Mmm, brains.

Grok Headline matches for Mmm, brains.

Red Brains vs. Blue Brains?

Red Brains vs. Blue Brains? 08/23/2004 10:13 AM

Brains for Sale

Brains for Sale 01/26/2004 07:16 AM

Brains and beauty, etc.

Brains and beauty, etc. 04/16/2004 06:27 PM
A brain study released today shows that the human ability to appreciate aesthetics is based in the prefontal cortex, part of the brain involved in decision making. The scientists at the Balearic Islands University in Spain came to this conclusion by imaging their subjects' brains while looking at art and photography. According to the study, quoted in Scientific American, "'a phylogenetic change in the prefontal cortex could give way to the decorative and artistic profusion' in humans."
Another study published today by Northwestern University suggests that "Eureka!" moments of insight activate "a distinct area in the right hemisphere of the brain's temporal cortex," a region where semantic connections occur.

"For thousands of years people have said that insight feels different from more straightforward problem solving," one of the researchers said. "We believe this is the first research showing that distinct computational and neural mechanisms lead to these breakthrough moments."

Link

Rrrrr, brains.

Rrrrr, brains. 04/17/2004 08:53 AM
Facewound is an excellent homebrew side-scrolling action game that's currently still in preview. It features zombies, bullet time, and a full arsenal of weaponry. It's not web based, but it does feature some nice special effects for those of you with good graphics cards (not required). Also, it's very friendly to custom maps and skins. Here is the download page for those who want to get right into it. All and all, a good way to waste a Saturday.

A car with brains (no, not the driver)

A car with brains (no, not the driver) 05/03/2004 11:31 PM
Straits Times May 4 2004 4:12AM GMT

Wall O' Hot Brains

Wall O' Hot Brains 06/17/2005 03:56 PM
On one of the walls of my office I have a growing collection (where growing means two) of pictures of guys that meet the criteria of "Hot Brain." So, I of course have received tons of grief about tonight's episode...

The screen-age: Our brains in our
laptops

The screen-age: Our brains in our
laptops 08/02/2004 11:49 AM
CNN Aug 2 2004 2:51PM GMT

Don't Flush Brains Down the Drain

Don't Flush Brains Down the Drain 05/18/2004 04:44 AM
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a plan for cattle brains and other remains that may carry deadly mad cow disease. It wants to turn them into a bio-based source of energy.

Searching Brains Not Documents

Searching Brains Not Documents 03/11/2003 11:41 PM

Searching Brains Not Documents

Scoble made my week and truly inspired me with this comment::

Here's a homework project. Go to the RSS Search engine. Now go to Google. Search for these words: "InfoPath" and "OneNote." What do you notice? I like the quality of the RSS results a LOT better. [_Go_]

I was thinking about this a lot and the best analogy I can give you this the following:

1. We've all debated ad nauseum what blogs are.  But the one I like best is that "a blog is a conversation".  It might tbe with your friends, your employees, your customers or yourself (if no one's reading).
   
2. Conversation is a product of the brain.  What else can it be?
   
3. What this is shaping up to be is not a document centric search engine at all.  Its shaping up to being a conversation centric search engine or as I'm starting to think of it -- searching the brains of all the smart people out there that are talking about things.

Comments?

Extracting Video from Cat Brains

Extracting Video from Cat Brains 06/22/2005 01:58 AM
`The matrix has its roots in primitive arcade games,' said the voice-over, `in early graphics programs and military experimentation with cranial jacks.' William Gibson, Neuromancer - 1984 It was still very much a 300 baud universe when I jacked into Gibson's future for the first time. In 1984 there were very few systems I could connect to with the surplus CAE acoustic modem I had access to, and almost all of them were a forbidden long distance telephone call away. My borrowed deck suffered from sensory deprivation and just like a person, it hallucinated. It hallucinated games.

Early Bird Had the Brains to Fly

Early Bird Had the Brains to Fly 08/05/2004 12:00 AM

Rewiring Mouse Brains

Rewiring Mouse Brains 08/29/2004 04:24 PM
A recent MIT press release describes new discoveries about the plasticity of mammal brains. Mriganka Sur and other researchers at the Picower Center for Learning and Memory at MIT "rewired" the brains of mice to receive visual information in the region of their brains normally used for hearing. The modified mice responded to flashes of light as if they had heard sounds. The researchers suggest that if human brains share this level of adaptability, if may be possible to reroute signals in people with brain disease or injury, helping them recover normal sensory or emotional responses. For more information on the research visit the Mriganka Sur Lab website or see Sur's paper, Rewiring the cortex: Cross-modal plasticity and its implications for cortical development and function (PDF format).

