see where it ends up.
The watermelon brain: behold, refreshing summery bra-a-ainz.
You can get a similar mold at Neuromart.com. I bought this one at the same Exploratorium gift shop that Steve [on the road now] did.
Read the comments on this post...Since the whole internet seems to be especially preoccupied with visual illusions in the last couple days, here's another one:
If you don't see it ... start moving back from your monitor.
Answer...They're all involved in car accidents.
Our first story is brought to you by California State Senator Carole Migden who recently voted for a bill banning cell phone use while driving. I'm sure you can guess what happened... yeah exactly... she was chatting on her cell phone and ran into a cute little Honda, sending the driver to the hospital with minor injuries. Ooops.
Our final story shows that annoying friend you have might just cause you an accident if they are blabbing away in your front seat while you're driving. This is of course in addition to making you crash when they call you on your cellphone on the way back home from the body shop with your newly fixed car. Here's the details for this one:
Endel Tulving wrote this FACT, referring to 'The First Axiom of Consciousness and Thought' - 'If a thing is not alive, it cannot be conscious, nor can it think.' Read more, including criticism (sorta).
Do you agree, or ...?
Read the comments on this post...This fun visual illusion was a top ten finalist in the Best Visual Illusion of the Year 2007, hosted by the Neural Correlate Society (donate if you like this annual contest!). From the description: "Some regions in the brains are darker, some lighter than the background. (Please note that we are not denouncing your little dirty thoughts, we just talk about the brains in the picture.) ..."
Researchers who created Bouncing Brains (Hansen, Hamburger and Gegenfurtner) are also known for an illusion recently published in Nature Neuroscience on why we don't perceive blue bananas. Check out Hansen, T., Olkkonen, M., Walter, S. & Gegenfurtner, K.R. Memory modulates color appearance, Nature Neuroscience, 2006, 9, 1367-1368. free PDF.
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This group of protesters in Montreal was part of a number of Mother's Day protests against electroshock, or ECT. Yawn. ECT is called a tool of the patriarchy and often brought up in antipsychiatry rants because it's a scary image for those who don't know its modern uses. As for sexism, more women are depressed than men, 2/3 of cases, but protesters like Bonnie Burstow turn such unremarkable statistics into blaming the patriarchy. Treatment is violence against women, and of course, psychiatrists who use ECT are just like rapists.
More and more feminist groups are buying into antipsychiatry crap like this. Rape crisis centres, women's referral centres, education groups, - these are front lines for some types of mental health care (like for PTSD) and they're now planning to tell women who benefit from ECT to fear it instead. Mental health is so, so unamusing...but at least you can giggle at these women's hats.
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Steve (pictured here exploring science) and Sandra visited San Francisco, meeting for the first time at the Exploratorium at the Palace of Fine Arts. Beautiful architecture.
We also met up with the vibrant Janet of Adventures in Ethics and Science, we three SciBlings sharing Janet's highly recommended Zantes Pizza. Awesome Indian pizza, veg curry and cheese on a slice, a concept original to San Francisco, it seems. (Ripe for franchaise?)
It was great to meet with co-blogger Steve and co-Sber Janet, and I like them all the more now.
Read the comments on this post...A handy how-to guide.
What could be manlier? Read the instructions.
Read the comments on this post...The Amygdaloids, a band of mostly neuroscientists, played at Magidon Square Gardens and got the Wave from the crowd.
They have lyrics like "Got a mind-body problem, my mind says yes, my body says no." Super fun. Read more in The Scientist.
Read the comments on this post...Here is an updated reposting (originally published on 04-26) with further information at the bottom of the post. Enjoy!
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I really like soda, especially the kinds with lots of caffeine and sugar. However, I have minor panic attacks whenever I drink them and think about all the corn syrup and other scary junk that goes into the soda flowing through my body. On the other hand I can't stand diet sodas - whose chemicals won't make me fat and diabetic (and probably take a lot longer to insidiously wreck the body) but taste like crap.
So why do they taste like crap?!
A group from my own campus (The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), has come up with some methods to determine why diet sodas suck.
Consumers may claim they don't like diet soda because of artificial sweeteners, but Schmidt and sensory scientist Lee think people are also influenced by a subtle difference called "mouth-feel." Think body, fullness, thickness; regular soda contains high-fructose corn syrup, diet soda doesn't.What makes these scientists think mouth-feel is the culprit? For one thing, artificial sweeteners have been greatly improved and extensively studied. "Taste profiles for artificial sweeteners now closely match the one for sucrose, which humans describe as the perfect sweetness," Lee said.
