Tuesday, August 29, 2006

The G Spot

Brain scan of nuns finds no single 'God spot' in the brain, Université de Montréal study finds

Sorry for the title, couldn't resist.

Actually, this is very close to a study I've wanted to do for about 5 years now. I would have chosen to use more than just representatives from one religion though. Religiously "strong" representatives from multiple religions. I am betting that we'll find one of two things: 1)each individual uses different parts of their brain in "religious" settings; 2)each religion's adherents brains will be affected slightly differently based on philosophy and approach.

I think #2 would be really, REALLY interesting, but #1 would be the result I'd put my money on.

Friday, August 25, 2006

Expert brains

Wired News: Music Makes Your Brain Happy

A fun article in Wired that talks a little about a recent upsurge in the interest in trying to define (or find) causes for genius or "natural" ability. There is also a Scientific American article (in the July issue I think) that treats the subject.

More here and here.

Happy Birthday!

Without even realizing it, Searching for Mind is now 2 years old.

Crazy. I've been blogging since 2001 or so in one form or another, but this is the blog that has generated the most interest for me personally, so I hope to keep it up for a lot longer.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Games for socialites

Some online video games found to promote 'sociability,' researchers say

They could have asked a gamer - we've know this for some time now. The same goes for telecommuters - there's really not much difference between the fundamental state of both parties.

Monday, August 14, 2006

Color is perception

True colors are in the brain of the beholder

I blogged about this some time ago, but it looks like vision has far less to do with determining color and our brains do the bulk of the interpretation.

Thank goodness we don't have Microsoft brains

Scientists learn how the brain 'boots up' to process information from the senses

I didn't know that our brains ran software.[/sarcasm]

I hate the simplified way the media treats these types of developments.

Children are still children

Kids need more time than adults give them, study finds

Turns out that children are still children despite higher expectations.

Algebra for babies

Infants, as early as six months, do see errors in arithmetic

More here and here.

Bad news for OBGYNs

Ultrasound Affects Fetal Mouse Brains

Ethically it would be very difficult to study this on a human fetus, but the implication is there, so what do you do now? What kind of effect does it have? Long term? Short term?

This is a very intriguing study.

Alert Jimmy the Greek

Brain's gambling circuitry identified

Vegas would be happy - now all we have to do is figure out how to non-invasively stimulate specific areas of the brain

Super teacher!

Novelty aids learning

This is something that any good teacher should know.

Must...remember...trivia....

Brain imaging identifies best memorization strategies

Now this is research that has some real practical value. Very cool.

Still more brain/computer modeling

Blue Brain Project

Modeling the brain, from a structure/architecture POV.

Brain control

Brain-controlled device could help the disabled

I'm pretty sure I blogged this earlier, but here it is again. An extremely cool development.

This is your computer on brains....

'Brainbox' Computer Mimics Human Brain

The struggle to copy the complex perfection of the brain continues....

Actually, this is more about modelling the "up time" of the human brain.

Stimulate my brain, baby....

Brain stimulation that may boost vision from the corner of your eye

Kind of interesting, but I'm not sure entirely what to make of it yet.

Trial and error

Researchers find new learning strategy

Well, not so much new as re-defined. Trial and error was thought to be a good learning method as long as the error was small. However, it turns out that error doesn't scale. Error corrections in the opposite direction of the error tends to help learning.

So, go make a mistake or two.