retrospectacle | March 13, 2007Ok, I'm updating 'da roll tonight, so if you want me to check out your site for link-worthiness leave it in the comments!
retrospectacle | March 13, 2007 Neuroscience has a long and sordid history with anesthetic chemicals. Take curare (d-Tubocurarine) for example. Better known as a South American "dart poison," curare causes paralysis but not loss of consciousness. However, this chemical was used during the early 1900s as a surgical anesthetic for women and children until the 1940s when it was recognized as merely a paralytic. Its quite chilling to think of the numerous surgeries which were performed on completely conscious individuals who were paralyzed but unanestisized. Later procedures mixed muscle relaxants with an anesthetic, and…
retrospectacle | March 12, 2007So I got this comment on my post about the "Video Game Mind Control" aka the EEG headset made by Emotiv. Thought I would post is to get a bit more visibility.
Hi guys,
I work at Emotiv and stumbled upon this site by chance.
As you guys seem to have the most knowledge in this area compared to other forums, I can tell you the following:
1. It is an EEG system (new technology that required no gel)
2. It's developed based on the latest breakthoughs in neuroscience. Emotiv has developed a highly sophisicated algorithm (patent pending) to "unfold the cortex" (which individualized across peopl like…
retrospectacle | March 11, 2007I can't believe some of the stuff that Presidential hopefuls have to endure. Barack Obama is currently involved in a lawsuit with a self-professed pedophile over pictures of his kids.
It's enough to make any father lash out in anger. A self-professed pedophile posts photos of your young daughters on his Web site, where he describes them as an "angelic duo."
It happened to Senator Barack Obama whose presidential campaign threatened legal action against Lindsay Ashford, a self-professed pedophile who handicapped the 2008 campaign by judging the "cuteness" of several presidential candidates'…
retrospectacle | March 9, 2007As I've mentioned before, my research and my lab focuses on the delivery of genes to the inner ear to repair or reverse deafness. One potential method for getting these genes into surviving cells is to insert them into a modified virus which infects the healthy inner ear cells. Following infection, the cells produce the protein of interest instead of more virus. However, this method's strength is in proof of concept rather than a direct therapy.
However, a group at Emory has devised yet another way to treat genetic deafness: compensating for a missing protein. A common cause of genetic…
retrospectacle | March 9, 2007Yep, PZ's half a century old today, so go wish the old coot some birthday cheer. Mmmmmmmm fried squid.......
retrospectacle | March 8, 2007 I think I've just uncovered the saddest thing in the world: a panda who's lost a limb and now has problems socializing. Cruel, cruel discriminative pandas. Why won't you let Niu Niu in on your panda games? Admittedly, the loss of 2/3 of her limb (in a fight) has resulted in balance problems that might be perceived as less that attractive. But still, someone should tell those pandas that picking on the handicapped is *not cool.*
However, Chinese researchers are soliciting for kind-hearted engineers to design poor Niu Niu an artificial limb.
"Niu Niu's spirits have lifted, the wound has healed…
retrospectacle | March 8, 2007Bob Abu sent me this really amazing website on inner ear biology and morphology. Its got some really impressive SEM pictures and very informative descriptions of the anatomy of the cochlea. I'd suggest checking it out.
Cross-section of the sensory portion of the cochlea (the organ of Corti.)
retrospectacle | March 8, 2007Every gamer's wet dream---controlling the game with your mind---may soon be a reality.
Made by Emotiv, its called Project Epoc, and will be demo'd at the Game Developer's Conference this week. This wireless headset if fitted with sensors which, I only guess, can detect changes in blood flow in brain regions. That seems like it would be ridiculously expensive, though. [Edit: Actually it uses EEGs!]
It is connected to different game platforms (from consoles to PCs) wirelessly, enabling gamers to control and influence a game purely by the power of the mind alone. This means even the disabled…
retrospectacle | March 7, 2007The time has come for blogroll updating! Yes, time to clean out the old links and put in some shiny new ones.
Want a link?
Leave it in the comments! (No promises, but I do promise to take a look!)
