YouTube Obsessions
retrospectacle | January 16, 2008Ok, 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 learn species-specific behaviors and be released back into the wild.
retrospectacle | January 4, 2008While this short YouTube clip is ostensibly a preview of a TV show about brain surgery and tumor removal, the clip itself had some amazing footage of conscious brain surgery that I hadn't seen before on the internet. There is a little blood, so if you are squeamish about blood and guts you may not want to peek. For all of you who are curious as to what an exposed human brain looks like, and how modern surgery is performed, check it out!
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This video describes how neurosurgeons find tumors by using electrical stimulation in the brain.
retrospectacle | October 6, 2007
Here's a neat trick demonstrating the density of sulfur hexafluoride--its more dense than the surrounding air, so the tin foil boat floats. Jay Leno tried the trick out and started drinking the gas, which has the opposite effect on the tone of your voice as helium does. Hilarity ensues.
Jay Leno Inhales - Anti-helium... Hilarious - For more funny movies, click here
retrospectacle | October 1, 2007In undergrad, I used to study learning and memory in honeybees so always felt a sort of respect for the hard life of a bee. If you never felt a little sad to see a honeybee die after spending its lone sting or a little in awe of their ability to use a brain the size of a pinhead to transmit the location of nectar, you might after watching this short animated film. Only complaint I have is the obvious slander of our avian friends!
Music by Menomena, directed by Stefan Nadelman
retrospectacle | August 29, 2007
Ah Sasha Cohen, pokin' fun at the silly creationists. Its a bit like shooting fish in a barrel isn't it?
Heh, still hilarious.
retrospectacle | August 24, 2007Last week I blogged about the unique properties of cone snail venom. Now take a took at that venom put to use:
I wish I could slow it down enough to see the moment where the snail impales the fish with the venom barb, but its too quick.
retrospectacle | May 25, 2007Perhaps the best thing I've ever seen. Remember when I blogged a bit about the effects of psychoactive drugs on the web-building activities of spiders? Well little did I know that the experiment was actually filmed.
retrospectacle | March 21, 2007
He's got cunning and perseverance. And look how proud he is at the end!
retrospectacle | March 1, 2007
This is so unbelieveable, I had to watch it twice. Needless to say, cornstarch water behaves very strangely when shaken (but not stirred) by high-speed vibrations. The result are faraday waves.
Faraday waves are nonlinear standing waves that appear on liquids enclosed by a vibrating receptacle. They are named after Michael Faraday, who first described them in an appendix to an article in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London in 1831.
If a layer of liquid is placed on top of a vertically oscillating piston, a pattern of standing waves appears which oscillates at half…
retrospectacle | February 20, 2007YouTube, the open-source video upload site, is as popular as ever following its buyout from Google. However, today I came across a deliciously snarky editorial about YouTube's blatant use of copyrighted material. Is what YouTube doing really illegal? Can you REALLY get free egg rolls??
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Specifically, the author (Simon Dumenco at Advertising Age) is particularly irked at YouTube's response to Viacom's demands that 100,000 clips from their various media/shows/etc be taken down.
Right before Google came a-courting last fall, I described YouTube in this column as…
retrospectacle | February 6, 2007All of cellular biology in a nutshell. Some interesting aspects of mammalian cell biology in slick animated form. Beautiful and informative.
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 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?