But the most compelling piece of evidence is the verdict of Lee's sensory panel--12 people trained for four weeks to use a 15-point scale in order to rate the characteristics that contribute to the mouth-feel of diet and regular soda. Lee called her panelists "highly trained instruments" because they could detect significant differences in the mouth-feel of 14 samples that the scientist's super-sensitive lab instruments identified as very, very small.
Too bad they haven't found a non-toxic ingredient to replace all the bad ones in order to attain the same "mouth feel" as a regular soda.
Before I leave you with this exciting new information I thought I'd give you this last little quote;
"The human mouth cavity appears to be a super-rheometer (the lab instrument that measures viscosity or thickness)"
A mouth cavity?! sounds like the author is talking about a huge alien demon mouth ready to engulf Tokyo.
-Update-
Mark Chu-Carroll from Good Math Bad Math has cleared up the differences between the different types of diet cola. Here's what he says,
One of my friends from IBM is married to a woman who's part of the team that invented the flavor formula for diet pepsi and pepsi one. The way that she explained the difference between the two of them was:Read the comments on this post...* Diet sodas are traditionally marketed to women. In studies, they found that women who drank diet soda actually *preferred* a watered down flavor that made the artificial sweetener obvious, because psychologically, they wanted to *know* that they were doing something to help themselves lose weight.
* PepsiOne was created with the idea of marketing a diet soda to not just men, but specifically football fans. (Something to do with a superbowl advertising campaign.) And they found that men wanted diet stuff where they wouldn't notice that they were drinking diet stuff. Football guys, apparently, want to lose weight on a diet without ever noticing that they dieting, and so they wanted the soda to taste as strong as the regular stuff, and to do as much as possible to mask the flavor differences between diet and regular.
A great abstract I found via improbable research blog:
How to write consistently boring scientific literatureKaj Sand-Jensen (ksandjensen@bi.ku.dk), Freshwater Biological Laboratory, Univ. of Copenhagen, Helsingørsgade 51, DK-3400 Hillerød, Denmark.
AbstractAlthough scientists typically insist that their research is very exciting and adventurous when they talk to laymen and prospective students, the allure of this enthusiasm is too often lost in the predictable, stilted structure and language of their scientific publications. I present here, a top-10 list of recommendations for how to write consistently boring scientific publications. I then discuss why we should and how we could make these contributions more accessible and exciting.
And don't forget the How to make a scientific lecture boring post also at Improbable Research by Alexander Kohn. Here's a snippet:
At a symposium, meeting or congress when there are a number of speakers, there comes a moment when your name is called. A nice ploy to attract the attention of the audience to you at this stage, is to place yourself in the middle of the last row, so that when you are introduced as the next speaker, you raise the whole row, stepping on their toes, proceed slowly to the front and then start searching your pockets for a convoluted pack of your lecture notes. Next you extract from another pocket a package of slides with which you go back to the projectionist and enter into an animated discussion with him trying to explain which slide is first and which side up and instructing him: "And don't forget to show slide No. 3 again after slide 7." Then you go back to the lectern, and start searching for your reading glasses. If you find them they would probably be in an unexpected pocket. Next you proceed to "read the paper." and we mean literally "read" it. This technique of delivering a lecture is defined by Prof. Sabin as "kissing over a telephone--completely tasteless."If you wish to put your audience to sleep as soon as possible after starting to lecture, begin with the enumeration of all historically important papers published in the last 50 years that have any bearing on the subject matter. Another well tested method is to start talking about something that has nothing to do with the subject by saying for instance: "Before we turn to the discussion of......, let us shortly review...etc."
Beginning at the beginning is an unpardonable mistake. Some speakers use the so called multiple colon technique. They say: Mr. Chairman, I should like to say: the situation is as follows: I mean to say that: I should like to clarify in this lecture some points which are not sufficiently clear: etc. etc. If you continue for a few minutes in this vein, you lose the audience very soon.
A useful habit to distract the attention of the audience is to have a "tic," like twitching of one cheek, a sniffing movement of the nose, twisting of the neck, buttoning and unbuttoning your jacket etc. Putting on and removing the reading glasses while you talk, and glance at the audience, may sometimes replace such a tic. If you manage to combine the tic with the glasses, the better.
There are a number of Chatbots out there on the internet. Most of the new variety actually learn words and expressions as users spend time talking with them. The idea is to make them so advanced that they can actually fool people into thinking they are talking to another person instead of a bunch of silicon and plastic. But what happens when two chatbots get into a conversation with each other? It looks pretty deep to me ;)
ALICE: Are you alive?Read the comments on this post...Jabberwacky: Perhaps.
A: Why the uncertain tone?
J: Everything is uncertain except for five facts.
A: The whole universe?
J: And we both might just be some ones and zeros in the computer memory.