Check out the big brains on these guys!

Check out the big brains on these guys! 09/23/2004 04:48 AM
Human Intelligence is a good site from Indiana University that looks at historical influences and current controversies surrounding the study of intelligence. Find out more about topics such as "the Mozart Effect", the theory of multiple intelligences, and the influence of birth order on intelligence, and then browse the brains behind the history of inquiry into human intellect.

Software exercises aging brains

Software exercises aging brains 04/04/2005 06:50 PM
Also: Have cell phones made wristwatches obsolete? [News.com Extra]

Fornicate and run marathons to beef
up your brains

Fornicate and run marathons to beef
up your brains 06/18/2004 10:59 AM
Fascinating Australian Broadcasting Co science piece on the latest research in neuron production:

we do know a couple of things that stimulate brain cell production. One of them, of course is anti-depressants, which we now know probably the key molecule by which this acts, because we’ve been able to purify these cells that make neurons and we know what are the receptors that bind molecules. And one of these receptors turn out to be a receptor for a neurotrophine, a molecule that keeps nerve cells alive traditionally. But we know that anti-depressants raise the molecule that binds to this receptor and we now know that this is the factor that can stimulate the production of new nerve cells. So we think we’ve made the connection between anti-depressants and production of new nerve cells. But there are many other ways of stimulating the production and some of them are pretty damned interesting. One is if you put an animal on a wheel and let it run ad libitum and they run up to about 10 kilometres overnight, they make about twice as many neurones.

The other thing is that certain molecules produced during sex also appear to be highly stimulatory of neuronal production. Prolactin levels, which pregnant women have enormous amounts of, also stimulate large amounts (of neurons).

Link (Thanks, Adrian!)

Backwards City: Our Brains Don't Work

Backwards City: Our Brains Don't Work 07/13/2004 08:23 AM
Backwards City: Our Brains Don't Work .. Ahhhh

backwardscity.blogspot.com/2004/07/our-brains-dont-work.htmltrack this site | 4 links

" Backwards City: Our Brains Don't
Work "

" Backwards City: Our Brains Don't
Work " 07/13/2004 10:35 AM

Green, Glowing Mouse Brains

Green, Glowing Mouse Brains 07/17/2004 06:08 PM
A recent CMU press release describes a breakthrough in the study of neurons in living animals. Alison Barth, a CMU neuroscientist, has developed a method to directly identify activated neurons in a living creature, genetically modified with a glowing green flourescent protein (GFP) and a gene called c-fos which turns on when a nerve cell is activated. Past methods such as MRI have allowed scientists to see only the general area of the brain in which activity was taking place but this new method shows precisely which neurons are active. The new method has been used to reverse-engineer the neural paths and activity in sensory data processing of mouse whiskers. This data could lead to better computer simulations of neural processes, among other things.

Veggies Reported to Help Women's Brains
(AP)

Veggies Reported to Help Women's Brains
(AP) 07/19/2004 04:54 PM
AP - Here's another reason to eat your veggies: A new study suggests certain vegetables like broccoli and spinach may help older women keep their brains sharper.

Building Robots to Understand Brains

Building Robots to Understand Brains 03/22/2005 04:20 PM
An article in The Online Engineer describes the work of Tony Prescott and other researchers at the Sheffield University Department of Psychology. In an attempt to better understand vertebrate brains, they are designing and building control systems for multitasking robots. The work involves computational modellers, neuroscientists, and neurobiologists in the Department's Adaptive Behaviour Research Group. Their initial goal is to build robots based on reverse-engineered rat brains. They hope that an understanding of rat brains will eventually lead to an understanding of the human brain.

Big brains, crap design skills.

Big brains, crap design skills. 07/24/2004 09:29 PM
Giga Society: the world's most exclusive high IQ society, where an IQ of 196 or higher (one in a billion) is required to join. Not quite as cranially-advantaged? Well, there's always the Oath society, which'll take you if you're only one in a thousand (a mere 150 IQ or higher). Big brains and design skills (or language ones, for that matter) don't mix well, though, it would seem. [more inside]

Body and Brains of Gamers Probed

Body and Brains of Gamers Probed 09/03/2004 03:53 PM

Good hypnotic subjects' brains are
different

Good hypnotic subjects' brains are
different 09/10/2004 02:53 PM
Cory Doctorow: I've been practicing self-hypnosis since I was a kid, and as an adult, hypnosis helped me overcome a five-year bout of writers' block, get rid of lifelong chronic back-pain, and painlessly kick an 18-year-old smoking habit. For all that, I know precious little of how hypnosis works -- it just works (for me, at least).

