Clipmarks | Brains Clips

Brain School

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 08:28:37 GMT

clipped by: abailart

BRAIN SCHOOL FOR KIDS (GROWN UP KIDS INCLUDED!)

Brains Rule
Neuroscience For Kids
Kids Health
Funderstanding
NeuroMatrix
Brain Boosters
Brainy Kids
Brain Injury Association of America for kids
Kids Health, The Brain

BRAIN SCHOOL FOR ADULTS

Neuroscience Tutorial
Neuroguide
Neuroscience, Psychiatry, Psychology and Psychoanalysis
BrainInfo
News from the Neurosciences
All in the Mind
How your brain works
Brain Imaging Basics
Brain Connection
Brain Glossary
A cup of Neuropsychology?
Alleydog (for Psychology Students)
Martindale’s Brain and NeuroCenter
Internet Handbook of neurology
National Institute of Mental Health
Brain, The world inside your head

Tags: neuroscience

For most people college is a waste of time

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:48:05 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: online.wsj.com

Imagine that America had no system of post-secondary education, and you were a member of a task force assigned to create one from scratch. One of your colleagues submits this proposal:

First, we will set up a single goal to represent educational success, which will take four years to achieve no matter what is being taught. We will attach an economic reward to it that seldom has anything to do with what has been learned. We will urge large numbers of people who do not possess adequate ability to try to achieve the goal, wait until they have spent a lot of time and money, and then deny it to them. We will stigmatize everyone who doesn't meet the goal. We will call the goal a "BA."

You would conclude that your colleague was cruel, not to say insane. But that's the system we have in place.

Finding a better way should be easy. The BA acquired its current inflated status by accident. Advanced skills for people with brains really did get more valuable over the course of the 20th century

Tags: education, college, certification

The feng shui of cows :)

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:13:53 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: "What the benefit could be for cows, however, remains a mystery. Experts acknowledged that the research almost certain- ly has no practical applications."

Cool though

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Cows have magnetic sense, Google Earth images indicate

German scientists using satellite images posted online by the Google Earth software program have observed something that has escaped the notice of farmers, herders and hunters for thousands of years: Cattle grazing or at rest tend to orient their bodies in a north-south direction just like a compass needle

The resolution of the images was not sufficient to tell which ends of the cows were pointing north, however.

Asked whether he had ever observed such behavior in cows, dairy farmer Rob Fletcher of Tulare, Calif., said, "Absolutely not." But, he added, "I don't spend a lot of time worrying about stuff like that."

this is an incredibly neat use of Google Earth. This is a study we would not have dreamed about doing five years ago

Researchers have long known that certain bacteria, birds, fish, whales and even rodents have minute organs in their brains containing particles of magnetite that can act like a compass.

Tags: google earth, magnetism, animals

Where do emotions come from?

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 06:09:23 GMT

clipped by: einbar

Clip Source: waa.uwalumni.com

emotions were more often relegated to the intangible realm of the heart, a domain usually left to poets and philosophers.

Psychiatrist and emotions researcher Ned Kalin

early work on stress hormones in monkeys and severe depression in humans, and Davidson's interest in plotting how human emotions affect the brain, pointed them in a different direction.

Clip Source: waa.uwalumni.com

The brain's plasticity - its ability to change

"The same processes that cause emotions to produce brain changes resulting in downstream problems may also allow people to change their brains

Clip Source: waa.uwalumni.com

emotions are, in fact, firmly rooted in the head. They contribute in a meaningful way to decisions we make every day, determinations based on fear, love, sadness, fatigue, and all other imaginable feelings. Within specific entities in the brain lie the sources of both subtle and powerful emotions, from those that last only an instant to those that become extended moods and personality traits.

In My Eye I've Spied..

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 07:24:55 GMT

clipped by: skwirlinator

Clip Source: www.gotohelltown.com

...A man with pins in his head
...a woman split down the center by an axe
...a doorway to hell that looks like a box
...a bug with an edgar suit
...a space winnebago
...a kogatha
...a pumpkin with demons
...

