retrospectacle | October 16, 2006Yeah, I'm walking around SFN checking out posters and talks, and will likely blog about them later after a bit of a breather. But, somnilista FCD sent me this news blurb about a chocolate igloo and I had to pass it on. This totally reminded me of the chocolate Taj Mahal that Willy Wonka built!
Four Italians have constructed what they believe is the world's first full-sized chocolate igloo but they have yet to solve an age-old problem: It still melts.
"It was a tough thing to do, much more difficult than building a normal snow igloo," Marco Fanti, 45, who used to race cars in desert rallies,…
retrospectacle | October 15, 2006Perhaps the only person more confused by the SFN keynote lecture than I was, by renowned architech Frank Gehry, was Frank Gehry himself. Following in the footstep of the Dalai Lama (last years' speaker in this series), Gehry was this year's speaker in the "Neuroscience and Society" addresses; specifically, his talk was to explore how architecture and neuroscience mesh and reflect each other.
From the program:
Gehry will discuss the ideas and assumptions about how people perceive and interact with architectural spaces that inform his work....he will also discuss architectural elements such…
retrospectacle | October 14, 2006In the spirit of SFN neuro-nerdery, I have a delectable treat for you all: "PaxilBack"!
Put some serotonin in me!
retrospectacle | October 14, 2006PC World reports on a new Ipod nano: a special red nano (no wussie pastels!), and $10 of the purchase price goes to the global fund to fight AIDS in Africa. So, if you were considering buying an Ipod, why not go with the red nano, and do some good?
This product is part of the "Product Red" campaign, which encourages manufacturers to join the charity drive and donate a percent of the products profits to combat AIDS. Check out more products here. Includes a red Razr, a red American Express card, and more.
retrospectacle | October 13, 2006In a new study appearing in the September issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, David Wooten, a professor at Univ of Michigan, explores the impact of adolescent ridicule on consumer behavior and brand consciousness.
Ridicule, he says, helps teach teenagers what brands and styles of clothes and shoes to wear and which ones to avoid--if they want acceptance from their peers. These pressures also play a major role in thefts and violence by teens who covet expensive symbols of belonging, but who cannot afford to buy them.
"Although teaching is seldom the motive of teasers, learning is often…
retrospectacle | October 12, 2006I'm headed to Atlanta, for the Society for Neuroscience meeting. I don't have a poster (just presented one in France!) so I'll just be a tourist. And, hoping to run into a few neuro-bloggers like Evil Monkey, Jake of Pure Pedantry, and the Neurocontrarian.
Here's how the UM Neuroscience PhD students are representing, though. If you're going, check them out.
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Talks
1:00 pm - 4:30 pm Slide 14. Sleep Georgia World Congress Center: Room C301
1:00 pm - 1:15 pm 14.1. Sleep and fatigue during chronic viral infection M. D. OLIVADOTI, M. R. OPP
Posters
2:00 pm - 3:…
retrospectacle | October 11, 2006Gone are the days of endlessly searching for that miraculous toast-burn in the shape of Jesus' bewhiskered visage or the Virgin Mary's devoutly lop-sided head! Glory be to the Zuse, the immaculate conception of a toaster and a printer, which burns black and toast-colored pictures onto (you guessed it!) toast. Might I suggest the most recent bird, Nobel prize winner, or cephalopod as toastly art?
Cult leaders can now print up-lifting messages on their toast to serve with cold, delicious Kool-Aid.
Got a favorite political candidate? Make them the "TOAST" of Washington, DC!
I think this might…
retrospectacle | October 11, 2006A recent (and IMHO, fascinating) study published in the journal Neurology suggests that heavier people score lower on cognitive tests and have a higher risk of dementia later in life than their thinner counterparts.
I go into this post with the full knowledge that perhaps:
a) people will attack me just for drawing attention to this research
b) people will attack the quality of the research
c) people will get pissed at the results
d) people will get pissed at me
e) and various other permutations of people getting their panties in a wad.
That's their right, of course.
HOWEVER, this is my blog…
retrospectacle | October 10, 2006
I must take issue with the 'bird' muffin, although Sylvester might like it.
Fibroblast muffins?
Tinnitus muffins?
What would a Retrospectacle muffin look like?
retrospectacle | October 10, 2006Another new bird, this time a finch, has been discovered in Columbia! Its habitat is a previous-unexplored cloud forest in the Andes. It has been dubbed the Yariguies brush-finch, so named for an indigenous tribe that once inhabited the area. Its discovery is important, insofar that the Columbian government has recently decided to create a national park (of 500 acres) where the bird now resides.
