People taste like bacon

Uh.. oh... they're gonna eat us as soon as the planet turns into the terminator movie...
Do jews and muslims also taste like bacon? or is this why they don't eat pork?

So, apparently the guys at NEC thought it would be cool to make a wine-tasting robot. The robot -- pictured above -- fires a beam of light into the wine, and then uses an infrared spectrometer to analyze the reflection. It studies the chemical composition of the wine and delivers an instant verdict about how good it is. It's a neat trick, and it has other health-related skills: It can determine whether an apple is sweet or sour, or could even warn its owner if a food is too salty or fatty.

But the NEC guys decided to show off the robot to the media, and that's when it revealed its morbid secret. As the Associated Press reports:

When a reporter's hand was placed against the robot's taste sensor, it was identified as prosciutto. A cameraman was mistaken for bacon.

In Mother Russia, the plants smell YOU!

Set your "is this psychology?" meters to "barely." Researchers at Penn State have been studying a parasitic weed that appears to be attracted the scent of its prey. For those of you who don't follow "intelligent botany," apparently the plant is called the "dodder," likely because of the way it dods.

(from AP)...the [potentially high] researchers led by Consuelo M. De Moraes found that if they placed tomato plants near a germinating dodder, the parasite headed for the tomato 80 percent of the time.

And when they put scent chemicals from a tomato on rubber, 73 percent of the dodder seedlings headed that way.

[snip]

Co-author Mark C. Mescher added, "One of the interesting things we found was that the plants make choices."

When they gave the dodder seedlings a choice between a tomato plant and a wheat plant, they preferred the tomato.

Despite the upcoming November elections, the authors declined to comment on the dodders' political affiliations, though I suspect that they'd prefer the green party. Oy.

Line Drawings of Animals

Does anyone have a bunch of line drawings of side views of animals?
I'm attempting to get an experiment together to make the undergraduate psych 100 students hate me for making them sit through a boring hour long experiment.

Something better than this would be appreciated ;) What is this anyway?

Fingerlength - again?

So with men finger length correlates with homosexuality? and in women...jockness?

In all seriousness - who cares? Were they actually looking for this? or was it just stumbled upon?

The length of a girl's ring finger could be an indicator of her future sporting potential, researchers at King's College London said on Thursday.

In the largest study of its kind, hand measurements of 607 female twins aged 25-79 from the UK were compared with the women's lifetime sporting achievements.

The findings, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found that women with ring fingers longer than their index fingers had performed better at running and associated running sports such as soccer and tennis.

The report said detection of sporting potential by examining the ratio between the index and ring fingers "could help identify talented individuals at a pre-competitive stage."

Well... as usual I think I should go a little more ridiculous... From the website "Hands in Scripture"

The fingers represent the cognitive processes of the brain as previously explained in the Cognition Analogy. This is a cognitive model that defines the relationships between the thought processes and the fingers. Once the simple model is understood, the shape of the fingers will be readily seen to represent the thinking behind them. In this model, the mounts of the palm represent the function of the hypothalamus. The first phalanges of the fingers represent personal values, which are the base, or foundation, of thought. The second phalanges represent the internal processing of cognition. After external stimuli are gathered, the internal processing function performs the analysis to draw conclusions. The third phalange represents the thinking of the cerebral cortex where constructive thought and production occur.

Woe to those with knotty knuckles for...

Heavy, pronounced, or knotty knuckles represent responsiveness that is the opposite of babies. They represent people who are striving for control against the double discipline of a pastor-teacher. They have rejected the pastor and the discipline of the Christian life and have received the double punishment of the pastor. Such people may try to reduce life to a set of formulas and attempt to follow them meticulously. This is, of course, legalism. It is a substitute for Bible Doctrine, which only the pastor can teach accurately. Leaders of religious cults may have knotty knuckles.

Scientists and Engineers for America

From their website:

Today a group of scientists and concerned citizens launch a new organization, Scientists and Engineers for America, dedicated to electing public officials who respect evidence and understand the importance of using scientific and engineering advice in making public policy.