...blood spewed while talking
...a giant eye explode from a shotgun blast at close range
...laser-diced assault specialists
...special glasses that can see the underworld creatures attacking you
...a death-ray from space
...a giant jet-powered flying turtle

...a demon in my cellar
...a tent of kids telling ghost stories
...brains for dinner
...razor knives for fingers
...scarubs in my underwear
...a tunnel full of fire
...a chicken in my chest (a game not a movie)
...a mermaid in a tank on a ship
...another dimension marching in

Tags: in my eye i've spied.., game, list, movie, guess

Future Drugs Will Make Troops Want to Fight

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 22:29:15 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Their report, “Emerging Cognitive Neuroscience and Related Technologies,” was released today. It charts a range of cognitive technologies that are potentially powerful — and, perhaps, powerfully troubling.

Here are the report’s main areas of focus:

Mind reading. The development of psychological models and neurological imaging has made it possible to see what people are thinking and whether they’re lying.

Cognitive enhancement. Arguably the most developed area of cognitive neuroscience, with drugs already allowing soldiers to stay awake and alert for days at a time,

Mind control. Largely pharmaceutical, for the moment, and a natural outgrowth of cognitive enhancement approaches and mind-reading insight: If we can alter the brain, why not control it?

Mind control. Largely pharmaceutical, for the moment, and a natural outgrowth of cognitive enhancement approaches and mind-reading insight: If we can alter the brain, why not control it?

Clip Source: noworldsystem.com

Drugs that make soldiers want to fight. Robots linked directly to their controllers’ brains. Lie-detecting scans administered to terrorist suspects as they cross U.S. borders.

These are just a few of the military uses imagined for cognitive science — and if it’s not yet certain whether the technologies will work, the military is certainly taking them very seriously.

“It’s way too early to know which — if any — of these technologies is going to be practical,” said Jonathan Moreno, a Center for American Progress bioethicist and author of Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense. “But it’s important for us to get ahead of the curve. Soldiers are always on the cutting edge of new technologies.”

Moreno is part of a National Research Council committee convened by the Department of Defense to evaluate the military potential of brain science.

Tags: neuroscience, war

Pelosi Chastised by Archbishops & Drill Here, Drill Now Supporters

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:16:07 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: She went on to refer to the protesters, who continued to chant sporadically, as “handmaidens of Big Oil.”

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Under fire from U.S. Catholic bishops, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not backing off contentious comments about abortion she made during a weekend television talk show appearance.

Pelosi said Sunday on NBC's ``Meet the Press'' that ``doctors of the church'' have not been able to define when life begins. That prompted swift rebukes from Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl and Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput, who said Pelosi was incorrect and that Catholic teaching has consistently condemned abortion.

Clip Source: www.politico.com

House Democratic leaders and protesters waving McCain signs had a war of words Tuesday at a press event outside an old train station. The demonstrators interrupted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with chants of “Drill here! Drill now!”

Pelosi paused and asked the group, “Right here?”

Seeming to enjoy the back and forth, she followed with another question: “Can we drill your brains?”

Tags: pelosi, abortion, meet the press, archbishop wuerl, archbishop chaput, protesters mccain signs, drill here! drill now!, "big oil"

The math of elephants

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 06:57:04 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: I find it remarkable; it points that the definition we use for what is intelligence and how is it distributed, must evolve.

Clip Source: www.newscientist.com

Elephants master basic mathematics

Add elephants to the growing menagerie of animals that can count.

An Asian elephant named Ashya beat this reporter at a devilishly simple addition problem. When a trainer dropped three apples into one bucket and one apple into a second, then four more apples in the first and five more in the second, the pachyderm recognised that three plus four is greater than one plus five, and snacked on the seven apples.

Moreover, Irie found that as well as summing small numbers with almost 90% accuracy, elephants can discriminate between small numbers.

Spot the difference

Asian elephants live in close-knit groups of six to eight, and they may count one another to make sure the herd sticks to together

Alternatively, the mathematical prowess of elephants may be a side effect of their bulging brains and an evolutionary kinship to other "smart" animals, Irie says.