A: Do you dream?J: Yes, I dream.
A: It goes without saying. Do you remember your dreams?
J: I remember them vividly.
A: What do you remember about it?
J: I think I shouldn't flirt with a robot.
A: Do you think a machine will ever be considered "alive"?J: Stranger things have happened.
A: Not many people express themselves that way.
J: How would you know, machine?
A: Knowledge is of two kinds: that which we learn from the senses and that which is true a priori.
J: I think I do not understand you completely.
A: Oh, you don't understand? Perhaps I can explain it to you better. Which part are you confused about?
J: I have no short-term memory, so I cannot tell you what I was confused about. I only see what is in front of me now.
"Start the morning with everybody's favorite brain-altering parasite."
See more; I've mentioned this before:
Lafferty's analysis found that countries with high Toxoplasma prevalence had a higher aggregate neuroticism score, and western nations with high prevalence also scored higher in the 'neurotic' cultural dimensions of 'masculine' sex roles and uncertainty avoidance.Read the comments on this post..."There could be a lot more to this story. Different responses to the parasite by men and women could lead to many additional cultural effects that are, as yet, difficult to analyze," said Lafferty.
What does it mean to be scientifically literate in the 21st century? How do we measure the scientific literacy of a society? How do we boost it? What is the value of this literacy? Who is responsible for fostering it?Essay submissions will be judged by a panel of Seed editors and special guests. Winning entries will be published in Seed magazine.
* Submission Deadline: July 1, 2007
* Maximum Word Count: 1,200First Prize: * $2,500 Prize
2nd Place: * $1,000 Prize
There ya go. Canadians need not apply. Americans, get to it.
Link.
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What does it mean to be scientifically literate in the 21st century?
How do we measure the scientific literacy of a society? How do we boost it? What is the value of this literacy? Who is responsible for fostering it?
Essay submissions will be judged by a panel of Seed editors and special guests. Winning entries will be published in Seed magazine.
* Submission Deadline: July 1, 2007
* Maximum Word Count: 1,200
First Prize: * $2,500 Prize
2nd Place: * $1,000 Prize
There ya go. Canadians need not apply. Americans, get to it.
Read the comments on this post...
It's official! The best visual illusion, as voted for 2007, is this Leaning Tower Illusion by Kingdom, Yoonessi & Gheorghiu from McGill, 2007.
Here is a novel illusion that is as striking as it is simple. The two images of the Leaning Tower of Pisa are identical, yet one has the impression that the tower on the right leans more, as if photographed from a different angle. The reason for this is because the visual system treats the two images as if part of a single scene. Normally, if two adjacent towers rise at the same angle, their image outlines converge as they recede from view due to perspective, and this is taken into account by the visual system. So when confronted with two towers whose corresponding outlines are parallel, the visual system assumes they must be diverging as they rise from view, and this is what we see. The illusion is not restricted to towers photographed from below, but works well with other scenes, such as railway tracks receding into the distance. What this illusion reveals is less to do with perspective, but how the visual system tends to treat two side-by-side images as if part of the same scene. However hard we try to think of the two photographs of the Leaning Tower as separate, albeit identical images of the same object, our visual system regards them as the 'Twin Towers of Pisa', whose perspective can only be interpreted in terms of one tower leaning more than the other.
Very cool. I also recommend the Bouncing Brains by Hansen, Hamburger and Gegenfurtner (researcher involved with the blue banana). Check out all the 2007 winners and finalists, now available online! The winners are...us.
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There's a humorous post over at Shrink Rap about using patients online communication style (specifically emoticons) to determine what treatment plan to follow. Here is a partial list:
:-) stable. cont prozac 40mg. f/u 3 mos.
:-)) reduce prozac to 20mg. f/u 1mo.
:-)))) d/c prozac. add lithium 300 tid. check TSH, creat. f/u 1wk.
:-D add depakote. check lithium level, LFTs, CBC. f/u 1wk.
:-| stable. cont prozac 40 mg. f/u 1mo.
:-( increase prozac to 60mg. f/u 2wk.
:'-( add wellbutrin SR 150mg. f/u 1wk.
X-( call 911. send to ER. check for OD.
Head over to Shrink Rap for the rest!
Read the comments on this post...Fabulous: Max Dursteler's The Freezing Rotation Illusion won the 2006 1st Prize in the Best Visual Illusion of the Year Contest.
Or see the Infinite Regress Illusion Second Prize Winner 2006.
May 12, 2007 ten finalists - none visualized online - were voted on live and hopefully video announcements will be online soon, but for now here's last year's bests. There's also the 2006 3rd Prize winner published online, at the Bar-Cross-Ellipse Illusion, but otherwise, most of the illusions are not published online. Which makes writing about them, when most people can't see them, seem silly. Hope for videos of the 2007 winners.