The principal role of the science and technology community is to advance human understanding. But there are times when this is not enough. Scientists and engineers have a right, indeed an obligation, to enter the political debate when the nation’s leaders systematically ignore scientific evidence and analysis, put ideological interests ahead of scientific truths, suppress valid scientific evidence and harass and threaten scientists for speaking honestly about their research.

We ask every American who values scientific integrity in decision-making to join us in endorsing a basic Bill of Rights for Scientists and Engineers. Together we will elect new leadership beginning in 2006, and we will continue to work to elect reasonable leadership in federal, state and local elections for years to come.

America needs your help. Will you join us?

Sound and Mind

Check out this new cognitive science of music blog:

Sound and Mind will primarily provide links to articles in journals and blogs on music and cognitive science, commentary on those articles, and a forum for discussion of these articles and other topics of interest amongst cognitive musicologists. Sound and Mind also features a podcast, in conjuncture with the Am Steg podcast, which will review books and articles and discuss issues of relevance to cognitive musicologists, as well as other musicians and cognitive scientists.

Encephalon 7th Edition

Welcome to the 7th edition of Encephalon!
___________________________________________________________

I figured we should start with the usual topics of the Omni Brain blog - sex, drugs, and rock and roll!

Sex...
Our first entry into the sex category is a post from The Frontal Cortex that looks at the action of mirror neurons during the viewing of pornography. But of course no one can talk about mirror neurons without some criticism - and who better to do that than The Neurocritic.
I've seen a number of studies about human pheromones and some commercially available (what I assume are bogus) sprays - Here's a post looking at pheromones in humans.
And finally on the sex topic, here's a grab bag of links from here at Omni Brain.

Drugs...
Okay... perhaps this doesn't reallly count as drugs but Tom Stafford at mindhacks.com is addicted to email, and thinks that some very old behaviourist psychology might be able to help him out.
Talk of drugs always brings out some speculation of course, check out this post about hallucinogenics from Paws full of Devious Cretins.

Rock and Roll...
Cognitive Daily presents some interesting data collected from all you readers about musical taste and expertise. This is a three part series, all of which is worth reading, so here they are in order: Post 1 | Post 2 | Post 3.

Now that we're finished with the three most important aspects of neuroscience... we can get to the other submissions - ooooK perhaps they aren't the most important ;)

Technology/Methods...
As anyone who does cognitive neuroscience research knows - MRI is expensive - flakey - not really portable - requires lots of mantenence - has limited temporal resolution - and well.. lots of other problems. These posts from the A Blog Around the Clock and the Neurophilosopher's blog explore new advances in both data analysis and technology which may improve the technique in years to come.

The Uncategorized...
Here's a post from the Mouse Trap regarding how the concept of Framing as applied to linguistics may also be relevant to Moral Issues and the underlying concpet of Universal Moral Grammar, and another post about the common cognitive mecahnisms underlying causal reasoning and the normal learning.
If you'd like to see some great antique neuroanatomy drawing go to the Neurophilosopher's blog.And finally, since I'm watching football right now, (wow the bears/vikings game is ridiculous!) here's a post from the Frontal Cortex on risk taking by coaches on 4th down. Evidently 90% of the time NFL coaches do the statistically wrong thing by not going for it on 4th down at the goal line.

Ultimate nerdy

Big brains = big nerds?

Pokemon: The seizure episode

I always heard about this episode (supposedly sending scores of japanese children to the emergency room with seizures) but have never seen it. I can totally see how this would cause a seizure - wow twitchy... Yeah so perhaps you should be careful watching this if you've ever had a seizure.

Who cheats the most.

I'm surprised 39% of social science and humanities students cheat. Is it really neccesary? I mean classes don't really count much at this level (well at least in psychology).

The study of 5,300 graduate students in the United States and Canada found that 56 percent of graduate business students admitted to cheating in the past year, with many saying they cheated because they believed it was an accepted practice in business.

Following business students, 54 percent of graduate engineering students admitted to cheating, as did 50 percent of physical science students, 49 percent of medical and health-care students, 45 percent of law students, 43 percent of liberal arts students and 39 percent of social science and humanities students.

It seems that cheating was defined as:

including copying the work of other students, plagiarizing and bringing prohibited notes into exams.

