This is one odd video. This French Orangina TV ad has furries wearing kinky lingerie and an octopus giving a lap dance to a bear.

Check it out:

I guess I shouldn't be surprised after this previous post about a French set of ads on safe sex practices.

-Via BoingBoing-

Brain Candy, a film by Toronto's sketch comedy troupe Kids in the Hall, is a satirical take on drug development. A scientist creates an antidepressant (Gleemonex) that evokes the happiest memory of the consumer, recreating that joy in the present. Gleemonex becomes a big success, until it all goes horribly wrong... a very funny film.

Here's a holiday-related clip in which the first test subject takes the drug. We see the capsule enter her system after she swallows it, then the drug reaches her brain and takes effect. Her happiest memory is a Christmas visit from her son and his family. "Sorry we're a few hours late, Ma, you know how the kids hate old people."

Title: Brain Juice.
Year: 1996-1997
Summary: A Brain comes to life and tries to take over the world through cable access TV.

And obviously made in Canada ;)

Weird eh?!

"Why do those holiday tunes get stuck in your head so much?" I was invited to pose this question to Dr. Robert Zatorre, Co-Director of the BRAMS: Brain Music and Sound lab at the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill University. Dr. Zatorre is a leading expert in neuroscience research on the biological foundations of music. If anyone is able to explain why Jingle Bell Rock is haunting me, it's him.

Commonly known as earworms, some songs repeat in our mind. They are "typically annoying," said Dr. Zatorre. We often can't control it, the sounds won't go away, and they loop, repeating a refrain or short segment of music. I asked if earworms are related to symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder and he said they are "maybe a mild form of obsessive thoughts" since they are intrusive, but everyone experiences them.

The auditory cortex is extremely efficient, he explained. In neuroimaging studies (like this one) he discovered that the same regions of the brain are active when you experience external sound as in imagining music. He theorizes that with intrusive imagined music, the auditory cortex is hyper-excited and "goes off on its own."

I asked why it's so easy to remember a song even we haven't heard it for a long time: it's the way it's encoded, and the context. "We know from psychology experiments that the more information, the more it sticks around," he said.

In pre-literate cultures, bards shared knowledge through songs, which may have been an evolutionary advantage (despite Stephen Pinker's claim that music is "auditory cheesecake" - in a 2007 Science article Zatorre was quoted as saying, "Pinker has served as a useful foil" for music biology researchers). He explained that trying to remember a list of 12 words on their own is difficult, but if he put them into a weird story then set it to music they're far easier to recall. It links one piece of information to another. As well, lyrics are easier to remember than regular speech because they are more poetic and rhythmic. He said that "may be the reason songs get stuck in your head: they are hard to forget, and also hard to suppress."

But if you don't want to think about Rudolph's shiny nose, "dashing through the snow" or you can't get Kylie Minogue's voice out of your head, Dr. Zatorre offers some advice. Substitute another song, but don't just listen to it, "active engage in other musical activity. It's much better to sing or play an instrument, since it's using more of that circuitry." Even with mashups and multitasking, you can't have more than one earworm in your mind simultaneously.

Still, beware Frosty the Snowman - he'll be back again one day.

Why Duck and Cover of course! Check out this great video from the cold war:

The answer is a resounding sorta. Scientists at Harvard have done that calculations and found that "the aerodynamics of a flexible, rippling sheet moving through a fluid" ... should make it "possible to make one that will stay aloft in air." However,

No such carpet is going to ferry people around, though. The researchers say that to stay afloat in air, a sheet measuring about 10 centimetres long and 0.1 millimetres thick would need to vibrate at about 10 hertz with an amplitude of about 0.25 millimetres. Making a heavier carpet 'fly' is not forbidden by the laws of physics. But the researchers say that their "computations and scaling laws suggest it will remain in the magical, mystical and virtual realm", as the engine driving the necessary vibrations would need to be so powerful.

How about those hover boards from Back to the Future then? I want one of those!

I've entitled this illusion 'The Purple Nurple' Exciting eh? I haven't actually seen this particular one before today so I thought I'd throw it up.... so here it is:

Celebrate with Omni Brain today - It's a Festivus for the rest of us!

What are your feats of strength going to be this year?

