Neuron Culture blogger and science journalist David Dobbs recently learned there was a hole in the middle of his brain. Listen to him recount the story in a new podcast.
Monthly Archives: May 2012
Uncategorized
Open-Science Geeks Invite Obama Onto Roller Coaster
by David Dobbs •
The open-science movement, having exploded over the last year in its efforts to make science work more collaboratively and flow more openly to the public. I wrote earlier here about the extensive nature of the problem and what the open-science movement was doing (and needed to do) to push their agenda. Now open-access advocates have created a…
Brains and Behavior, Uncategorized
Is Cognitive Science Full of Crap?
by David Dobbs •
[Note 5/24/12: I'm away from the desk this week. This post originally ran on February 28, 2011, and stirred a lot of online discussion; still fully current, and I suspect will be so for a while.] Is cognitive science full of crap? A biophyics researcher recently asked this of a cognitive science researcher. The…
Brains and Behavior, Uncategorized
Kill Whitey. It’s the Right Thing to Do (Repost)
by David Dobbs •
A couple years ago, David Pizarro, a young research psychologist at Cornell, brewed up a devious variation on the classic trolley problem. The trolley problem is that staple of moral psychology studies at dinner parties in which you ask someone to decide under what conditions it’s morally permissible to kill one person to save others.…
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How Science Entered My Brain
by David Dobbs •
This Tuesday evening, May 22, I’ll be part of the “I Am Science” story-telling and music mash-up in Brooklyn. To celebrate the two-year anniversary of the wonderful StoryCollider outfit, neuroscientists Joy Hirsch and Joe LeDoux, science cheerleader Darlene Cavalier, and I will tell how science got into our heads. Joe LeDoux’s fearless band, The Amygdaloids, will…
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Four Minutes of London, Achingly Beautiful
by David Dobbs •
Via the wonderful The Londonist. By MB Films. Soundtrack Rael Jones, who did same for Sherlock. As the Londonist puts it, ‘According to the filmmakers, their intention was to “capture the spirit and endless energy of London.” Job done.’ I should add: and the skies. I’m still mourning our departure, 9 months ago, after a year…
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Don’t Leave ‘em Behind: How My Brother Made Medicine Better
by David Dobbs •
How do you track the medical care of thousands of people in disasters? My brother, Allen, as chief medical officer of the National Disaster Medical System, spent the last few years trying to answer that, among other challenges. The NDMS works primarily by mustering and deploying medical-response teams made up of medical volunteers pulled from…
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A Lost Polar Explorer Returns: Todd Balf’s “Farthest North”
by David Dobbs •
Farthest North: America’s First Arctic Hero and His Horrible, Wonderful Voyage to the Frozen Top of the World. Byliner Orignals. $1.99 Publisher site. Reviewed by David Dobbs Crossposted from Download The Universe, the science e-book review site _____ When people today imagine scientists, they tend to picture a man in a white lab coat, glasses, and…
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Man Gets Taser Dart in His Frontal Lobe
by David Dobbs •
For this bizarre story I thank the incomparable Vaughan Bell, who writes brilliantly on all things neuro, psych, and weird. Follow him at Twitter, at Mind Hacks, where he frequently blogs, and in his work for the Guardian and Slate. He’s amazing. And he brought this to Mind Hacks: A case report in Forensic Science…
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Illusion Puts Rotating Snakes in Your Brain
by David Dobbs •
From @vaughanbell at Mind Hacks: The latest Journal of Neuroscience features a study on the neuroscience behind Akiyoshi Kitaoka’s famous Rotating Snakes illusion and to celebrate they’re made a ‘Rotating Brain’ illusion for the front cover. This type of illusion, often called a peripheral drift illusion, was thought to occur due to slow drifting eye…