katie glasrud
Posts by this author
December 10, 2007
WARNING. What follows is a a bit of a rant. Worse, it's an undergraduate rant. If awkward phrases, fallacious arguments and poor grammar offends you, I would suggest skipping this post.
It could be that I'm seeing the world through cobalt-colored glasses-- it is winter in MN and very cold and dark…
December 8, 2007
My fish have (theoretically) been sleep deprived for three days. I can't tell much of a difference. If anything they seem more active than the other fish, but they do have to constantly outswim a rotating ruler and their tank is pretty small. There is also a bright lamp on a timer that turns on and…
December 6, 2007
We, the students of BIOL 4003: Neurobiology have a proposal. We will clean your lab for extra credit. Think about it. That tank with the yellow stagnant water and other unidentifiable bits of matter? GONE. Those countless bottles of fruit fly carcasses? Sparkling clean and ready for next semester's…
December 3, 2007
Well... it's about that time. You know, the end of the semester where you start every project you've had the semester to complete. At least that's what I'm doing. I finally made some headway on my Neuro project during the past few weeks. I'm sleep depriving zebrafish; I had planned to devise a…
November 27, 2007
I spent a summer working on an Arabian horse ranch when i was 17. I loved that place and am crazy about Arabians but... let's face it. We've severely inbred horses for show. Exhibit A:
It's not uncommon for an Arabian pedigree to boast seven lines of relation to…
November 19, 2007
For this week's in-class "NeuroSlam" I spoke about a paper on mirror-touch synesthesia-- a condition in which an individual reports feeling an actual tactile sensation in response to seeing someone else touched. For example, this synesthete would feel as if someone touched their arm if they saw…
November 13, 2007
I once overheard an interesting confession from a friend of a friend. This guy had been drinking and was admitting to his buddy that he just wanted to get into a fight, punch the next person that walked through the door, stir things up. That sort of thing. I complained to my companion that it was…
November 1, 2007
Tomorrow is the big day. Much to my liver's dismay, I'm turning 21, so I thought it would be appropriate to discuss the effects on alcohol on the brain in this post.
I searched through article databases reading abstracts about how alcohol shrinks the brain, depletes white mater, inhibits growth of…
October 28, 2007
A friend of mine has a badger preoccupation. It was his expertise I consulted for last week's blurb on badger culling. Between speaking with him and trying to plan a mad dash to Madison for its famous Halloween party, I've had badgers on the brain all week, so for this week's post, I decided to…
October 21, 2007
... well not today. I learned very little today , but generally, here are some interesting things I've picked up in class:
-If you sever a cat's cerbral cortex from its hindbrain it can still walk on a treadmill (in a harness that compensates for the poor feline's lack of balance). This was the…
October 13, 2007
I read an interesting article in the New Yorker the other day. It followed the research of neuroscientist Adrian Owen and his work on patients in vegetative states. In some patients, when he gave the verbal command to "imagine you are playing tennis," their brain regions lit up on an fMRI…
October 7, 2007
I have some thoughts on the topic of male and female dominance brought up by Blue_Expo.
In fact, it was the topic of a paper for my Evolution of Human Aggression class...
Females are under some different sexual selection pressures than males stemming from the fact that they are the limited sex.…
October 4, 2007
As I pondered what to post about on Pharyngula this week my thoughts immediately turned to football *wink* ...which got me thinking spinal cord injuries (and no... not in the context of malice toward Drew Brees), which got me thinking of last year's Distinguished Alumni speaker, physiatrist (and…
September 25, 2007
Dear Drew Brees,
As your fantasy football owner and a concerned fan, I respectfully request that you stop sucking. Your very manhood may depend on it. According to evolutionary psychologist David M, Buss, it is a well-documented phenomenon that testosterone levels in males fluctuate with the…
September 14, 2007
... like a lamb to the slaughter.
I guess I'm one of the last of PZ's sacrificial students. As you may have gathered from my clever alias my name is Katie and I'm a senior biology major. I've actually known PZ for a number of years--I'm a Morris native and went to high school with his son, Connlann…