Neuroscience

A Neuroeconomics Argument For Gender Equality In Finance- Young Men Are Idiots

It's rare that you will find me arguing for gender quotas.   Obviously I am not for discrimination but, at least in science, mandating representation- which is discrimination against the qualified in the interests of sex organs- does not lead to bette ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Jun 25 2011 - 4:00am

Revealed- The First Ad Campaign For Monkeys

In the immortal Richard Donner classic "Scrooged", the following exchange takes place between Frank, the president of the network, and his boss, Preston: Preston: Do you know how many cats there are in this country? Frank: No, ummmm...I don' ...

Blog Post - Hank Campbell - Jun 27 2011 - 3:39pm

How Easy Is It To Falsify Memory? It Just Takes A Little Social Pressure

How easy is it to falsify memory?  Perhaps as easy as a little bit of social pressure, according to research at the Weizmann Institute. In a forthcoming Science study, they show a unique pattern of brain activity when false memories are formed – one that h ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 30 2012 - 10:31am

Other Race Effect- Biological Clues To Why They All Look Alike

We've all had an Asian person say, 'All you Americans look alike'- but they aren't being racist, there may be some biology at work. The brain works differently when memorizing the face of a person from one's own race, according to ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 1 2011 - 9:45am

Binge Drinking And The Biology Of Blackouts

Sometimes a person who gets drunk can perform functions their friends might regard as ordinary, like carrying on a conversation or driving a car- but the drunkard might have no memory of those things and those periods of amnesia, commonly known as "b ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 7 2011 - 11:07pm

(Squid) Brains Are Actually Not Computers

New neurological research, using, of course, the ever-popular giant axon of squid, shows that neurons are pretty darn clever at picking signal out of noise. And what's more, they're sensitive to context: Neurons are often compared to transistors ...

Blog Post - Danna Staaf - Jul 12 2011 - 2:09pm

Decapitation And The Wave Of Death

A perhaps somewhat lugubrious study, published in PLoS ONE, set out to investigate whether decapitation is a humane method of euthanasia in small animals, such as rats and birds. To do this, they used 22 rats that were decapitated while an EEG was recorde ...

Article - Gunnar De Winter - Jul 25 2011 - 11:24pm

The Shrinking Brain

Age does  a lot of things to us. And to our brains, which shrink when we grow older. Those incredibly complex neural networks inside our skulls not only shrink, but they also become more susceptible to scourges such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Pe ...

Article - Gunnar De Winter - Jul 29 2011 - 12:40am

Mapping The Brain, With The Help Of Many

The brain is quite complex (talking about an understatement), with its billions of neurons with many connections between them. These neurons and their connections form an intricate three-dimensional structure which forms the seat for cognition, awareness ...

Article - Gunnar De Winter - Jul 31 2011 - 3:14am

Football Concussion Researcher Captures Real-Time Data Of Player's Broken Neck

For the crowd watching an Illinois high school football game last fall, it was a sickening feeling watching one of their Unity High School cornerbacks collapse to the ground after delivering a heads-down tackle on an opposing running back (see video here.) ...

Article - Dan Peterson - Aug 8 2011 - 8:06am