Official Comment Count: 1,027,550
August 27, 2008
Category: History of neuroscience
Wilder Penfield (1891-1976) The patient lies on the operating table, with the right side of his body raised slightly. The anaesthetist sterilizes his scalp and injects it with Nupercaine to produce analgesia - the patient will remain fully conscious...
Posted by Mo at 5:30 PM • 10 Comments •
Category: Art
At Bioephemera, Jessica has a fascinating post about depictions of madness in 15th-17th century art, during which time mental illness was popularly attributed to the presence of a "stone of madness" (or "stone of folly") in the head. One...
Posted by Mo at 4:59 PM • 1 Comments •
August 26, 2008
Category: Medicine & Health
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has dementia.In her forthcoming book, which is serialized in the Mail on Sunday (a paper which, I hasten to add, I do not read), Carol Thatcher reveals that her mother's mental faculties have been...
Posted by Mo at 2:50 PM • 11 Comments •
Category: Blogging
In an effort to get you, my readers, to actively participate in this blog, and also because some of you have been so generous in the past, I've decided to offer prizes to those of you who leave comments. I...
Posted by Mo at 2:27 PM • 10 Comments •
August 24, 2008
Category: Medicine & Health
The BBC has produced an interesting series called Blood and Guts about the modern history of surgery and the first episode, which is about neurosurgery, is now available online at the BBC iPlayer website. (For those outside the U.K., it...
Posted by Mo at 4:22 PM • 4 Comments •
Category: Music
Here's some awesome footage of the one and only Jimi Hendrix performing at Woodstock. At around 11 minutes in, he plays the guitar with his teeth. Yes...with his teeth. And it still sounds great. Some of the hippies at...
Posted by Mo at 3:29 PM • 13 Comments •
August 23, 2008
Category: Animal Behaviour
Nearly 70 years ago, Karl von Frisch described the alarm response in a species of small freshwater fish called the European minnow (Phoxinus phoxinus). Frisch, who was one of the founders ethology - the scientific study of animal behaviour -...
Posted by Mo at 8:50 PM • 8 Comments •
Category: Academia
Clay rendered three-dimensional model of the UCL campus, created by Andrew Hudson-Smith of the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, using SketchUp and 3DMax. Nature News reports that UCL will host a centre of excellence for neuroscience research:University College London (UCL)...
Posted by Mo at 4:50 PM • 5 Comments •
Category: Medicine & Health
Stroke can be extremely debilitating, but if the damage is not too severe, and appropriate rehabilitation is administered, the brain can reorganize itself to compensate for the loss of function. This reorganization can occur because the brain remains 'plastic' throughout...
Posted by Mo at 1:30 AM • 1 Comments •
August 22, 2008
Category: Medicine & Health
Harvey Cushing (1869-1939) is considered to be the father of modern neurological surgery. In the early part of the 20th century, he developed basic techniques and instruments for operating on the brain and, as a result, founded the discipline as...
Posted by Mo at 6:30 PM • 6 Comments •
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