I've been using google reader for a while now and I figured I'd explore its many options today. There is a neat little feature that allows me to share what I'm reading with other people. So if you'd like to keep up with what I'm reading on the feeds you can check it out on the sidebar right here on Omni Brain, or you can go here or subscribe to the feed here.

If you'd like you can add me as a friend and share what you're reading as well! My email address is j.stephen.higgins-at-gmail-dot-com

Enjoy and let me know what you think!

And don't forget to visit the Omni Brain City!

Since you've all been clamouring to see it, here's my new tattoo, and a video clip of the work in progress. It's an intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cell, my favourite type of neuron. The artist was Gordon at Brain Drops, highly recommended. :)

Enjoy your holidays!

-via boingboing-

Fortune has announced the year's 101 Dumbest Moments in Business, including Prozac for dogs.

Thank God. We've been so worried since Lucky dyed his hair jet black and started listening to the Smiths.

Eli Lilly wins FDA approval to put Prozac into chewable, beef-flavored pills to treat separation anxiety in dogs.

It's not just dogs - cats are treated with SSRI antidepressants, along with psychotherapy. If treatment fails to calm behaviour, the next step is neutering. Imagine that veterinary approach integrating with current practices for humans. Patients who have trouble with adhering to prescribed meds might become more motivated in that scenario.

"I asked ''The feline Freud' Carole Wilbourn to ask: if Prozac might not the answer for [difficult cats], what about psychotherapy?

She pointed out that dogs with OCD respond very well to Prozac [as do humans with OCD], and sometimes owners mistake changes as negative side effects when in fact things like slackened muscles and a trance-like appearance are signs the cat is relaxing. And just as some humans become more agitated and suicidal from SSRIs, animals can turn more aggressive.

Also as in humans, drugs aren't the whole answer. "Sometimes drugs can work but I'd rather start on a behavioral program," said Wilbourne.

Via Mind Hacks
Read more about Carole Wilbourne's work
Also read the funny Barking at Prozac, with dogs speaking on their unique experiences with meds.

The Onion shares news of a drug designed to alleviate distrust of drug manufacturers.

"Out of a test group of 180, 172 study participants reported a dramatic rise in their passion for pharmaceutical companies," said Pfizer director of clinical research Suzanne Frost. "And 167 asked their doctors about a variety of prescription medications they had seen on TV."

Frost said a small percentage of test subjects showed an interest in becoming lobbyists for one of the top five pharmaceutical companies, and several browsed eBay for drug-company apparel.

PharmAmorin, available in 100-, 200-, and 400-mg tablets, is classified as a critical-thinking inhibitor, a family of drugs that holds great promise for the estimated 20 million Americans who suffer from Free-Thinking Disorder.

Pfizer will also promote PharmAmorin in an aggressive, $34.6 million print and televised ad campaign.

One TV ad, set to debut during next Sunday's 60 Minutes telecast, shows a woman relaxing in her living room and reading a newspaper headlined "Newest Drug Company Scandal Undermines Public Trust." The camera zooms into the tangled neural matter of her brain, revealing a sticky black substance and a purplish gas. The narrator says, "She may show no symptoms, but in her brain, irrational fear and dislike of global pharmaceutical manufacturers is overwhelming her very peace of mind." After a brief summary of PharmAmorin's benefits, the commercial concludes with the woman flying a kite across a sunny green meadow, the Pfizer headquarters gleaming in the background.

It'll soon be available over the counter.

Via The Trouble with Spikol.

There are many brain fitness software products available these days so when I was offered a copy of Core Learning's program Mind Builder, I agreed to check it out. It offers a series of test questions similar to America's SAT, while Mind Builder Pro is a fuller package that also incorporates IQ, career and aptitude tests intended to be "fun mental exercises." Unlike some similarly-marketed software there were no unproven claims of preventing age-related cognitive decline or improving processing speed. There were vague promises like "get smart, stay smart" and "build brain power" - whatever that means - but it's just a package from a company specializing in educational software that encourages (older) kids and adults to challenge themselves with established types of tests.

