retrospectacle
Posts by this author
August 23, 2007
Yeah so, I like to be silly sometimes. To check out my other LOLParrots, go here and here!
August 23, 2007
Popular legend tells us that during the process of mummification, the ancient Egyptians removed the vital organs, including the brain, and placed some of them in jars. The earliest known mummies date to around 3300 BC in Egypt. During the removal of the brain, the bone behind the nose (the…
August 22, 2007
Before I became interested in hearing research, I thought I was going to spend my career studying Alzheimer's disease (AD), and worked at the Roskamp Institute for Neurodegenerative Disorders at USF. AD is a major enigma in medicine due to the many contributing factors: genetic, lifestyle, and…
August 21, 2007
$4375.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth. From Mingle2 - Free Online DatingMingle2 - Dating Site
Maybe I should have done comparisons of before and after this weekend, and seen how my body depreciated in value. :)
I tag Kevin, Steve, Karmen, and RPM.
August 21, 2007
So the idea was hatched a few months back in our seeeeeeecret SciBlogger back channel, that we really all wanted a vacation and to hang out for hours together in person instead of in the forums. This nebulous idea rapidly crystallized into a time and a place, with a loose schedule draped around…
August 20, 2007
So by now some of you may have heard that SEED threw a nice bash for us ScienceBloggers, and a gaggle of us went up to New York City to do whatever it is that online bloggers do when they get together in real life.
Well, as to the latter, it involved quite a few rounds of shots and then doing…
August 16, 2007
The cochlea is the snail-shaped organ that mammals use to perceive and transduce sound, and is located deep in the inner ear. Hair cells lie on a membrane in the cochlea's interior, and sound waves disperse through the fluid-filled spaces which contact the hair cells (for more on this go here).…
August 15, 2007
A fantastic, and open-access, review paper just came out on the subject of surgical solutions to obesity which answered a lot of my questions regarding this growing area of treatment. Written by Kral and Naslund, who are both professors of surgery, it begins with the terse opener "Obesity is very…
August 12, 2007
[This is part of a series I'm doing here on Retrospectacle called 'Science Vault.' Pretty much I'm just going to dig back into the forgotten and moldering annuls of scientific publications to find weird and interesting studies that very likely would never be published or done today (and perhaps…
August 10, 2007
The post I wrote last week on the neuroscience of ADHD generated a lot of interest and comments, with one of the main questions in the comments being 'what are the testable neurological correlates' of the condition. Joseph of Corpus Callosum has blogged a quite interesting study on the topic (…
August 9, 2007
Cone snail shells are beautiful, but their venom is a potent cocktail used to paralyze passing fish. The venom is a witch's brew of hundreds of novel compounds, many more than are found in snake venom (which has been used by science extensively as well). One compound in particular is a pain killer…
August 8, 2007
If I'm on a date (which believe me, doesn't happen often) I can usually tell how its going by how, and how much, my date is smiling. Is the smile genuine or forced? Polite or flirty? Or worse yet, not smiling at all??
Either way, a lot of emotional content can be found in a person's smile. But wait…
August 6, 2007
If you aren't personally affected by the skin condition rosacea, you might not even know what it is. However, it affects over 45 million people worldwide, mostly fair-skinned people of European descent. At first, it is characterized by blotchy flushing on the face/neck regions, but eventually…
August 4, 2007
As evidenced by the Tour de France's continuing troubles with chemical and blood doping, many professional athletes (but by no means all) are willing to take drastic measures to get an "edge." Blood doping involves strengthening a person's endurance by a blood transfusion. The extra red blood cells…
August 2, 2007
How about some Nintendo underwear?
Continued below the fold....
Think Geek has HttPanties
Trouble getting into those panties?
Keyboard pants?
These have the structure of estrogen..
August 2, 2007
Rebecca O'Connor, graduate student at the University of California- Riverside, knows why parrots screech and bite and it has a lot more to do with human behavior than the bird's. She's written a book incorporating animal-training techniques, detailing how to improve the manners of an ill-mannered…
August 1, 2007
The current issue of Nature has a fascinating study regarding how implanted electrodes helped a minimally-conscious man to regain many cognitive functions lost during a traumatic injury. Patients in a minimally-conscious state only very low and sporadic levels of awareness, and have little chance…
August 1, 2007
There's an interesting article up at CNN today regarding families who have "lost" loved ones in mental institutions over the years. One in particular is making a movie about the little sister he thought was gone.
One day in 1957, when Jeff Daly was 6 years old, his little sister, Molly, disappeared…
July 31, 2007
Its been a while since I updated the Ye Olde Blogroll, and since I've gotten a few email requests for links (good ones, not links to essay writing services) I thought I'd declare open season on links. I'll be updating this weekend, so if you want me to check out your site, leave it in the comments…
July 31, 2007
PhDs are useful for all kinds of things. Some people become faculty, others go into industry, and some decide to market ridiculously nerdtastic neurologically-based gifts via the internet. Sure, the latter kind may be rare, but a good idea is still a good idea. Welcome to Neuromart, online…
July 28, 2007
If you've walked into any large bookstore lately and browsed the "Science" section, you may have been appalled by what passes as science literature these days. In addition to being minuscule (and often sandwiched between the 'Occult' and 'Self-Help' sections), it is often peppered with 'mislabeled…
July 27, 2007
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), currently the most common childhood-onset behavioral disorder, is nothing if not controversial. Nearly every aspect of ADHD from diagnosis to prevalence to medication, and even its mere existence, is disputed by at least one 'concerned' group. And…
July 25, 2007
Everyone has painful or unpleasant memories in their past, and some of us would welcome the chance to forget them forever. Some debilitating disorders, like post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), prey on these memories in ways that are often difficult-to-treat. According to some recent research, a…
July 24, 2007
Yesterday some Big News hit the internet: Diet Sodas Linked With Health Risks (this link courtesy of Reuters Health). Now according to the press release, diet sodas are linked with increased risk for heart disease and diabetes; specifically that adults who drank one or more sodas a day had a 50%…
July 21, 2007
John of Stranger Fruit tagged me in this meme, how could I resist?
Your Score
: SurpriseAdoption Cat20% Affectionate, 57% Excitable, 20% HungryCalloused. Heartless. Exuberant. You carry the heavy burden of informing children that they are adopted by jumping out of their birthday cake. A difficult…
July 20, 2007
I attended a seminar on gene therapy not long ago, and while I never talked much about it at the time, something stuck in my mind as someone interested in the field: is gene therapy a soft form of eugenics? Gene therapy, as referred to by most medical researchers or ethicists would likely be…
July 19, 2007
On my way over to a friend's house last night, an unusual thing happened: a firefly which was in the process of lighting up got squashed against my windshield at that exact moment. While there wasn't much resembling an insect left, smeared across the glass was a streak of glowing green goo which…
July 18, 2007
As you all know, I've been infected with the LOLVirus, symptoms manifesting as LOLParrots. The first three are a tribute to the LOLRus, who has fought nobly for his stolen bucket. Amazingly, across phyla, another poor creature feels his pain.
July 17, 2007
I'm sure I'm not the only Sopranos fan around these parts, and I'm sure I'm not the only person to be a bit baffled by the last episode. It seemed like all lead up and no payoff. True, Tony's big rival and head of the New York mob was, er, dispatched of, but what really seemed resolved in the lives…