neurontic
Posts by this author
February 18, 2007
There are two kinds of silly science, folks. There's good silly science, exemplified this week by three high school kids who got together and decided the best way to fulfill their AP Psychology requirement was to rejigger a Britney Spears' video so it looked like she was singing a ballad about the…
February 16, 2007
Recently I discovered that my therapist is taking an anti-depressant for depression. I also suffer from chronic depression and understand that, if properly treated, depression doesn't jeopardize the ability to do one's job. (I, for one, am successful despite my condition.) But since my discovery, I…
February 12, 2007
*Scientists inaugurate new mental health condition so vague it applies to everyone over the age of 12, Dysphoric Social Attention Consumption Deficit Anxiety Disorder. The hallmarks of the condition include "worrying about life, feeling tense, restless, or fatigued, being concerned about their…
February 12, 2007
My last semester at NYU, I had the opportunity to take a class with Steven Johnson. Just to set the record straight for those of you who've only encountered his name on Gawker, Johnson was a fabulous teacher and looks nothing at all like Steve Buscemi. (Having always had kind of a thing for Buscemi…
February 2, 2007
I'm a big fan of YouTube. Any medium that facilitates the sharing of my favorite commercials (see Burger King Chicken Fries and Citreon C4 Transformer) and allows me to watch Michel Gondry solve a Rubik's Cube with his feet is OK by me. That said, it's rare to stumble on a YouTube offering that…
January 30, 2007
I'm a day late to the party, but I wanted to draw your attention to the latest edition of Encephalon, which is being hosted by the folks at Sharp Brains. I was particularly intrigued by The Neurophilosopher's review of Jonathan Moreno's book Mind Wars, which apparently includes evidence that "the…
January 28, 2007
This week in Silly Science:
*Attractive young psychology professor is stunned to discover that "it sucks to be rejected based on how you look."
Three new studies spearheaded by University of Buffalo Assistant Professor Lora Park provide the "first known evidence that some people anxiously expect…
January 19, 2007
I was so struck by Adam Penenberg's recent article in Fast Company that I'm going to break my own rule and direct your attention to a totally non-brain related topic: The future of touch screens.
I'm no technofetishist, but even I was blown away by the revolutionary touch screen technology being…
January 16, 2007
Thanks to the herculean efforts of A Blog Around the Clock's tireless Bora Zivkovic, the newly-minted Science Blogging Anthology, The Open Laboratory, is now available for purchase!
Featuring 50 stellar science posts from 2006, The Open Laboratory's contributors range from Carl Zimmer of The Loom…
January 11, 2007
A couple of months ago a friend of mine recommended I pick up Richard Power's new novel The Echo Maker. "It's right up your alley," he said, "It's all about a man suffering from a bizarre brain condition." I added it to my Amazon shopping cart within the hour.
In The Echo Maker, Powers' character…
January 5, 2007
(Information and statistics purloined from The Edge's 2007 World Question )
Violence has declined precipitously over the course of recent human history, says Chris Anderson, curator of the TED Conference. According to the 2005 Human Security Report "the number of armed conflicts in the world [has]…
December 31, 2006
On Wednesday December 14, 2006, my stepfather and friend, Dave Williams, died very suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 61. Unlike many of the people who've been memorialized on ScienceBlogs, Dave was not a celebrity academic or a scientific luminary. His contributions to humanity will not be…
December 15, 2006
Hello All,
Neurontic will be on by hiatus for a brief time because of the holidays. I hope you'll check back soon. In the meantime, might I suggest ransacking the archives? Some of my personal favorites:
* Temple Grandin: On Thinking Like an Animal
* Does Size Really Matter?