If questions that combine multiple anagrams with Raven's progressive matrices and grammar aren't hard enough for you, there are options to divert attention and make it more difficult. Some people would probably find a ticking clock annoying, but to me it was like a metronome and I found myself mentally practicing old piano lessons while I attempted pattern recognition. I'm not sure if this helped my scores or not, but it was kind of fun. Or maybe I was just bored.

Other "distracting sounds" included a car horn, crying baby, airplane takeoff, whistles, alarms and such, all of which were definitely irritating. Your mileage may vary, of course. A loud vacuum and car alarm going off while I try to solve hateful math problems is fairly (artificially) stressful. Maybe if I was talking to a creditor on the phone at the same time it'd be worse - but at least I wouldn't have to worry about the bill for this software, priced under $40. [Disclosure: my review copy was free.]

I do have complaints: the program wouldn't run in separate windows, instead dominating my screen until I shut it down. I couldn't find a way to turn off all the sounds completely, which is a pretty serious flaw. Finally, it has a very heavy emphasis on math, which is not to my taste. But if you enjoy brain teasers and do like math problems, give it a try.

I always joke around that I would make the worst therapist since my 'therapy' would consist of something like this:

Surprisingly (well maybe not that surprisingly since the internet appeared) this method seems to be practiced somewhere seriously. The Kadir-Buxton Method involves:

making a fist of both hands, and striking both ears of the patient at exactly the same time and pressure with the soft part of the inner hand which is where the thumb joins the hand.

So let me get this straight... I hit someone hard in the head and it cures things like: Manic depression, eating disorders, pedophilia, drug addiction, and manic depression.

Not surprisingly,

You will find that the Kadir-Buxton Method is also effective against comas and senility, amongst other things. I am hoping that Medical Professionals across Europe will evaluate and bring into use the biggest breakthrough in Medicine since my invention Microsurgery. I am having a hard time getting the Kadir-Buxton Method used in the UK because it would cut down the number of professionals that are needed at present, and of course, cut the amount of expensive drugs that drug companies sell at present. I intend to shut down all Mental Health Wards, and pass on the patients to trained nurses in local surgeries, and would like the money saved to be spent on Health and Education. According to the magazine Ecologist the savings would be £100 billion per year.

Be careful in your application of this method because each disorder requires you to hit the patient a specific number of times. Head over to this wonderful mental health resource to find out how you can practice this amazing new method.

-via Improbable Research-

Help us increase the population and build by visiting our new city.

In a parody of Make Magazine projects, Austrian group Monochrom demonstrate how to create a brain computer interface, a.k.a. braicin, using household materials like duct tape, old ice skates, a vintage calculator, and onions in alcohol ("preferably Romanian"). Via Boing Boing TV. Link to extended director's uncut version (shown here).

December 13 is my birthday! Yippee, you say, how old am I? Old enough to not say... I will shamelessly mention the Amazon wish list linked from my contact page, and remind you that Omni Brain has a tip jar in the sidebar (shared with Steve). But I'm not desperate for anything and there are plenty of deserving charities who need your money (I recommend UNIFEM). I'm thankful they are helping people in a more direct way than I can.

Anyway. I'm celebrating aging with a new tattoo, and am very excited about it! I've been interested in intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs). These cells are sensitive to light but nonvisual, connect directly to the lateral geniculate nucleus and express melanopsin, which helps regulate chronobiology. They were only discovered a few years back. Bora could tell you a lot more about them, but here's a good overview from Brown that includes a sound recording.

Another article: Melanopsin-expressing ganglion cells in primate retina signal colour and irradiance and project to the LGN., Dennis et al., Letter to Nature, 2004. A drawing in Figure 3 is what I'm getting inked on my shoulder.

Hey, it was either that or Hello Kitty.

Every one of us in acadaemia has had our fair share of blathering idiots come into our labs to work. I just wish I could write a letter like this. It's a shame that the letter is not actually going to go out. Ohhhh well.... check it out:

Dear Admissions Committee,

Mr. Bronze Malheur has asked me to write a letter in support of his application to your graduate program. I am dumbfounded: not only am I astonished that he has asked me to write this letter, but also that he has any intention of going to graduate school or that he believes he could possibly be successful.

I met Mr. Malheur when he was a student in my statistics class. He distinguished himself by rarely coming to class and earning a C-. He ranked in the lower half of the class. He then began following me around like a puppy, and, for lack of anything else to do with him, I permitted him to perform menial tasks in my lab.