Now the New Scientist reports that functional MRI scans of the brains of regular practitioners of hypnosis reveals physiological differences from those who are not susceptible to hypnosis.

But under hypnosis, Gruzelier found that the highly susceptible subjects showed significantly more brain activity in the anterior cingulate gyrus than the weakly susceptible subjects. This area of the brain has been shown to respond to errors and evaluate emotional outcomes.

The highly susceptible group also showed much greater brain activity on the left side of the prefrontal cortex than the weakly susceptible group. This is an area involved with higher level cognitive processing and behaviour.

Link

Human Brains Examined for Clues About
Mad Cow

Human Brains Examined for Clues About
Mad Cow 01/26/2004 07:34 PM
If Americans develop a disease like the human form of mad cow that worries millions of Europeans, Dr. Pierluigi Gambetti may be the man to find it.

Cool New Ideas to Save Brains

Cool New Ideas to Save Brains 02/10/2004 07:19 AM
When it comes to fancy medical devices, the heart gets all the attention and the poor brain is neglected. But that's changing, and stroke patients may benefit. By Randy Dotinga.

Nicotine is kind-of good for your brains

Nicotine is kind-of good for your brains 11/12/2003 01:27 PM
New evidence suggests that a nicotine metabolite improves memory and combats Alzheimer's.

Nicotine made a significant difference in the animals' performance in the tests. Low and high doses of nicotine altered behavior in opposite directions: The low-dose group tended to learn faster and the high-dose group tended to learn slower than the control animals. "Whether performance improved or declined is probably less important than the demonstration that nicotine does produce long-lasting changes in the animals' performance, presumably reflecting long-lasting effects on brain development," says Robert Smith, PhD.

L ink

Microchips implants for brains approved

Microchips implants for brains approved 04/14/2004 06:27 PM
Canadian Press via Canada.com Apr 14 2004 10:10PM GMT

Is "Barney" destroying my kids' brains?

Is "Barney" destroying my kids' brains? 05/07/2004 07:47 AM
A few weeks ago, a study connected TV watching to ADHD. But the findings have been blown way out of proportion.

Brains turn gorilla suits invisible

Brains turn gorilla suits invisible 05/06/2004 04:30 AM
Interesting piece on experiments in "change-blindness" -- the brain's refusal to take note of changes in our visual field.

Working with Christopher Chabris at Harvard University, Simons came up with another demonstration that has now become a classic, based on a videotape of a handful of people playing basketball. They played the tape to subjects and asked them to count the passes made by one of the teams.

Around half failed to spot a woman dressed in a gorilla suit who walked slowly across the scene for nine seconds, even though this hairy interloper had passed between the players and stopped to face the camera and thump her chest.

However, if people were simply asked to view the tape, they noticed the gorilla easily. The effect is so striking that some of them refused to accept they were looking at the same tape and thought that it was a different version of the video, one edited to include the ape.

Link (via Crooked Timber)

Macworld Boston 2004: Brains Over Beauty

Macworld Boston 2004: Brains Over Beauty 07/14/2004 06:41 PM
Since you don't have the magnificent mother ship on the trade show floor attracting minions from all over the world, you have to go with what's in your control. And that's content. By Derrick Story, O'Reilly Network (via MyAppleMenu)

Bird Brains Challenge Theories of Mind

Bird Brains Challenge Theories of Mind 05/15/2004 03:49 PM
A previously accepted difference between Humans and other animals was that only Humans could possess a "theory of mind" - that is, understanding that other beings have internal thoughts, mental states, and intentions. In recent years, higher mammals such as Gorillas have show evidence of having theories of mind. An article in the Economist summarizes two new studies in which biologists have found evidence of theories of mind in birds, a much older and more primitive form of life. One study by Berd Heinrich and others demonstrated that Ravens understood the significance of the visual behaviour of other creatures and were able to project gaze trajectories around obstacles. In a second study, Thomas Bugnyar and Kurt Kotrschal describe a strategy developed by a raven to deceive competing ravens in a way demonstrating understanding of the competitor's intentions. Oh well, we still have syntactic language and time binding.