* The Introvert…
December 11, 2006
Because I am a sucker for the bizarre case study, I can't help but use The Frontal Cortex's recent entry on false pregnancy as an excuse to share an extreme example of the phenomenon with the readers. In Phantoms In The Brain, V.S. Ramachandran relates a tale set down by Philadelphia physician…
December 10, 2006
Neurontic is thrilled to be one of the newest members of Science Blogs. As you can see, I've gone ahead and stocked up the archives with past entries. I hope those of you who aren't familiar with Neurontic will take some time to go through them and make any comments, corrections, and/or…
December 2, 2006
A Blog Around The Clock recently posted an entry titled, "You Gotta Be Nuts to Vote for Bush!" Normally I'm a huge fan of The Clock, but this post left me feeling a little sick to my stomach. It describes the vague outlines of a study conducted by Christopher Lohse, a master's candidate in social…
November 29, 2006
It's going to be a few days before the next "Big Question" post. In the meantime, I thought I'd let the scientific luminaries speak for themselves:
The New Scientist has asked top scientists from a variety of fields to "forecast the future." I was particularly struck by Oliver Sacks' and Antonio…
November 26, 2006
I need to preface this entry by saying two things. First, I'm no quantum physicist. This is intended to be an introduction for the lay reader. Readers who are well versed in particle physics will no doubt be alarmed by my reductionism. So be it. You have to start somewhere. I would encourage those…
November 19, 2006
I'm angry with my science teachers. I wish I could track them all down and give them a good tongue-lashing. They allowed me to get all the way through 12th grade believing that science was the domain of left-brainers: People who enjoyed computations and categorizations. People who seemed bent on…
November 16, 2006
The dark days of winter are upon us, folks, and as you know, wintertime has been shown to make many of us SAD. Luckily, experts in a variety of disciplines have been working feverishly to come up with strategies to stave off the blues and enhance happiness. Below, you'll find a sampling of some of…
November 9, 2006
Over the past decade, as Baby Boomers have begun flooding the ranks of the AARP, science has become increasingly focused on discovering the recipe for longevity. Every week, it seems, a new study is published touting the life extending powers of antioxidants, exercise, or sleep.
By and large, the…
October 29, 2006
This just in from the great minds at the University of Central Florida: Laws of physics, math debunk Hollywood portrayals of ghosts, vampires.
Using Isaac Newton's Laws of Motion, [UCF researchers] demonstrated that ghosts would not be able to walk and pass through walls [and] basic math disproves…
October 27, 2006
The Frontal Cortex has an interesting post about a recent study conducted by psychologists at the University of Toronto on the effects of reading fiction. (Full disclosure here: I haven't read the entire study, which was published in the October issue of The Journal of Research in Personality. I…
October 13, 2006
Those who read "Psychedelic Pharmacology" may be interested to learn that Dr. Erika Dyck, a medical professor at the University of Alberta, is trumpeting the benefits of using LSD as a treatment for alcoholism. After surveying past research, Dyck found there was ample evidence to support the idea…
October 10, 2006
I find myself strangely obsessed with tracking the constant shuffle of Google Ads on the site lately. I worry a bit when Neurontic is papered with advertisements for suicide prevention hotlines, bargain-basement antidepressants, and therapy directories, as is the case when I spend too much time…
October 2, 2006
A quick note to let all interested parties know that Repliee Q1expo, the latest thing in android science, is on display at this week's WIRED NEXTFEST in Manhattan.
If anyone out there has time for a fieldtrip, Neurontic would love to hear your impressions. Preliminary reports suggest that she's…
August 20, 2006
I have some experience with depression, mostly mild although I have had a couple periods that could be described as major depressions. I know that my thoughts are intimately connected to my brain chemistry and that paying attention to how I'm thinking can alter my mood. For example, if I catch…
August 20, 2006
A collection of scientific findings that make you go "duh"--or simply "huh?"
It's been a banner week for sociologists people:
Penn State's Beth Montemurro, assistant professor of sociology, has accomplished something no one thought possible: she's turned watching stupid television into a…
August 17, 2006
An estimated 16 percent of the American population will suffer from major depressive disorder at some point during life. The disease strikes down nearly 19 million Americans each year, and it's likely to happen more than once. A whopping 50 percent will experience an encore performance within two…
August 14, 2006
Okay, clearly Neurontic does not attract the carb-averse. Spaghetti was pretty high up on everyone's list. Answers ranged from a respectable '6' to a lip-smacking '10.'
I contacted a few of you to get the specs on your dinners and here's what I learned:
Yez, a reader after my own heart, gave the…