retrospectacle
Posts by this author
February 4, 2008
Along with Shelley, I am a graduate student in the Neuroscience Program at UM. The last three years my friends and I have made a trilogy of satirical neuroscience posters (see the first one here) poking mild fun at the mystical art of brain science. Also in any spare time remaining I have punished…
February 3, 2008
Oh. my. goodness. This ode to the PCR ("When you need to find out who's your daddy") is just about the most hilarious thing I've ever seen. Ever. Kudos BioRad, I salute you! (Hat tip John PIBS)
Who ever said that conducting public psychology experiments required pants? Thats right. None. (Hat tip…
February 2, 2008
The contest to name that blog is closed, and Steve and I are perusing the many entries now. Stay tuned for the big announcement!
January 31, 2008
Just a quick reminder that Friday (tomorrow) is the last day to submit the potentially prize-winning entry to name the brand new blog that Steve and I are starting quite soon. Read more about the prizes here, and leave your ideas in the comments here or in the other post. Don't you want to receive…
January 31, 2008
Brenden Maher at Nature emailed me this morning to clue me in on an anonymous survey that their editors are doing on the topic of cognitive enhancers (a spawn of the commentary piece on the same subject a few weeks back.)
If you'd like to take the survey, check it out here.
January 31, 2008
The following is a guest post by Joshua Hartshorne at the Cognition and Language Lab.
The first scientific paper I wrote states, in the second paragraph, that "language depends on two mental capacities with distinct neurocognitive underpinnings": vocabulary and grammar. To understand cats are…
January 30, 2008
I'm already so excited to read and review this!
Irene Pepperberg's memoir, tentatively titled "Alex and Me," covers her 30 years with the parrot that could count to six, identify colors and even express frustration with repetitive scientific trials. It will be released this fall by Collins, an…
January 30, 2008
Cochlear implants are true cyborg technology. They stimulate the auditory nerve of deaf individuals to allow them to interact with the sounds of the world again--although those new sounds are at first alien and foreign. A few months back I posted here about Michael Chorost, a science writer and…
January 29, 2008
People, I need to say this. Its never a good idea to stick things--including Q-tips--in your ears. Despite the illusion of 'cleaning' your ear canal, often Q-tips just shove the ear wax further into the canal, or worse, can cause permanent damage by rupturing an eardrum. However, I had no idea that…
January 29, 2008
Wouldn't it be great if there was some magical institution which mapped out the developmental expression of mouse genes, and then made it freely available on the internet? And wouldn't it be cool if all that data was compiled in an easily-searchable database that was being constantly updated with…
January 27, 2008
My time here at Retrospectacle has been glorious, magnificent, awesome! However, I have decided to end things here and start a brand-spankin'-new blog (yes, here at ScienceBlogs) with Steve Higgins from Omnibrain as a co-blogger. I'm in my final grad year and felt that having a coblogger might…
January 26, 2008
At Cracked.com I came across a fantasticly irreverent article about the five most horrifying insects in nature, including the bullet ant, the Japanese giant hornet, and of course, the botfly.
There are dozens of varieties of Bot Fly, they're each highly adapted to target a specific animal, they…
January 24, 2008
Every now and then I do a Google News Search for topics I'm interested in to get good blog fodder ('neuroscience' and 'parrots' are of course perennial favorites). This time one of those searches popped up an interesting news piece in The Hindu newspaper which really resonated with me, tagged with…
January 24, 2008
Exotic bird smuggling is a pet issue of mine, not only since it decimates wild populations of parrots, but because it creates a demand for cheaper black market birds without a proper 'history of origins.' While it is up to the consumer (potential bird companion) to be diligent in determining where…
January 17, 2008
The plague was unbelievably deadly and disastrous in Europe during the 1300-1700s, but it is somewhat more surprising that the plague still claims a number of lives across the modern world. Even more surprising is that the number of cases has been slightly rising over the past few decades.
