Discover Magazine

Syndicated from Discover Magazine Mind and Brain News.

Discover Magazine Mind and Brain

1. Isolated in the Farallons, Biologists Have Bizarre “Island Invasion Dreams” | Discoblog
   July 29, 2010, 6:08 pm
   - Scientists stationed on Farallon Islands, which has one of the world’s most delicate ecosystems, don’t just keep tabs on native species such as sea lions and puffins–they’ve also have been recording their dreams for the past two decades. The findings? Dreams that are “eerily similar,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle: “Whether scientists are on the island for [...]
2. You Think You (And Your Parents) Are Hot | Discoblog
   July 28, 2010, 9:53 pm
   - Is the taboo against incest really just a psychological device to keep us from people we subconsciously find attractive? Could be, since apparently, these hotties are our parents, and even ourselves, according to research published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Studies have shown that people are more turned on by photographs of faces [...]
3. Study: The Brains of Storytellers And Their Listeners Actually Sync Up | 80beats
   July 27, 2010, 3:30 pm
   - You may be talking and I may be listening, but our brains look strikingly similar. That’s the conclusion of a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week. After conducting brain scans of a woman telling a story off the cuff and then of 11 people listening to a recording of her, [...]
4. Sniff-detector allows paralysed people to write messages, surf the net and drive a wheelchair | Not Exactly Rocket Science
   July 26, 2010, 7:00 pm
   - In Israel’s Loewenstein Rehabilitation Hospital, the patient known as LI1 is a prisoner of her own body. She is a 51-year-old woman who was paralysed by a stroke several months ago. Suffering from “locked-in syndrome”, she is completely aware but unable to move or speak. She cannot even control the blinks of her eyes. And [...]
5. Comic-Con Gauntlet Thrown: Fringe Producer Says Scientific Fact Must Yield to Story | Science Not Fiction
   July 24, 2010, 6:33 am
   - Spring boarding from Amos’ post on Thursday’s Discover panel, I want to delve into some unexplored tension. The panel focused on how science could make storytelling better, and it included a mix of scientists and TV writers. Jamie Paglia (Co-creator of Eureka) conceded that sometimes he’s had to “stretch the boundaries a little thin for my [...]
6. Underappreciated Star-Shaped Brain Cells May Help Us Breathe | 80beats
   July 20, 2010, 9:28 pm
   - Astrocytes, it was long believed, were little more than the scaffolding of the brain—they provided a support structure for the stars of the show, the neurons. But a study out in this week’s Science is the latest to suggest that this is far from the whole story. The study says that astrocytes (whose “astro” name [...]
7. Danger! Car Salesmen Now in Possession of “Perfect Handshake” Equation | Discoblog
   July 19, 2010, 4:53 pm
   - To seal more car deals, Chevrolet UK looked to arm its salesmen with the perfect weapon of confidence: an unstoppable handshake. Here’s the secret they received from Geoffrey Beattie, Head of Psychological Sciences at the University of Manchester: PH (Perfect Handshake)= √ (e^2 + ve^2)(d^2) + (cg + dr)^2 + π{(4<s>^2)(4<p>^2)}^2 + (vi + [...]
8. When Sci-Fi Plays Play With Your Identity | Science Not Fiction
   July 19, 2010, 4:25 pm
   - Science fiction is often associated with depictions of technology which, to quote Arther Clarke’s third law, is “so advanced that it seems like magic to us.” But science fiction’s other side is less about techno-gizmology and more about pushing us to think about what it is to be human. It asks what it would be [...]
9. Inception: Rarely Is Getting Your Mind So Messed With So Fun | Science Not Fiction
   July 16, 2010, 4:39 pm
   - You’ve been running for hours, chased by a crazed grizzly bear. Suddenly you lose your footing, and you’re balancing on the edge of a cliff. Your stomach lurches as gravity pulls you down. Instantly you’re jolted awake and find yourself teetering precariously over the edge of your bed in your New York apartment. You’ve been [...]
10. Caring with cash, or How Radiohead could have made more money | Not Exactly Rocket Science
    July 15, 2010, 6:00 pm
    - In October 2007, the British band Radiohead released their seventh album – In Rainbows – as a digital download that customers could pay whatever they liked for. The results of this risky venture are a guarded secret, but the album’s popularity was clear. It topped the charts and allegedly sold 1.2 million copies in the [...]

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