Encephalon.... the late prize winning February edition

In preparing for this issue of Encephalon I got access to the submission email account and realized that I had won 500,000.00 euro! I am in no way going to share this wealth with anyone else since it is my turn to do Encephalon. Here's the proof:

Dear Email ID Owner,
This is to notify you that you have won 500,000.00 euro in our online email Promo Draw in which email ID´s are picked randomly by computerized balloting, Your email address was amongst those chosen for this period.

contact: Dr. Mike Mejia, Accu Online Promotion.
!#$%!#$%@I'mnottellingyousinceIwon.com
******************************************************
With the following info: Full Names, Address, Tel No, Age & Occupation.
Ticket Nr:18457SP. Ref.Nr:5687SPL876.Batch Nr:SPYU6868
*************************************
Congratulations from our Management & Staff.
Yours Truly,
Mr. Kate Raul(Coordinator)
Accu-Online Promotion.

Now that I've won a prize and am now rich, here's the best, most interesting, and greatest Neuroscience related blogging of the last few weeks. Enjoy.

Unfortunately the first post from Neuroskeptic is rather bothersome since it suggests that I may be depressed very soon since I've become obsessed with money, AKA Afluenza. Also from Neuroskeptic comes this touching story of Autism and testosterone starring Borat's cousin.

All I've got to say is that I teach this story from Podblack in one of my lectures and that I might just use this classic line:

In short, no, Ninja Kitties do what they like and don't need no moon to swipe sardines. They are usually more influenced by iPod tunes, especially when driving fast!

Psyblog asks "Do you believe in Free Will?" and I answer a resounding "NO!" Our alien overlords control us. the question should be, "Do our alien overlords have free will"

On the other hand those alien overlords might be the cause of many birth defects since when they come down to earth they always scare the pregnant women. Check out an interesting Mind Hacks article about Maternal Impression and some crazy old docs who actually believed that scaring the shit out of someone could make your fetus go all weird.

Is that a tumor? Check out Evil Monkey's brain Scicurious' hot hot brain (1,2,3) and she'll tell you all about that weird looking tumor, or is that the virgin mary?

Smoking is bad! Drinking (a lot) is bad! and especially don't do both together! Check out Channel N for the full story. And in honor of the old blog Omni Brain, RIP: court-ordered dysfunctional family psychotherapy parodied in The Bird Family in Therapy. From the vintage Canadian sketch TV show Codco.

All this writing has got me alllll hot and sweaty! Holy shit... there's women lining up at my door right now! Hey... I gotta go.
...

Ok I'm back and I've discovered why there was such a HUGE line outside my door. According to The Neurocritic women dig men's sexual sweat over regular sweat (ok maybe the n.c. doesn't actually believe it)... I don't believe it either since the ladies were clearly lining up for my normal blogging sweat. weird...

Jennifer Gibson asks, "Is sugar the new cocaine" and she also has the answer... helllz yeah! lets go out and blow some lines of sugar!

I'm depressed now.... PTSD is terrible. Maybe reading this article about Serotonin will help me feel better.

Check out this cool interview at Sharp Brains... here's the setup:

In 1993, Paramount Pictures released Searching for Bobby Fischer, which depicts Joshua Waitzkin's early chess success as he embarks on a journey to win his first National chess championship. This movie had the effect of weakening his love for the game as well as the learning process. His passion for learning was rejuvenated, however, after years of meditation, and reading philosophy and psychology. With this rekindling of the learning process, Waitzkin took up the martial art Tai Chi Chuan at the age of 21 and made rapid progress, winning the 2004 push hands world championship at the age of 27.

I very much enjoyed this Neuroanthropology article about throwing like a girl. I actually used it in one of my classes the other day. Unfortunately one of the girls wanted to prove that she didn't throw like a girl and she broke my nose with a bottle of water... ok ok I lie.

I don't know what this means "Pessimism correlates with leukocyte telomere shortness and elevated interleukin-6 in post-menopausal women." But it sounds scary. Maybe if I got involved in brain doping I could understand this a little better.

And last, but certainly not least, Coturnix shows us why he is one PISSED OFF Crayfish lacking in sleep.