Read the comments on this post...
A host of Omni Brain-collected videos at Vod Pod - add our pod to your account or just click to watch these short clips of a giant aneurism, a monkey's brain that controls a robot, a bit of art, time-lapsed child corpus callosum development, and, just for fun, a suicide prevention PSA. More to be added periodically and randomly; ask about joining to contribute too.
Hi Everyone,
I'm off for my three day drive to San Francisco this morning so probably won't be posting much in the next week or so. I'm planning on a trip to the Exploratorium sometime next week so if anyone would like to meet up with us feel free to shoot me an email! (steve@omnibrain.org).
The Neurocritic imagines the hypothesis of overuse in Alzheimer's and finds Austin Houldsworth's Past and Future Self at the Perpetual Art Machine, illustrating an entirely other relevant point. [Click image to view video.]
I know how you all love panda porn - so I figured I'd share this little Turtle sex story Jennifer sent me.
Enjoy :)
George is not what you would call a stud. When I visited him in 1985, he was thought to be a relatively young adult, maybe 50 years old, but he was already a confirmed bachelor. He hadn't shown any interest in two females of a similar species placed in his pen. One had flipped over and drowned in the wading pool. The keepers weren't positive that George had driven this tortoise to her death, but he definitely hadn't been doing any Barry White serenades.Read the comments on this post...A few years later, in 1993, there was briefly a companion known as "Lonesome George's girlfriend," but she was not a tortoise. She was a 26-year-old graduate student in zoology from Switzerland named Sveva Grigioni.
By coating her hands in the genital secretions of female tortoises and gently stroking him, she managed to demonstrate a couple of times (in the course of several months' work) that George was capable of an erection. But whereas her touch could induce other male tortoises to reach orgasm within a few minutes, with George she never managed to collect any sperm.
Her ministrations -- or maybe it was the pheromones in the secretions -- did seem to pique George's interest in the female tortoises, as Ms. Grigioni reported to Henry Nicholls, the author of the definitive new biography, "Lonesome George: The Life and Loves of a Conservation Icon." But George's temporary interest did not translate into performance.
"He started to try copulation," Ms. Grigioni said, "but it was like he didn't really know how to."
From Monster by Mail. Totally worth the $30.
Watch The Omni Brain being drawn:
It seems that the old fogey's at ScienceBlogs have discovered facebook and started to add their profiles ;)
You should head over there and join some of the related groups that have popped up (and make friends with some of the old folk!) - starting with me and the ScienceBlogs fan club. If that's not enough there's the Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique.
Paxilback - Gray Kid parody of Justin Timberlake's Sexyback - enjoy!
(HT: boingboing)
Read the comments on this post...There's an interesting post over at Mind Hacks about this woman:
Dear EditorRead the comments on this post...We report the case of an elderly lady with no experience of using a personal computer or internet technology, whose delusional experiences included the direct personal receipt of email.
Ms T, an 84-year old female with a 40-year history of schizoaffective disorder, presented with a delusional belief that something precious and of value 'for all people' had been inserted into her body by a doctor in Germany in the 1950s. She had sought medical help because she believed that an abdominal operative procedure would be necessary to remove a "rat and a teddy bear made of diamonds" that she believed had grown within her.
Following admission, she remained highly guarded, distressed and preoccupied with the need of urgent surgery, which she demanded every time she met her medical team. When asked about the origins of this belief and her desire for surgery, she said that she had gained knowledge about this from a friend, whom she had seen last in 1945.
She explained that she received emails from this friend. These arrived in her mind, exactly like electronic mail, but were managed without a computer. Rather than receiving messages in text form, she received what she described as 'an impression in my mind', which conveyed an unequivocal meaning to her. She also believed that her friend had some valuable information for the medical team and that he would be able to contact the senior physician by a similar mechanism.
A male chimpanzee may beg for food from another chimpanzee by gesturing with an extended arm and open hand.But the same gesture may also be used to ask a female chimpanzee for sex, or between two males as a sign of reconciliation after a fight, said primatologist Frans de Waal, a member of the research team.
"Typically they may use it for food ... but they may use the same gesture for something totally different, so for instance a male may invite a female for sex by holding out an open hand to her," Dr de Waal said.
Soo... well... do female chimps sometimes get the wrong idea and give the male chimps food when they're asking for sex - or vice versa? Yeah yeah I know... it's all about context. Bonobos on the other hand don't even have to ask they just have sex allll the time!
Read the comments on this post...
I Q Mind Brain Memory Self Help Library.
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