As a laboratory assistant, he was obnoxious and unreliable. On those rare occasions when I permitted him to collect data, the data were flawed and had to be discarded. He was incapable of being on time for anything, and consistently put his research responsibilities dead last on his list of priorities. He was always very sorry for his mistakes and lapses in judgment, and was very careful to telephone me to apologize at length and make excuses for himself. I know more about this student's personal life than I do about my sister's, and none of it makes for very pleasant reading.

On top of everything else, he is not a very pleasant person to be around. He is a groveling toady, a sycophant. Within a few hours of meeting him, his hollow flattery will chafe like a sandpaper thong. His sartorial decisions leave much to be desired and little to the imagination. The underside of his hairy belly haunts my dreams. He also experiences frequent flatulence; if you admit him to your program I recommend that you stock up on Oust. If your research involves human subjects, under no circumstances should Mr. Malheur be permitted to have contact with them.

In sum, I can think of no one with a college diploma less qualified for graduate work than Mr. Malheur. I suggest you burn his application materials and return his application fee. If you admit him to your program, you will curse the day you were born.

Sincerely,
Angry Professor

Well... it looks like ScienceBlogs is now in German - I really wish I could read it! I'm sure it's very interesting though. So now that we've taken over Germany who should be our next conquest be for global domination? We're attempting to take over the world one language at a time. Head over to the official Sb's blog, 3.14 to weigh in on the next language.

Check this out:

A Photographic Exhibition from
Pioneering Psychologist
Paul Ekman
The Search for Universals in Human Emotion
Ekman is One of the Most Influential Psychologists of the 20th Century

At the Exploratorium January 22-April 27, 2008

The Exploratorium presents a photographic exhibition, The Search for Universals in Human Emotion, from the internationally acclaimed psychologist Paul Ekman, celebrating the fortieth anniversary of his influential work with the isolated South Fore people of New Guinea. Ekman was named by the American Psychological Association as one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century. His research and photographic study of human facial expressions has had a powerful impact on researchers' understanding of both our emotions and our evolutionary history. In addition to the exhibition, Paul Ekman presents a live presentation on his work in the Exploratorium's McBean Theater on Saturday, January 26th, 2008 at 2pm. Both the presentation and the exhibition are presented in conjunction with the Exploratorium's new Mind collection, and are included in the price of admission to the Exploratorium. Reservations to the talk are required; please call (415) 674-2870.

Beginning in 1967, Ekman and his colleagues visited the isolated New Guinea highlands to study the South Fore people, an indigenous tribe with whom the developed world had only recently made contact. These expeditions focused on establishing whether the facial expressions associated with key emotions (smiling for happiness, scowling for anger, etc.) are biologically determined or learned through culture and imitation.

The former view, of a set of innate human expressions shaped by evolution, was advanced by Charles Darwin in 1872's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. This argument would be supported by evidence that widely-separated groups of people shared the facial expressions associated with common emotional experiences. However, another view held that such facial expressions were learned rather than innate, implying that different cultures could develop and transmit different sets of emotion-specific facial expressions.

Ekman's team found that the Fore's facial expressions for happiness, sadness, fear, surprise, anger, and disgust were strikingly similar to those found in other cultures. For example, when asked to imitate the expressions associated with meeting an old friend or stumbling upon a decaying animal, they showed the same patterns of eye and mouth muscle movements seen in Westerners under similar circumstances. The fact that the Fore showed these facial "universals" despite little contact with representatives of other cultures (or modern popular media) strongly suggested that Darwin's view of innate expressions was correct.

Ekman's findings formed the basis of a series of influential books and articles that gave new direction to the study of human emotions. His study of the complexities of facial expressions also revealed humans' understanding of the links between facial expressions and deception, information that has lately been of interest to such agencies as the Department for Homeland Security.

I wish I was going to be in town for this one!

After all, nearly every aspect of our continued existence relies on science, from climate control, to curing existing diseases and preventing new ones. New advances rely on a great deal of funding from the federal government and support from the public at large. Why is it that at best science is an ignored industry when candidates are running for office? The only time science is brought up is in reaction to public religious pressure (stem cell debate) or corporate pressure (global warming).

