omnibrain | July 10, 2007I'm excited to announce that I've been named an associate editor for a new high profile journal, Chocolate Pudding Letters Review. Read below for our first call for papers:
CALL FOR PAPERS!
We are now accepting papers for the 1st issue of CPLR! DO NOT MISS THIS OPPORTUNITY! Leading scientists anticipate that CPLR will become the premier outlet for major breakthroughs in the study of chocolate pudding (CP) and other viscous edible creations (VECs).
Specific topics of interest include, but are not limited to, 1) theoretical reviews, 2) empirical works, 3) recipes, 4) novel…
omnibrain | July 10, 2007Everyone thinks the printing press led to increased literacy among the average man in the middle ages, but that just might not be the case. Dr Marco Mostert a historian from Utrecht University is instead suggesting that the availability of cheap paper was the main reason more reading material became available. While this isn't surprising the source of the new cheap paper is. It seems that, according to Dr. Mostert,
"These rags came from discarded clothes, which cost much less than the very expensive parchment which was previously used for books. In the 13th century, so it is thought, as…
omnibrain | July 10, 2007Channel 4 in Britain has created a series documenting what goes on in Autopsies, but even more exciting is that they've made them available online for your viewing...pleasure?
I'm a pretty squeamish guy, which is one of the (many) reasons I didn't go to medical school. So if you're particularly grossed out by dead, cut open people then you should perhaps not watch these graphic videos. I'm about to force myself to check out the videos though! Wish me luck ;)
Here's a short description from the show webpage:
These clips contain scenes of a graphic nature demonstrating disections of the…
omnibrain | July 9, 2007My office mate claims this doesn't really look like me - but meh.. it's close enough. I've challenged her to do a better job.
There's a neat little program over at the Simpsons Movie website that allows you to create your own Simpsons Avatar. Check it out!
omnibrain | July 9, 2007This weeks Pseudoscience of the past is brought to you once again by the New York Times from November 21, 1851. In this episode we demonstrate how you can tell nearly everything about a person from...wait for it.... wait..... yes! Their Hat!
Now this isn't something you can tell from how fashionable the hat is - but instead, people's hats conform to the shape of their skulls. So basically if you have a sloping head of a certain shape you are a revolutionary and all that one would need to do to determine if you have a treasonous head is to do a little hat measuring!
I'm seeing it now...
"…
omnibrain | July 9, 2007Check out the interview Bora scored over at A Blog Around The Clock. Of course it's an interview with a politician so it doesn't really say anything earth shattering ;) But it's well worth checking out.
omnibrain | July 6, 2007So I noticed today that ScienceBlogs does not have a wikipedia entry! What's up with that? Ridiculous!
I felt it to be my solemn duty to start one for the world! But clearly I'm not really supposed to be creating it since I guess I sorta, kinda 'work' for Seed Media. But anyway! Please head over there and help fill it up with some exciting content! Your favorite stories, information about all the great blogs, how you met the love of your life there, etc.
I also wouldn't object if someone created an Omni Brain entry ;) (I would feel a little worse actually creating that one myself).…
omnibrain | July 6, 2007Well I guess Boeing does a lot of government research so it really isn't surprising that they would be involved with some of the really stupid things the military has been involved in. Thankfully their research didn't focus on flying their planes psychically (well that we know of). From Danger Room, a Wired Blog:
Boeing researchers don't just spend their days designing killer drones and networked tanks. They also investigate unexplained powers of the mind, sometimes. Especially if those times are the late '60s.
This study, New Correlation Between a Human Subject and a Quantum Mechanical…
omnibrain | July 4, 2007It's kind of hard to imagine a child lying who barely understands language and is even less able to produce something understandable. And babies certainly don't have a very developed theory of mind! But like all areas of developmental psychology the trend is for people to be able to do things earlier and earlier and deception seems to be one of those universal abilities all humans have very early on. A Psychologist, Vasudevi Reddy, from the University of Portsmouth has identified seven different categories of ways that babies can deceive. The ways that babies deceive are essentially (…
omnibrain | July 4, 2007There is a great article today on Slate about why the pretty ridiculous idea that vaccinations containing trace amounts of mercury cause autism will never go away. Here's the first little part of the article:
At the recent 12-day hearing into theories that vaccines cause autism, the link between the disorder and the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine came across as shaky at best. As for the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal, which was used in other vaccines, witnesses showed that in all known cases of actual mercury poisoning (none of which caused autism), the dose was hundreds or…
omnibrain | July 2, 2007Check out the 1st Anniversary edition of the Encephalon Blog Carnival at the brand spanking new home of the great blog Neurophilosophy!