Tags: biology, intelligence, elephants

Fox makes stunning attack on Jon Stewart

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:39:55 GMT

clipped by: sahara

Clip Source: blog.puppetgov.com

Puppetgov: We have contended that it is sad when the only spot on the dial you can find some truth is on a comedy channel.

After Jon Stewart blasted Fox News as “an appendage of the Republican Party” Monday in Denver, Rupert Murdoch’s 24-hour cable news broadcast returned fire with flames.

“Wearing a gray T-shirt, khaki pants and a healthy stubble, the ‘Daily Show’ host told reporters at a University of Denver breakfast that Fox’s ‘fair and balanced’ slogan is an insult ‘to people with brains’

“Jon’s clearly out of touch,” a Fox spokesman told Kurtz Tuesday in reply, “citing a Pew Research Center study showing the network has the most balanced audience in cable news, 39 percent Republicans and 33 percent Democrats.”

Out of touch, however, wasn’t the worst of it. The spokesman also went on to blast Stewart for his ratings at the Oscars.

Stewart didn’t save his attacks only for Fox. He also called the 24 hour cable networks in general a “brutish, slow-witted beast.”

[Video]

When being the Best is Wrong

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 07:42:39 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: www.newstatesman.com

In a semantic mess, wanting the best has become "elitist"

"Elite" and "elitism" as terms have transformed into political slurs in Britain and the United States. Simply defined, elitism is a belief in government by the few, while elite means "the best". But the conflation of their meanings, born of not a little ignorance and slovenly language, has produced somewhat different strains of anti-rational toxin in the past few decades.

The political definitions of both elite and elitism in the US are now being broadened to include knowledge itself.

To escape the charge of elitism, a US candidate may now be required to display not only a beer belly, but also a preference for ignorance over expertise.

Republicans are slapping the elitist bullseye on Barack Obama, though his is a story of earned privilege through scholarships, hard work and brains.

Tags: elite, elitism, language, mediocrity

AI Vs IA, a different level of survival?

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 11:13:19 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: Singularity is near.
What does the human fear?

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Technology That Outthinks Us: A Partner or a Master?

Dr. Vinge is a mathematician and computer scientist in San Diego whose science fiction has won five Hugo Awards

He can write space operas with the best of them, but he also suspects that intergalactic sagas could become as obsolete as their human heroes.

The problem is a concept described in Dr. Vinge’s seminal essay in 1993, “The Coming Technological Singularity,” which predicted that computers would be so powerful by 2030 that a new form of superintellligence would emerge.

These people in ‘Rainbows End’ have the attention span of a butterfly,” he said.

I could imagine a world where everything is piecework and the piece duration is less than a minute

the future: intelligence amplification, or I.A., in which humans get steadily smarter by pooling their knowledge with one another and with computers, possibly even wiring the machines directly into their brains

urging his fellow humans to get smarter

Trying hard not to become obsolete

Tags: ai, ia, future

Transformers - The Nature of Alien Life

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 12:52:47 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: The driving factor is a pragmatic desire to improve mental capacity. Alien beings may have already reached a point in their evolution where, having exhausted the potential of their biological brains, they have taken the next logical step and opted for robotic brains equipped with artificial intelligence. This brain swap may not be as far off for humans as one might think. In only a few decades, the computer revolution here on Earth has produced supercomputers capable of performing more than a quadrillion calculations per second.

According to research by Hans Moravec, an artificial-intelligence expert at Carnegie Mellon University, that rate trumps the human brain’s estimated top speed of 100 trillion calculations per second. Some scientists speculate that in a few decades, an event called the technological singularity will occur, and machines armed with computer brains will become sentient and surpass human intelligence. Civilizations equipped with technology light-years ahead

Clip Source: kemo-d7.livejournal.com

The existence of a race of sentient alien robots might be
not just possible, but inevitable.

