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  • Goat brains

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    1–2 minutes

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    Most amusing question asked at the BA Festival of Science: “Do people who ate goat brains when they were young get schizophrenia?” This was at a panel session of top UK psychologists and neuroscientists. After the laughter died down, one of the panel members volunteered, “I ate goat brains when I was young.” A few…

  • Kurzweil and AI

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    Hah, I always knew that AI pundit Ray Kurzweil was up to no good, but this article proves it. Kurzweil is fond of making grand – and vague – predictions about the future of AI, but as far as I can see he his only major achievement that could possibly be related to AI is…

  • Change Blindness

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    1–2 minutes

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    Change Blindness is an interesting psychological phenomenon that’s attracting a lot of research these days. There are a number of theories about why it occurs, and from a quick look at the literature I’m inclined to think it’s something to do with the role of attention and something called re-entrant processing.

  • Armchairs and onions

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    2–3 minutes

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    One of the great things about being in UCSD right now is that I get to go to any classes I want, free of charge (unlike the poor saps who have to pay hundreds of bucks for the privilege – of course, they need course credit…). So at one of the recent cognitive neuroscience classes…

  • Rez

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    Some good news in the lab, amidst all the unending software issues: one of the students may be bringing in Rez tomorrow (the famous self-styled ‘synaesthesia’ computer game) for the interests of ‘research’. Yeah, right. Naturally, I’ll have to demonstrate to the other lab members exactly how much research I’ve done into this important phenomenon…

  • Synaesthesia

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    3–4 minutes

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    People might be wondering what it is that I’m doing in San Diego, beyond my rather nebulous description of ‘research’. Right now I’m working in the research labs of V. S. Ramachandran at the University of California, San Diego Center for Human Information Processing on an experiment to investigate an interesting condition called synaesthesia. Synaesthesia…

  • Probabilities

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    (Warning: Ramble ahead) Earlier today, I was listening to a guy describe a project I might do next year for neurobiology, trying to figure out some of the characteristics of Golgi neurones in the cerebellum. The way you can identify these neurones, other than looking at them under a microscope, is to insert a super-thin…

  • Emotions

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    While I have some issues with neurobiology lectures, I definitely don’t with our supervisions. They’re usually a great mixture of brainstorming and learning of interesting facts. Take, for example, today, when I learned that when cats are hostile to each other and their hair stands on end, it’s because their hair makes them look much…

  • Neuro and Psych

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    There were two things that caught my attention today in lectures. The first was a list of symptoms of mania (an abnormal emotional state, the opposite of depression): i. Unfounded elation ii. Hyperactivity iii. Talkativeness and “flight of ideas” iv. Distractivility v. Impractical, grandiose plans vi. Inflated self-esteem vii. Reduced sleep …and I thought, ‘I…