Jonah Lehrer is an editor at large for Seed Magazine. His first book is Proust Was A Neuroscientist. Buy it here.
May 12, 2008
The tragedies are so vast they are incomprehensible: thousands are dead after a powerful earthquake in China while up to half a million people in Myanmar may die as a result of post-cyclone epidemics. How does the mind grapple with...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 12:55 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 9, 2008
Sorry about the light posting - I've been traveling. As far as I'm concerned, the best thing about air-travel (besides the safety aspect) is that I get to read novels. For some reason, I've decided that I can't work or...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 12:02 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 7, 2008
Over at Mind Matters, my other site, we just posted a rather interesting article on the ways in which ordinary cell phones can alter your patterns of brain activity, and even interfere with sleep. Here's Doug Fields: Hospitals and airplanes...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 9:14 AM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 6, 2008
British papers are fun. The Daily Mail recently ran a deliciously nasty article on hippy-crites, those pious celebrities (like John Travolta, Chris Martin and Brangelina) who talk endlessly about global warming and yet still fly in lots of private jets....
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 2:25 PM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
In recent years, there has been lots of speculation on the potential intersection of neuroscience and the legal system. Will brain imaging became a fool-proof lie detector? Are some violent offenders suffering from a defective emotional brain that's beyond their...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 9:56 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 5, 2008
The Times recently had an article on the booming business of brain fitness: Decaying brains, or the fear thereof, have inspired a mini-industry of brain health products -- not just supplements like coenzyme Q10, ginseng and bacopa, but computer-based fitter-brain...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 1:33 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
It is, perhaps, the most nightmarish of neurological conditions: when the brain stem is selectively injured, a person can be perfectly self-aware and yet completely paralyzed, so that they lose control of virtually all voluntary muscles. The technical name of...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:59 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 4, 2008
I completely agree with the sentiments voiced in this column, by William Rhoden: Why do we keep giving thoroughbred horse racing a pass? Is it the tradition? The millions upon millions invested in the betting? Why isn't there more pressure...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 3:15 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 2, 2008
Razib has some thought-provoking, if incorrect, speculations on literature, literary audiences and modernity: Here's the argument: contemporary mainstream fiction is very different from the storytelling of the deep past because of a demand side shift. Women consume most fiction today,...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:59 AM • 22 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 1, 2008
Now that the boomers are entering their sixties, the problem of age-related cognitive decline is going to become a serious mental health issue. The aged brain often suffers from a bevy of symptoms, from memory loss to problems with concentration....
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 11:39 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
