Yale

For those of us who can't make it out to Yale--a post about Girl Talk, please?

I will hopefully be at Yale next year for grad school (if they accept me), but that's beside the point...

A highly recommended event even if you've read the book. After hearing Jonah in Baltimore I was inspired to rework my tofurkey recipe for Thanksgiving by adding MSG in the form of marmite and vegetable bouillon cubes to the tofu paste which also contained arrowroot powder and agar flakes for thickening and jelling of juices, and the usual poultry herb blend. The 'bird' was stuffed with a cornbread dressing and basted with butter and marmite (to be truly vegan, use a vegetable oil instead of butter). The result looked, felt, and tasted like an oven roasted turkey complete with browned 'skin'. Thank you Jonah!

If you are not careful, you could wind up on The Simpsons - with all the other Evil Elitest Eli's...

Let us know when you come back to reality, the Midwest and Northwestern.

Sam: Girl Talk is a scientist, Greg Gillis, who makes wonderful remixes of other songs, differently than House , Euro-Dance, or Rave genres of music. All of this is likely not in compliance with the various copyright laws for the music industry. If this guy was running our big three automakers, we'd have an interesting product line.

Jonah--do you have any thoughts on Kanye West's new album?

Do you know how large the room will be? I'd be coming from about 45 minutes away and need to know if it's necessary to get there early to get in.

Girl Talk and Neuroscience! It's like sea salt and expensive olive oil drizzled over vanilla ice cream--things that should never go together but end up being so delicious.
Jonah, please don't leave your faithful blog readers that can't make it out of the loop on this genius association!

Mike, I will be going to the talk and have been to the room before. It is a smaller conference style room (seats about 30 around a table). Since it's in the school of medicine, people probably won't arrive until close to 5... so it can't hurt to show up 10 or 15 minutes early. I would doubt you need to show up any earlier than that.

Ummm...Jonah drew 230 people in Baltimore to an art museum auditorium. Surely Yale will be supplying a bigger space than a room that seats 30.

The program through which Jonah is giving his talk comprises a small group of professors that are interested in the junction of arts and humanities. The only reason I heard about the talk was because my graduate adviser spoke at the seminar series two weeks ago. This particular lecture series is available to anyone but not advertised to the community, which is a real shame...

But just in case I'm wrong, perhaps Mike (and I) should show up a little earlier!

Nice having you in New Haven, Jonah. Looking forward to hearing what you thought of the talk and the questions you received afterward. Were they typical post-talk questions or did the old boys and gals of Yale offer a more 'classical' view?In any case, you tackle some pretty big questions in science and philosophy. Looking forward to your future work.

Jonah: I was at your Yale talk (thanks for signing my book). Great talk, very stimulating and mind expanding, but I couldn't help being taken aback by the jarring juxtaposition of your talk and the first question from the audience at this paragon of Biomedicine, which was, "Why didn't you go to medical school?" Good grief, what a question, but I suppose it was to be expected. You were so polite by saying you shouldn't be trusted to operate on people when you could have said something quite different. I look forward to reading your soon-be-released book.

It was a very nice talk... interesting, insightful, and humorous. I had to rush out of there or I would have stopped to ask this question -- are there any studies that have demonstrated the developmental plasticity of the auditory cortex? I know you mentioned the point at which we become less receptive to new music, but I wondered if anyone has done the biological work behind that observation

Also, just a comment - it's interesting to contrast different kinds of plasticity. It is true that new tastes become more tolerable and new sounds ( or words, experiences or habits) become less tolerable as we age?

J Russell I can't help but be very amused by your comment:
>"Why didn't you go to medical school?" Good grief, what a question

You ought to have heard this same person query the last speaker. It started at rude and ended at completely inappropriate.

Being a member of the biomedical community at Yale myself, I do hope that this particular person will not be regarded as the "paragon of Biomedicine" at Yale. Perhaps instead this person could be seen as an example of misguided enthusiasm.

I agree with many of the points, just a few have to be mentioned additional, I'll keep a little talk with my own lovers and perhaps I'll try to find an individual a few recommendation soon.