"The bird was discovered in what is the last remnants of cloud forest in that region," Camila Gomez, of the Colombia conservation group ProAves, said on Monday. "There are still lots of undiscovered…
retrospectacle | October 10, 2006PollingPoint.com, a national polling network, has recently published the results of a recent survey on the opinions of Americans on the Iraq war, which were generally negative. 61% believe that "no progress has been made in Iraq and things would have been better without the war," however 82% of Democrats and 24% of Republicans feel this way. 66% of Republicans have a somewhat favorable view of the war, compared to 12% of Democrats. Results are below:
retrospectacle | October 10, 2006A Dutch vaccine developer, Crucell, received a $16 million contract to develop a vaccine for the AIDS virus. The contract was sponsored by the NIH's allergy and infectious disease group, and involves a collaboration with Charles River Labs and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at Harvard.
I hypothesize that the reason that Crucell was chosen was due to their AdVac technology, which uses the same viral vector that I use in my research---an adenovirus. So, it seems that this vaccine may use a competing virus (which is engineered to be helpful and replicate a gene of interest) to combat…
retrospectacle | October 9, 2006The IgNobel Awards are the humorous counterpart to the Nobel Prizes; each year the most bizarre (but real!) research is awarded the dubious honor of an 'IgNobel.'
"The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative -- and spur people's interest in science, medicine and technology," said Marc Abrahams, editor of the science humor magazine "Annals of Improbable Research," which sponsors the awards with the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association and Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Physics Students.
All the research is real and has been published in often-prestigious…
retrospectacle | October 6, 2006It wasn't long, or meaningful, or useful in any way to New College's publicity really, but the words "New College in Sarasota Florida" WERE indeed uttered.
New College is my alma mater, as at a whopping 630-student enrollment, they need all the shout-outs they can get.
The press release is here, and the gist of the mention is below:
The brief mention of New College on Comedy Central's hit show The Colbert Report took place on Thursday night as Colbert interviewed Goodman regarding her new book, Static.
While discussing the war in Iraq and what she sees as growing sentiment on the part of…
retrospectacle | October 6, 2006Recently, an older post I made regarding AIDS in Africa was included in a Feminism carnival. The Body Impolitic saw fit to take my assesment of the situation to task, and I feel the need to respond to what I believe is a gross mis-representation of my post. Specifically, that it was somehow derogatory to people of size.
My post was this:
As more and more women are acquiring AIDS in South Africa, a new trend is emerging: in order to not look HIV positive, women are becoming obese in large numbers. According to the Independent Online, half of all women in South Africa are overweight, and almost…
retrospectacle | October 6, 2006
This doesn't sound like the notorious Bird Flu, but an endangered species of parrot (Tasmania's orange-bellied parrot) are mysteriously dying of a unknown disease....possibly a herpes virus.
Birds at the Environment Department's breeding center near Hobart have been quarantined since January, when 46 young birds were killed by the disease.
Months of testing, in Australia and overseas, has not pinned down the cause.
Mark Holdsworth from the Parrot Recovery Program says the wild population does not appear to be affected.
"Wild population appears to be stable and we didn't detect any decline in…
retrospectacle | October 5, 2006If you've seen Joe vs. The Volcano (and if you haven't, you should), you remember that Joe is dubiously diagnosed with a "brain cloud" which is, of couse, terminal. This prompts his willingness to jump into the volcano to appease the Waponi Wu (aka, the Big Wu). I always thought that the idea of a brain cloud was rather funny, until I stumbled upon this diconcerting Yahoo news piece on the long-term effects of chemotherapy on brain metabolism and function.
Chemotherapy causes changes in the brain's metabolism and blood flow that can last as long as 10 years, a discovery that may explain the…
retrospectacle | October 5, 2006I really like Cnn.com's Anderson Cooper. He's a journalist who also has the news blog 360 degrees, which highlights a particular global issue in depth. His current feature is both excellently written and heart-breaking: the increasing prevalence of rape by soldiers in the African country the Congo.
"She never says anything to men," one of the hospital counselors explained, and then she told us why.
The little girl was raped. Gang-raped. It was allegedly done by soldiers engaged in a complicated regional war that has claimed millions of lives. The war officially ended in 2003, but outbreaks…
retrospectacle | October 4, 2006You know the old adage "The camera adds 10 pounds?" Well, I'm not sure if thats true or not (I think its bunk), but HP has recently released cameras with a feature to help knock off those extra pounds. I found it rather absurd, as the slimming feature is really only a vertical distortion of the entire picture which gives the subjects a rather pointy-looking head. Um, hasn't anyone heard of Photoshop if they really want to mess with reality?
But really, this highlights to me a growing (but not new) awareness of products which cater to vanity. Are the days gone when photographs captured the…
retrospectacle | October 4, 2006Thought I'd throw out something that was neuro-related after such a long and tedious travel hiatus!
According to Nature News, a new study helps explain the mentality of "I only smoke when I drink" and why smokers tender to drink more than non-smokers. As a short stint as a waitress, I totally noticed that the smoking section was always where the best money was, because smokers drank, which increased the bill and tip. And according to this study in rats, a heavy dose of nicotine can reduce blood alcohol levels by HALF. This leads to the logical conclusion that smokers must drink more than non-…