Maybe Al Gore screwed us! He was one of the only candidates ever to talk openly about and support science. Maybe since he never made it into office people think its a bad idea? In reality though, we've been living under a fundamentalist anti-science administration for the last 8ish years. Researchers have been moving over seas to do important stem cell research, climate science has been directly manipulated by the Bush administration, and researchers in all fields have had tremendous difficulty attaining grants from federal funding sources. It's time to fix this stone age of science funding the Bush administration has knocked us into.

To remedy this problem the science community has gathered together to demand the 2008 presidential candidates publicly debate about science.

Science Debate 2008 is a grassroots initiative spearheaded by a growing number of scientists and other concerned citizens. The signatories to our "Call for a Presidential Debate on Science & Technology" include Nobel laureates and other leading scientists, presidents of Universities, congresspersons of both major political parties, business leaders, religious leaders, former presidential science advisors, the editors of America's major science journals, writers, and the current and several past presidents of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, among many others.

Support this great cause by visiting their webpage and pledging you support.

Yeah you heard me right... there is no good reason why Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, or any of the other tabloid celebs are so payed attention to. They contribute nothing to society - and they aren't even that attractive. Dr Torkel Klingberg and Fiona McNab have come up with a potential explanation as to why these celebrity vampires have come to take over the press - inability to filter out irrelevant stimuli. Basically... the U.S. is undergoing a pervasive bout of ADHD.

Here's some of the study details from BBS news (which of course over blows the significance of this research just like I just did):

Scientists believe they have located a new brain area essential for good memory - the "irrelevance filter".

People who are good at remembering things, even with distractions, have more activity in the basal ganglia on brain scans, the Swedish team found.

The work in Nature Neuroscience could help explain why some people are better at remembering things than others.

Clinically, it could also aid the understanding of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

So what we here at Omni Brain recommend for the pervasive Britney Spears problem is a large scale distribution of Ritalin. Perhaps inserted into twinkies, cheap beer, potato chips, and all McDonalds food.

Oh hey... by the way... did you guys see that Britney got caught stealing a lighter from a gas station the other day? Check it out! People Magazine says:

Britney Spears walked out of a Sherman Oaks, Calif., gas station on Friday and joked to cameras that she stole a lighter.

Now, the gas station owner wants her to come back... and pay $1.39.

Chevron owner Jatinder Kaur tells PEOPLE: "Yes, Britney stole a blue lighter here last night. The lighter is $1.39. I'm hoping maybe the next time she comes back she will pay for it. I know she can afford to pay for it, but I'm not planning to file a police report. It's still not right for her to steal the lighter. I hope she will do the right thing the next time she comes here."

What do you guys think of this? Should she get in trouble? I can't wait to find out what happens over this most recent incident!

This will probably never be made into an anti-drug ad campaign, but I can't imagine a stronger deterrent.

Angel's Trumpet is a flower that contains scopolamine and other alkaloids. It's known as a "biogenic drug" and presumed by naive recreational drug users to be harmless because it's a plant. However, it can cause psychosis, delirium, visual hallucinations, agitation, incoherence, aggressive behaviour, memory problems and "convulsive sobbing" as well as somatic symptoms and well, things like this incident.

A case study describes an 18-year-old male with no history of mental disorders who consumed Angel's Trumpet and snipped off his penis and his tongue with garden pruning shears. He was rushed to hospital but the amputated parts could not be re-attached. He later had complete amnesia for the event. "... illustrating that consuming this beautiful flower with the name of an angel and the poison of the devil can be very dangerous."

Self-amputation of penis and tongue after use of Angel's Trumpet. Marneros et al., European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, 2006 Oct;256(7):458-9 [paywall]

Stunning vector art by Brazilian illustrator Guilherme Marconi. Marconi is a fabulously talented designer who has created a number of unique works related to thought and brain. Check out this contribution to the Vector Magazine calendar in a href="http://www.vektorjunkie.com/kalendar/uv07/PDF07/UV-OCT-2007.pdf">pdf, and view more of his portfolio (including an Absolut Vodka ad) at his web site.

Not so much walking as rocking and rolling, a brain moves along a desk in a supremely pointless amateur video. Watch the shadow on the wall behind the brain...