omnibrain | July 2, 2007There has been a whole lot crap floating around the press in the last couple weeks since the trial started that is seeking to link vaccination with higher incidence of autism. Now a survey funded by one of these anti-vaccination groups is correlating, through a random telephone survey, more mental health issues like ADHD with vaccination. So why do you think this correlation exists? Is there a simple way of simply explaining away this correlation (think less pirates = more global warming).
Here's some of the info from medical news today:
The survey, commissioned by Generation Rescue,…
omnibrain | July 2, 2007Have you ever wondered why your left hemisphere is better developed than your right? Are you worried about the negative impacts of hypnotism, crossed eyes and convulsions? The NY Times may have the answer for you!
It's all about how you sleep as a baby and what's in your cradle.
From Nov. 26 1880:
Not only do they provide answers for these questions they express these other very elucidating views on imagery:
See you again next week with a story on the study of Phrenology in Dogs from the Chicago Tribune on October 20th 1895!
omnibrain | July 1, 2007I always loved these homunculi drawings in intro psych and neuro books. These sculptures from the London Natural History Museum are even better!
click picture for much much larger image.
And finally if you have no idea what the heck is going on here. Wikipedia has a good description of the homunculus.
[edit by Sandra - in keeping with our new R-rating, see the NSFW image of a proposed revision involving the penis. Read more here. Oh, and I find it curious/sexist that I can't find an image representing a female homunculus...]
omnibrain | June 30, 2007Today starts a new series that I perhaps blatantly stole from Shelley over at Retrospectacle, but it's such a darn great idea! From the mouth of Shelley:
Pretty much I'm just going to dig back into the forgotten and moldering annuls of scientific publications to find weird and interesting studies that very likely would never be published or done today (and perhaps never should have.)
Clearly I'm not doing the same thing, but her idea gave me one of my own. We here at Omni Brain will be digging into classic media coverage of all things science (usually brain related - clearly). I have a…
omnibrain | June 30, 2007Thanks to Vaughan over at Mind Hacks we've discovered that the great movie The Brain That Wouldn't Die is now in the public domain :) You can watch it below the fold or even download it in full right here or here. This movie is a wonderful, wonderful movie! ... ok, really, I've never seen it nor do I think I'll take the time to watch it unless I'm really bored. But you should! Let us know how it is. It is after all about brains!
Here's the plot summary from imdb:
After a car crash, a man keeps his wife's head alive in his laboratory. As if this weren't enough, an evil beast pounds and…
omnibrain | June 29, 2007Are you a politician or currently considering a run for office?
Do you agree with Richard Nixon that drugs are "public enemy number one in the United States"?
Are you worried that smoking marijuana makes you insane, turns you into a violent criminal or causes death?
Do you worry daily about why prohibition failed?
Do you think the War on Drugs is a great idea?
Are you stressed out about these things and need an easy way out? Incarcerex may be for you!
Take a look at this great spoof from drugpolicy.org!
Does your politician suffer from Chronic Re-Election Paranoia (CREEP)? Do you think our…
omnibrain | June 26, 2007Well... I'm not sure if you all noticed... but my posting has been lacking lately. It's been for a great reason though. I'm on vacation in the Florida Keys. Beaches, boats, and leather skin ;)
We saw a great water spout the other day - of course my cell phone picture didn't turn out but this picture I found on the internet is nearly exactly what we saw. Pretty cool eh?
According to Wikipedia:
A waterspout is an intense columnar vortex (usually appearing as a funnel-shaped cloud) that occurs over a body of water and is connected to a cumuliform cloud. In the common form, it is a…