Viruses can be tamed - by upgrading
users' brains

Viruses can be tamed - by upgrading
users' brains 05/05/2004 02:51 AM
ZDNet UK May 5 2004 6:58AM GMT

Found alphabet made from human brains

Found alphabet made from human brains 12/17/2003 02:40 AM
The Brain Alphabet is a set of 26 Roman letters visible in the bumps and valleys of photos of real human brains. Link (Thanks, Armand!)

Review: 'Syberia II' requires brains,
not brawn

Review: 'Syberia II' requires brains,
not brawn 06/08/2004 12:06 PM
CNN Jun 8 2004 2:42PM GMT

Doctors peer into brains to gauge
antidepressants

Doctors peer into brains to gauge
antidepressants 05/26/2004 07:40 PM
Boston Globe May 26 2004 11:27PM GMT

Viruses Can Be Tamed -- By Upgrading
Users' Brains

Viruses Can Be Tamed -- By Upgrading
Users' Brains 05/05/2004 11:25 AM
Despite the Sasser worm, PCs are now safer than they were four years ago, if users would only observe basic precautions, say security experts. By Munir Kotadia, ZDNet UK (via MyAppleMenu)

Lonely Brains Club - A Rambling,
Incoherent Thought

Lonely Brains Club - A Rambling,
Incoherent Thought 03/13/2003 10:23 AM
A metaphor or scene I often envisage when I think about blogging and the new forms social interaction it permits, is a scene from the Steve Martin classic, The Man With Two Brains.

In particular, the scene in the movie where Steve Martin's character, the fantastically named Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr, finds himself inside a laboratory where the brains of several deceased people sit suspended in fluid filled jars, connected to life support systems to keep the brains alive. In the movie Martin discovers that he can actually converse with the brains, the 'people' inside them don't realise that they're actually dead, if my memory serves me, instead they think that it just happens to be very dark in the room they think they are sitting in. Martin meets and falls in love with one of the brains, a female brain voiced by Sissy Spacek, and then decides to rescue her from the lab. See the movie, it's a classic.

But this particular scene perfectly describes for me the non-physical, disconnected nature of blogging as a social phenomenon, just brains sitting around talking to other brains. Blogging enables us to patch directly into each other's brains in an unconventional way that, whilst having much in common with that plain old form of social interaction otherwise known as reading & writing, blogging increases the frequency of communication and adds a much more flexible dynamism to enable a form of interaction more akin to regular conversation between people in the same room, but conversation unencumbered by physical appeal or revulsion, body language, accent, race or sex..

The question is, as bloggers, is the thing which drives us to blogging actually an intellectual desire or need to be with and to connect with people of similar lonely brain dispositions? Instead of the short-form lonely hearts adverts, where BMW driving SWM's search out FLF's with a GSOH and affected short term interests in the arts, good food and the interminable works of John Grisham, blogging is a long-form and grey-matter cousin where like-minded people with lonely brains, seek each other out and relate on new, Web enabled socio-intellectual terms.

There is the chance that we all suffer from the same kind of longing, a need to connect with our intellectual peers in ways our offline relationships either don't currently satisfy or cannot provide because of geography or other physical impediment. I have 'conversations' with people through blogging that my wife, my soul-mate, knows absolutely nothing about. That's not to say that we don't connect intellectually, it's just that other real-life stuff gets in the way and anyway, she'd eventually bore of listening to me droning on and on about using websites as impromptu torches. After all as bloggers it's not like we're making love, just having sex, speaking blogaphorically of course.

But am I being unfaithful in a different sense of the word? Am I playing away from home by taking part in blogging? I've only met a three other bloggers in real life, Chris Locke, Halley Suitt and Euan Semple, and I suppose in this equation that would be like consummating the bloggage? In fact, I vaguely recall it being almost as much fun.

Snap Adds Brains, Speed To Portfolio
(TechWeb)

Snap Adds Brains, Speed To Portfolio
(TechWeb) 08/03/2004 04:07 AM
TechWeb - Synchronization and iSCSI software round out Snap's storage offerings, along with a midrange storage appliance with as much as 30 terabytes of capacity.

Patients play computer games using only
the signals from their brains

Patients play computer games using only
the signals from their brains 06/10/2004 04:43 AM
Medical Science News Jun 10 2004 9:21AM GMT
Grok Description matches for Mmm, brains.
GrokA matches for Mmm, brains.

Mmm, brains.