In the…
January 16, 2008
When I was a senior in high school in South Carolina, I had a particularly smart and talented English teacher--the same my junior and senior years. I remember that the summer before my senior year, this teacher required all of us to memorize 50 lines of poetry over the summer, to be recited on the…
January 16, 2008
In my grief over the result of the Michigan primary, I almost forgot to post a link to the current edition of the medical-blogging carnival 'Grand Rounds' which is over at Sharp Brains now. The appropriate theme is 'Briefing the Next US President,' with some choice blogposts included that would…
January 16, 2008
Ok, I lied. There is no neuroscience of badgers. I just wanted to post this awesome video from an animal rescue facility in England, who reared an abandoned otter cub with a group of motherless baby badgers for companionship. Once the otter and badgers were grown, they were seperated so they could…
January 16, 2008
There's a new way to gauge your importance on the 'Net, a little app in beta stage called QDOS. The forumula used to compile your QDOS number (which made me think of Erdos number) is a propriatary blend of Myspace, Facebook, activity, searches, popularity, blogging, online buying, chatting, and…
January 16, 2008
Are you too poor to afford an exotic beach vacation in the dead of this frigid winter? Now, with the "Noisy Instrument" (pictured below) you can bring the sounds of the ocean to your sad, depressed little ear canals while simultaneously looking like your hearing aid ran amok.
Well, actually you…
January 15, 2008
PZ Myers, despite being at a large Midwestern state school, has decided to pick on my current academic home, the University of Michigan. Why, you ask? Well, yes, a few students are doing something rather silly.
Engineering senior Israel Vicars didn't think it was a coincidence when he walked by a…
January 15, 2008
Hydrocephalus, sometimes called "water on the brain," is a condition where cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) accumulates in the ventricles of the brain. This causes the expansion of the ventricles which displaces the brain, sometimes causing brain damage due to the intracranial pressure. The condition…
January 14, 2008
Its sad serendipity that I found out that an Arizona-based biologist working for the National Park Service, named Eric York, likely died of plague a few months ago. Fatalities due to modern-day plague (caused by the bacteria Y. pestis) are extremely rare, especially in America. I'm not even sure…
January 14, 2008
I came across a Russian blog purporting to have photo evidence of an abandoned Soviet-era neuroscience lab outside Moscow, left in a real hurry for unknown reasons. I thought it might be a hoax or exaggeration, but after looking at the photos posted to the blog, even if it wasn't exactly true, the…
January 13, 2008
I just couldn't resist posting this, silly as it is.
Intruders smashed the front window of Pet Palace in Leominster, about 45 miles west of Boston, and as they entered the store the bird began to shout, said store manager Lori Oltman on Thursday.
"When he hears someone come into the building, or…
January 13, 2008
After much gnashing of teeth, I finally updated my blogroll. Sadly, I realized I hadn't done this in almost a year and many of the links were old and no longer around. So, I pruned those out and put in a bevy of shiny new informatorial chestnuts for your browsing pleasure! Enjoy!
(And feel free to…
January 13, 2008
Although I don't care much about money, I do regret that having none means that buying beautiful works of art is something that I cannot do. I occasionally post here about interesting science/naturalism-inspired art, and a new artist I wanted to highlight is Richard Kirk. A friend of mine showed me…
January 12, 2008
CES, or the Consumer Electronics Show, is a trade show held in Las Vegas where new products are announced and demonstrated to the press. This year's CES just ended January 10th, and it looks like there was a small scandal that occurred. Gizmodo, a popular tech/gadget blog owned by Gawker media,…
January 11, 2008
Just when I thought I had the LOLParrot market cornered, someone at I Can Has Cheezburger posts this awesome (and atheist) budgie giving the Great Big Kitteh in the Sky the proverbial smackdown (or wing-down?). Happiness chirp goes to Jake, who sent me this!
Check it out under the fold.
(thanks for…
January 11, 2008
This is a continuation of the first part in a series about what caused the Black Death in 12th-17th century Europe, and part of Plague Week here at Retro, which is looking like it might become Plague Fortnight.
The first appearance of the Black Death in Europe was sometime in the 14th century,…