purepedantry
Posts by this author
November 24, 2006
Mind Hacks has an interesting bit on the personal side of BF Skinner, the primary proponent of a psychological school called behaviorism.
The NYTimes has an interesting article on synaesthesia, a syndrome where you percieve some sensations such as taste through other modalities. They also have an…
November 24, 2006
The Synapse, Issue #12, is being published this weekend at Dr. Deborah Serani's blog. Remember to submit. Details here.
November 24, 2006
If you remember back from when I was at the Society for Neuroscience, I saw a talk by Bruce Appel where he showed videos of oligodendrocytes migrating and myelinating in the zebrafish.
Oligodendrocytes are the myelin forming cell in the central nervous system of vertebrates -- the cells that coat…
November 23, 2006
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
I won't be blogging today, but A Blog Around the Clock and Effect Measure have interesting posts on tryptophan and why turkey makes you sleepy. Enjoy.
November 22, 2006
Dinesh D'Souza, writing in the Christian Science Monitor, defends organized religion from criticism that links it with violence and wars:
- In recent months, a spate of atheist books have argued that religion represents, as "End of Faith" author Sam Harris puts it, "the most potent source of human…
November 21, 2006
I am getting on a plane today, so here is some interesting reading from throughout the web to tide you over til tomorrow:
The Neurophilosopher has a fascinating article on how parasites affect the behavior of their hosts, sometimes even burrowing into their brains -- just like pod people!!!
The…
November 20, 2006
Many people took issue with my post about Milton Friedman's death. Actually I don't think they were taking issue with my post; most of them were taking issue with Milton Friedman's existence. Whatever. Everyone has their own heroes. While I remain puzzled by the vast distaste directed at…
November 20, 2006
Not cool, Egypt:
Police in Cairo have detained a blogger whose posts have been critical of the Egyptian government.
Rami Siyam, who blogs under the name of Ayyoub, was detained along with three friends after leaving the house of a fellow blogger late at night.
No reasons have been given for Mr…
November 20, 2006
Women are more susceptible to Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) even when the type of the stressful event is controlled for:
Males experience more traumatic events on average than do females, yet females are more likely to meet diagnostic criteria for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),…
November 20, 2006
Encephalon #11 is up at The Mouse Trap. Next Encephalon is on December 4th. Submission details here.
The next Synapse is on December 26th at Dr. Deborah Serani's blog. Submission details here.
November 19, 2006
Relationships -- they are a messy business. These two go out to someone who knows that better than most.
Safe Sex
by Donald Hall
If he and she do not know each other, and feel confident
they will not meet again; if he avoids affectionate words;
if she has grown insensible skin under skin; if…
November 17, 2006
Sounds like the kids I used to babysit:
Panbanisha the bonobo is up to her tricks again.
For the second time in as many months, the ape triggered a fire alarm at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa research center.
The trouble started Wednesday morning, when Panbanisha wanted to go outside but the staff…
November 17, 2006
The most commonly cited causes of the obesity epidemic over the last 30 years are decreases in physical activity and increased consumption of unhealthy foods: the Big Two. For these as causes, we have what can only be described as an overwhelming quantity of evidence.
However, many other causes of…
November 16, 2006
Milton Friedman has passed:
Milton Friedman, the grandmaster of conservative economic theory in the postwar era and a prime force in the movement of nations toward lesser government and greater reliance on free markets and individual responsibility, died today. He was 94 years old.
A spokesman for…
November 16, 2006
I have tried to show that the gender gap in the sciences is not the result of cognitive differences, but that begs the question about what else to which it can be attributed. It could be that it is the result of conscious or unconscious discriminatory behavior. However, it could also be the…
November 15, 2006
I have a lot of friends applying to medical school right now (the saddest part is that they are likely to finish before me). In honor of the medical school secondary essay -- a veritable autobiography in most cases, here is a poem by Lisel Mueller. Enjoy.
Curriculum Vitae
by Lisel Mueller
1992
1…
November 15, 2006
On The Colbert Report last night, Stephen Colbert talked about an article about uterine transplants for The Word. Scientists now claim that there is nothing technically to prevent us from performing a womb transplant, even to the point that you could put a uterus in a man:
Scientists claim that…
November 15, 2006
The answer is that it increases lymphocyte motility, helping to fight the infection:
Nobody likes coming down with a fever, but feeling hot may do a body good. Researchers report online 5 November in Nature Immunology that a fever in mice revs up the immune response by helping white blood cells…
November 14, 2006
We're mad as hell, and we are not going to take it anymore:
In recent years, women's health has been a national priority. Pink ribbons warn of breast cancer. Pins shaped like red dresses raise awareness about heart disease. Offices of women's health have sprung up at every level of government to…
November 14, 2006
Saliva, is there anything it can't do?
A new painkilling substance has been discovered that is up to six times more potent than morphine when tested in rats -- and it's produced naturally by the human body. Natural painkillers are very rare, and researchers hope that this recent find might be…
November 13, 2006
The Synapse #11 is up at Developing Intelligence. Next Synapse is on November 26th at Dr. Deborah Serani's blog. Submission details here.
November 13, 2006
I see that Simon Baron-Cohen has a piece in Seed about his theory of autism. I am really skeptical of many of his arguments related to autism, so I thought I would discuss a couple of them. Here is his core argument:
So what has all of this got to do with autism? We know that autism runs in…
November 10, 2006
Click to enlarge:
(The photo references this article.)
November 9, 2006
Here is an audio recording of the oral arguments in the case of Gonzales vs. Carhart (as an mp3).
Gonzales vs. Carhart is a case about the federal partial birth abortion ban:
The Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral arguments on the federal late-term abortion ban, the first major abortion issue…
November 9, 2006
Shelley Batts has this to say about the poor funding situation of late:
At the Society for Neuroscience meeting last month, there was a special symposium regarding the current NIH funding situation that was supposed to be given by the current director of the NIH, Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni. Due to his…
November 8, 2006
I meant to post this early, but the Neurophilosopher has an excellent history of Alois Alzheimer, for whom the disease is named:
On November 25th, 1901, a 51-year-old woman named Auguste Deter (below right) was admitted to the hospital, and was examined by Alzheimer. Deter at first presented with…
November 8, 2006
Suck on that title. Anyway, this is actually an important public health issue. Circumcision cuts your STD risk:
Circumcised males are less likely than their uncircumcised peers to acquire a sexually transmitted infection, the findings of a 25-year study suggest.
According to the report in the…
November 7, 2006
Not to have too much levity about electoral irregularities, but this is just funny:
In some areas of Indiana and Ohio, computer problems meant polling stations did not open on time, with voters being turned away, or given paper ballots. In Colorado, voters queued for hours because of technical…
November 7, 2006
Did you know that Sacha Baron Cohen, star of the Borat movie, and Simon Baron Cohen, a prominent autism scientist, are related? I didn't. They are cousins.
Baron Cohen, 35, rarely gives interviews out of character. He guards his privacy so fiercely that, according to the U.K. press, his…