October 2009
71 posts
Halloween Eve, East Village, NYC
Three guys dressed as Socially Awkward Penguins walk into a bar…
Dilemma
How can I reconcile iPhone’s touch-screen technology with warm-wooly glove technology?
Yes, it’s still snowing in Boulder. And yes, I’ve been using my nose to unlock my phone.
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“President Obama says now is the time to pass healthcare reform. He’s wrong. The...”
– the Daily Kos (via msbeth)
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Words wholly unrelated
Dope and Dopamine. I always assumed that Dope came from Dopamine. Dopamine is involved in pleasure, and people doing drugs are seeking that pleasurable sensation.
Good try, but not accurate, according to the New York Times article on dopamine, and etymonline.com.
Dopamine: from DOPA, the amino acid- taken from the first letter of elements DiOxyPhenylAlanine + Amine, the name of a functional...
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OMG!!!!!!!!! type2 afferent neurons! what do... →
highamplitudesucking: listen to this podcast, oh do
Another sweet Science Friday podcast.
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Watch“The brain didn’t actually evolve to see the world the way it is. We can’t. Instead the brain evolved to see the world in a way that was useful to see in the past, and how we see is by continually redefining normality.”
A fun TED Talk about vision and perceiving reality.
rar22: Ok so I don’t have to feel as bad procrastinating when I watch a video that is educational...
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“Dopamine is also part of the brain’s salience filter, its get-a-load-of-this...”
– <3 brain science. great article.
Basics - A Molecule of Motivation, Dopamine Excels at Its Task - NYTimes.com
(via melissacullens)
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It's neuroscience Tuesday!
Good stuff on afferent neurons and then optical illusions and who knows what else to follow. And maybe at some point I’ll go to neuroscience class, too.
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A few great points about vegetarianism
I promise, I am not a prostheletizer. I am a vegetarian, but I don’t push my views on anyone else. For the most part, my reasons for vegetarianism are ecological and environmental- though not killing things if I don’t need to is a good reason, too.
My cousin Julia posted a great article from the NYT Magazine’s Food Issue, by Jonathan Safran Foer that makes some great points...
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One shot of gene therapy and children with... →
(via j0e)
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How to become a pimp →
(via msbeth)
Beth, Jen and I found this website this evening. Does anyone else remember Realultimatepower.net? I think the same guys may have made this site… Anyway, we had a good laugh (perhaps aided by a healthy dose of kundalini yoga and mixed gin drinks.)
The Long Winters, “Mimi”
This song is...
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“For the record, many countries spell certain English words differently. For...”
– Twitter / Jason Sweeney (via aniero) (via msbeth)
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Oobleck recipe
Because when you’ve spent several years as a pre-school teacher, you learn how to make your very-own home-made bubble solution and play-do (I realized I hadn’t ever posted that recipe, I’m sure I’ll put it up some time), and, of course, oobleck.
Just like that new robot, oobleck is shape-shifting. It’s sort of a liquid, sort of a solid, but mostly just fun to play...
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AIDS Vaccine is of Modest Help- Wall Street... →
A few weeks ago, researchers in Thailand reported that new combination of vaccines was effective in reducing the number of people infected with HIV. At the time, I was skeptical of their results just because the numbers were small, and even if they were statistically significant, I wasn’t impressed. Then, last week when I went to Rockefeller to get my blood drawn for the HIV vaccine...
Tuesday Trivia
Tuesday is trivia night in Boulder. I’ll be hitting up a local bar with my SLP buddy Matt where they have syndicated Geeks Who Drink trivia.
The last time I went to trivia with Ms. Beth and her boyfriend, we figured that being three Reed alums, we’d own the place. However, we were thwarted by such categories as “Clips from 80’s teen movies” and “Stripper...
New Neurological Evidence That the Internet Makes... →
highamplitudesucking:
I wonder if findings would hold constant for porn and youtube videos of people getting hurt…
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Dear Damian,
No. 3
Another thing I adore about you is your intensely inquisitive nature. Yes, sometimes your desire to get to the bottom of an issue can get ahead of you, and that can sometimes be detrimental. From where I stand, though, it’s a curiosity catch-22: while at times aggravating, I adore you for your curiosity, and I wouldn’t want a duller, more passive you.
And because I know that...
LES Dumpling Festival! →
10/24. Sara D. Roosevelt Park. Be there. Eat dumplings. Do it for me.
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Double dissociation between rules and memory in... →
Such a cool article (thanks musicbrain!). Musical rule violations cause ERPs (early anterior negativities) in right hemisphere brain areas analogous to areas used for processing language.
Our brains are good at language. Our brains are good at music. But I think what’s more important is that our brains are really good at finding, and understanding patterns in streams of data. The...
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Fast Internet access becomes a legal right in... →
Wow. Remember that time last year when John McCain wouldn’t even admit that healthcare was a right? There is something deeply wrong with our country- we can’t get healthcare for the people who need it most, but the Finns now have the right to streaming video.
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Scientists discover protein receptor for... →
(via musicbrain)
A good week for science: we find out how Broca’s area works and why bubbly things taste so good.
i <3 science
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Sequential Processing of Lexical, Grammatical, and...
“Words, grammar, and phonology are linguistically distinct, yettheir neural substrates are difficult to distinguish in macroscopicbrain regions. We investigated whether they can be separatedin time and space at the circuit level using intracranial electrophysiology(ICE), namely by recording local field potentials from populationsof neurons using electrodes implanted in language-related...
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The Associated Press: 6-year-old boy floats away... →
This is either amazing or terrifying.
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In Mammals, a Complex Journey to the Middle Ear -... →
More middle ear goodness- proof that anatomy is amazing: the three tiniest bones in the body allow us to hear with remarkable precision. The tiny bones, or ossicles, actually vibrate at the frequency of the sound you hear: a 200 Hz voice sets the bones vibrating ad rate of 200 times per second. That is just so cool to me.
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This is like the buffalo thing... Pretty... →
(via highamplitudesucking)
See also, Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
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Eric Sanderson pictures New York — before the City →
I thought I was homesick for New York before, but after this TED talk I find myself homesick for a New York that I wasn’t ever around to see: the 1609 New York. The Manhatta Project lets you zoom in on your address or place of interest and explore what the ecosystem was like 400 years ago. Up in my old hood: hawks, flying squirrels, skunks, bats- not that different than what’s up...
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Phoenix - “Fences” (The Soft Pack Remix)
(...
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Whiskey French Toast
It’s snowing, which means I’m not leaving the house, which means I need to do something complicated so that I can procrastinate. Hence, french toast.
For french toast:
8 pieces whole wheat toast (this is a healthy recipe, after all), either stale or dried a bit in a warm oven 4 eggs, lightly beaten 1 cup milk (plus a splash of cream, if you’re decadent) pinch salt 1 tsp....
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Let Congress Go Without Insurance - NYTimes.com →
A modest proposal, by Nicholas Kristof.
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Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind...
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