Forward to your bloggy friends. :)
retrospectacle | March 7, 2007In a recent head-to-head test of four fad diets, apparently the Atkins diet resulted in the participants losing the most weight. The Atkins diet relies on the elimination of carbs in your diet, and encourages intake of protein and fats instead. However, there's more to the story:
Women on the low-carb Atkins diet lost more weight than those on three other popular plans, but the dieters on all four programs dropped only modest amounts of weight and regained some of it within a year, a new study shows.
Women ages 20 to 50 lost an average of 10.4 pounds on Atkins during a year-long period,…
retrospectacle | March 6, 2007
Water is water....unless its holy water, of course! I'm not quite sure what's special about this gimmicky beverage, except its from Canada and might raise my eyebrows slightly more than Aquafina or Evian. I'm pretty sure this water isn't any holier than Detroit's finest tap water.
Uh oh, looks like THOSE holy water sellers have competition from THESE holy water sellers. In fact these guys think their water will save you from sin. (Not really, its a joke.......) When I tried to place an order, they gave me a confirmation number and said my order would be filled through omnipotence.
I wonder…
retrospectacle | March 6, 2007Ladies and gentlemen, the fat lady has sung.
A federal jury today found Lewis "Scooter" Libby guilty on four counts.
Libby was convicted of:
1. obstruction of justice when he intentionally deceived a grand jury investigating the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame;
2. making a false statement by intentionally lying to FBI agents about a conversation with NBC newsman Tim Russert;
3. perjury when he lied in court about his conversation with Russert;
4. a second count of perjury when he lied in court about conversations with other reporters.
He faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison…
retrospectacle | March 5, 2007 That vile woman just doesn't know when to quit. A lot of mudslinging is tolerated in political banter, but you really have to have some god-awful dirty mud when even your own party denounces you as the bigoted banshee you are. For those of you who aren't familiar with her most recent foray into stupidity, here's what she said about Democratic candidate John Edwards during a speech at last week's Conservative Political Action Conference.
"I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards," Coulter said, "but it turns out you have to go into rehab…
retrospectacle | March 5, 2007Seems that ScienceBlogs was down for about an hour or so......strange. This has been happening with some semi-regular frequency the past few months, which makes me wonder who we've pissed off this time. Anyway, the tech guys have informed us that there's a major upgrade in the pipeline which should nip this kind of thing in the bud, to quote Barney Fife.
retrospectacle | March 5, 2007Walking around the gym, watching all those people spinning or walking or treading or ellipsing....wouldn't it make good sense to harness all that rat-race energy as power? Could you imagine getting a free gym membership for spending a certain amount of time on power-generating machines? Well, seems plausible enough, and may actually be coming to A Gym Near You.
The California Fitness club in Hong Kong is among the first to jump on the green energy treadmill -- stairmaster and cross-training machines at the gym have been wired up to the building's lighting system. If other gyms follow suit, it…
retrospectacle | March 4, 2007Weird things meme, as seen on Adventure in Science and Ethics:
(continued under the fold.......)
1. I hate John Mayer with the fire of a thousand suns and the depth of a million oceans. This hatred has recently come to encompass the whole flaccid genre, including, but not limited to, Belle and Sebastian, Jack Johnson, and Deathcab for Cutie.
2. Sushi is my favorite food, especially tobiko. I love it so much that I recently remarked that I wished I could swim around in it, like the in balls at Chuck E Cheese, while shovelling down whole mouthfuls.
3. I've won every sports pool I've ever…
retrospectacle | March 2, 2007Remember when I asked if evil, evil You Tube was really so evil for broadcasting copyrighted material? Well the kerfuffle was over Viacom pulling their content off YouTube and putting it on rising-star video thingy Joost. I was looking at this new-fangled Joost thing, and it *seems* to be TV through the internet, and they are asking for Beta testers. Well, of course I signed up!
So my questions are these: Someone give me the run-down on this Joost thing (the site FAQ are crappy). And, second, are there any current Joost beta testers out there? Third, if you are a beta tester, give me a token…