Here are some comics and images I've been saving up for so long that I mostly forget where I found them. Click the fold below to view. Enjoy!

The Neurocritic highlighted a recent study in which sildenafil (brand name Viagra) and related drug rolipram (they're both phosphodiesterase inhibitors) improved cognitive performance in monkeys.

Both drugs were equally effective in improving the monkeys' ability to correctly reach a food treat in a transparent box with one open side, which was billed as a prefrontal "executive function" task.

PDEIs may have a neuroprotective effect, as well. But if laughter is the best medicine, Viagra art rather than the drug may be the thing to try. Learn how to make Viagra tablet-shaped cufflinks out of tampons--yes, tampons--in this step-by-step guide, or horrify guests at holiday potluck parties by bringing a Viagra-shaped mousse made with gelatin, mayonnaise, and Spam (recipe here). The study did provide more appealing food treats (apple and pear) for the object retrieval task, as no monkey would want to reach for that.

In other news about brain-shaped toys, here's the Walking Brain. Wind it up and, yes, it walks. The really stupid thing, though, is that someone's created a 15 second video of it waddling across a blank screen that they think people will pay to download (you can watch it for free), while the toy costs way less than the video.

Get this 'Magical Thinking Hat' from the Anatomical Chart Company.

Colorful, anatomically correct brain on the cap - flip up the brim and expose the words,"Think, Think, Think..." when you need extra brainpower. 100% cotton. One size fits all.

I love science blogs but you know... I really get sick of the acronym filled science talk, the obnoxious politics, and of course the religion sometimes. I just discovered a great new blog that has all the natural curiosity of a science blog but non of the crap. It is wonderfully written by a non-scientist in a 'what I did today' format (which for the first time ever I like!)

The Daily Coyote chronicles, through pictures and stories, the life of Shreve Stockton, her cat, and her coyote friend. Here's the scoop from her:

Charlie is a wild-born coyote who was unexpectedly delivered to my doorstep this past April after both his parents were shot for killing sheep. Whatever reservations I had about raising a wild animal simply didn't matter - couldn't matter - when I realized his survival, at least in the short term, depended on me.

At the time I write this, Charlie is nearly six months old. I don't think of him as "my pet," even though he sleeps curled against me every night (every night except the nights around a full moon), and happily rides in my truck, and adores my cat. I don't wish to own him, just to live together in harmony. And that we do.

Check out the cat and coyote together!

I've always heard that a beard can keep you warmer during the winter months but how can you really know?! After all, if you start with a beard and then shave it off there might be some strange adaptation effect going on. And who knows the memory of cold might be completely inaccurate anyway. That's where Pete Hickey from Canada comes in (of course he lives in Canada).

I had only one choice. Shave half of my beard.

The experiment
I shaved the right half of my beard. The result can be seen in the picture above. I then proceeded to perform my various outdoor activities.

Weight
I encountered several parameters I hadn't previously expected. One side of my face was heavier than the other. In my case, this posed no problem since I'm told that I'm too right brained, the excess weight on the other side balanced things out.

Wind resistance
At higher speeds, I found increased wind resistance on the side of my face with a beard. This caused me to have to force the muscles in my neck on one side to counteract the force of the wind.

Temperature
Is spite of the above inconveniences, I was able to conduct the experiment. I ran, cycled, and skied. Yes, it does feel warmer with a beard. Also more comfortable. The side without the beard felt colder.

Further Research
Needless to say, I've only scratched the surface. Much work remains to be done in this area. Although I've determined that it felt warmer with a beard, no analytical tests were performed. I did not determine skin temperatures. It is quite possible that I had only thought I felt warmer. I suggest that a better test would be to shave half a person's beard off, but not tell them which half. This would give a fairer test of warmth.

It may also be that one side of my face is less sensitive than the other. I must repeat the experiment with the beard on the other side. It will take a bit of time for it to grow again.

"In my case, this posed no problem since I'm told that I'm too right brained, the excess weight on the other side balanced things out." haha.... that's pretty funny. It's like 'right brained' people (if that were even a legitimate construct) have a heavier right hemisphere. Can anyone think of any good improvements to his study? Maybe I'll grow a big red beard this winter!

-via Neatorama-