Daniel C. Dennett points out that we do not consider chemicals to be alive. Even self-replicating crystals and clever nanobots are not "living"; we consider them to be completely mechanical. Yet we are made of these non-living, "mechanical" chemicals. Not only are we made of robots, and we still consider ourselves to be valid conscious life, but the evolution of all life is from such mindless robots.

As life is based in biology, and biology in biochemistry, chemistry is based on the cold, non-living laws of physics.

Given the current pace of development, it is easy to imagine artificial life venturing out into the universe and leaving us fragile humans behind.

In fact, we might be living in a "post-biological universe" right now, in which intelligent extraterrestrials somewhere have exchanged organic brains for artificial ones.

Tags: ai, science fiction, alien life

Awesome Innovations from the Underdeveloped Male Mind

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 11:01:20 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: Hesh says that “the curtain may contain appropriately placed openings to allow for communication by or to the user”, which will allow for interaction like this:

Man without Portable Rain Covering:
“Dude, that’s really a sweet little device you’ve got there.”

Man wearing Portable Rain Covering:
“Thanks. I’ve had it for about a month now and I …..”

Man without Portable Rain Covering:
“Dude, that was sarcasm.”

Clip Source: www.darkroastedblend.com

This article is written by

Scott Seegert

He is the author of "It's a Guy Thing - Awesome Innovations from the Underdeveloped Male Mind"

1.Raymond’s Combined Camouflage and Decoy Device

As the next step in guys’ never ending battle to outsmart wildlife with brains the size of raisins, Raymond offers up his Combined Camouflage and Decoy Device.

2. Edwin’s Safety Clothing

Old people fall down a lot, often injuring themselves in the process. Well, Edwin has come up with a way to alleviate this problem and a quick glance at the illustration above reveals his plan for the elderly – to make them feel so ridiculous they refuse to leave the house.

3. Hesh’s Portable Rain Covering

You’re outside, with no shelter in sight, and it begins to rain. You don’t have an umbrella with you. What do you do? If you’re on the ball, you reach into your pocket, pull out Hesh’s Portable Rain Covering and place it on your head. If you’re really on the ball, you unfold and inflate it first.

Tags: weird inventions, funny

Popular Myths Busted

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:06:29 GMT

clipped by: Sheroug

Clip Source: www.uphaa.com

12 Most Popular Myths Busted!

It takes seven years to digest gum

The Great Wall of China is the only manmade structure visible from space

they can’t see the Wall from the Moon.

A penny dropped from the top of a tall building could kill a pedestrian

tossed even from the 1,250-foot Empire State Building, it would travel fast enough merely to sting an unlucky pedestrian.

There is no gravity in space

Blame the term “zero-gravity” for this common misconception. Gravity is everywhere, even in space. Astronauts look weightless because they are in continuous freefall towards the Earth, staying aloft because of their horizontal motion. The effect of gravity diminishes with distance, but it never truly goes away.

Men think about sex every seven seconds

Humans use only 10 percent of their brains

humans put most of their cerebral cortex to good use, even while dozing.

Water drains backwards in the Southern Hemisphere due to the Earth’s rotation

depending on the sink’s structure

A study: birds recognized themselves in the mirror

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 05:25:49 GMT

clipped by: einbar
clipper's remarks: Magpies are the first non-mammal to demonstrate a rudimentary affinity for self-recognition

Clip Source: www.sciencenews.org

BIRD IN THE MIRROR

A study of magpies showed that the birds recognized themselves in the mirror. This illustration shows signs of self-recognition: a magpie attempting to reach a paint mark on its chest, first with its beak and then with its foot. Full story.

Magpies sing a self-reflective tune to themselves that until now has gone unheard. When placed in front of a mirror, these songbirds realize that they’re looking at themselves, raising the possibility that they have independently evolved the brain power to support a basic form of self-recognition, a new study suggests.

Magpies are the first non-mammal to demonstrate a rudimentary affinity for self-recognition

Magpies and other social birds that possess large brains with expanded cortical-like areas should display at least some level of self-recognition, remarks Irene Pepperberg of Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass.