Bruce Jenner and Changing Your Brain’s Sex
The debut of Bruce Jenner’s sex change on the cover of Vanity Fair was stunning, but superficial. A deeper question than her new-found beauty is: What about her brain? Just like the anatomy of nearly every other part of the human body, the brains of guys and gals are slightly different. The biggest differences are…
Read MoreWatching TV Alters Children’s Brain Structure and Lowers IQ
Brain imaging (MRI) shows anatomical changes inside children’s brains after prolonged TV viewing that would lower verbal IQ.
Read MoreHeisenberg Uncertainty and the Baltimore Riots
The Baltimore riots from a science perspective
Read MoreThe Kathmandu earthquake will alter brain structure of survivors
Studies of people who have survived earthquakes and other traumatic events can provide important insights into the effect of stress on human brain structure.
Read MoreSnakes on the Brain
After repeated encounters with a friendly rattlesnake last week I have snakes on the brain. Serpents are a storehouse of fascinating neuroscience. Infrared vision, venom, fast-twitch muscles to energize its “warning buzzer,” and more… The western diamondback rattlesnake can rattle its tail at frequencies of 90 Hz and do this continuously for hours. This is…
Read MoreBig Brains/Little Brain: Whale Brains Provide Clues to Cognition
Whale brains provide interesting insight into the possible functions of the cerebellum beyond its important role in regulating movement.
Read MoreBrian Williams ‘False Memory’–a Neuroscience Perspective
NBC News anchor Brian Williams apologized for his erroneous account of being aboard a helicopter forced to make an emergency landing after being hit by enemy fire while reporting on the Iraq war in 2003. Williams blames the fallibility of human recall for the error. How can the neuroscience of memory (and false memory) provide…
Read MoreSynapse Poisons in Croc Bile Beer the Likely Killer in Mozambique
On January 11, 2015 news swept the globe reporting that scores of people died and 200 were sickened by drinking beer poisoned with crocodile bile in Mozambique. Thinking is now shifting to the possibility of poisoned synapses, not reptilian bile as the cause of these deaths. A horribly tragic incident occurred at a funeral on…
Read MoreNeuroscience of ‘Under the Skin,’ Starring Scarlett Johansson
In the eerie science fiction film, Under the Skin, starring Scarlett Johansson as an alien vixen clothed in human skin, roaming the earth in search of single men for nefarious purposes, a turning point comes when she offers a hooded man on a dark road a ride in her vehicle. When the man takes off…
Read MoreThe Absurdity of “Medical Marijuana”
Science is strangled by a government-imposed catch-22 that restricts access to marijuana on the basis that there is insufficient evidence supporting its medical benefits and safety, while blocking the research that would provide such information.
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