You're being watched.

Stimulating a certain spot in the brain with electricity may make people feel like a shadow person is hovering nearby.

Doctors in Switzerland documented the startling sensation in a 22-year-old woman with no history of psychiatric problems.

The researchers stumbled upon the discovery while evaluating the woman for epilepsy surgery.

During the checkup, the doctors electrically stimulated the left temporoparietal junction in the woman's brain.

Out of the blue, the woman reported having "the impression that someone was behind her," write Shahar Arzy, MD, and colleagues in Nature. Arzy works at the Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland.

So what does the TPJ 'do' again? I feel like it's one of those mysterious brain areas that 'lights' up (I really don't like that word for some reason) in a bunch of different tasks.
I guess I could stop being lazy and just look it up - but hey! that's what the comments section is for. Anyone want to fill me in?

Here's the nature news version of the story.

Science job of the day

And the science job of the day goes to...

Robert Nisbet: Beer scientist
*cheers* *claps* *applause* *etc* *etc*


And here's the interview from New Scientist:

We have to ask: do you get free samples?

Unfortunately, no. But tasting is a big part of the production of a beer - each stage of the process has to be tasted to make sure it's right. And when you're developing new beers you have to taste them to make sure you're going in the right direction.

What does your job at Young's Brewery entail?

Brewing is basically biochemistry and microbiology with undertones of chemical engineering. Half my time is spent in the lab carrying out routine beer quality tests. We look at alcohol content, colour, carbonation, oxygen, clarity and bitterness. The rest of the time I'm in the brew house, where the beer is made, running projects aimed at improving manufacturing processes. I also get to develop new beers.

I wonder if this guy is anything like Brewmeister Smith from Strange Brew?

Abstract of the day.

I thought I would share an abstract I ran across while trying to figure out what article I originally ordered a book from the stacks for. Why I didn't write the article down that I wanted I have no idea... ohh well.

Human Ethology: The snack-bar security syndrome
By David P. Barash
From State University College (SUC?!), Oneonta, N.Y.
Psychological Reports, 1972, 31, 577-578.

Summary.-- I studied the behavior of Homo sapiens in an eating-place and found indications of security-seeking behavior, perhaps suggesting an unconscious, species-preserving fear of predators. Solitary individuals showed a significant preference for wall tables over center tables while grouped individuals showed no such perference. "Looking-up" frequency was higher amongh solitary than grouped individuals and higher among patrons at center tables than at wall tables.

This must have been an interesting study for Dr. Barash - I wonder if he put on the freshman 15 since he hung-out at the "Morris Hall snack bar"?

Here's one of my favorite lines from the text (all 1 page of it): "Thus, a wall table provides a solitary individual greater protection from a surprise attack." What exactly would a surprise attack look like in a college cafeteria? A pissed off lunch lady hurling mashed potatos across the room?

Question of the day...

Is this cool? or horrible? Does this encourage drug use? Is there anything wrong with drug use (assuming you don't become addicted and sell your parents/partners wedding ring for crack?)?

Ok.. so maybe it's questionS. But anyway! haha

A NEW energy drink that crashed parties in the US last week is called Cocaine, and its makers are billing it as "the legal alternative" to the drug. The drink's maker maintains that "doing Cocaine", the beverage that is, gives a bigger and better high without the crash other energy drinks cause.

They say a high hits within five minutes, followed by a caffeine boost 15 minutes later. The ride lasts five hours and the concoction is "350 per cent stronger than Red Bull", they claim.

They argue the effect is part chemical - the drink uses "simple" sugars that don't need to be broken down by the body to create a sugar buzz, and a much larger dose of vitamin B12 - and part psychological.

Ohh and I hate myspace... too many hookers, products, and bands who think I want to be their fan. Here's the cocaine drink myspace page

Encephalon 7th Edition 1 week.

Encephalon 7th ed. in 1 week. Don't forget to submit!

In addition to the articles please submit an image that either has to do with the story or is just funny.

Send your submissions to: encephalon.host@gmail.com

If you are curious about the guidelines for submissions you can find them here.

As bad as brain fingerprinting? or whatever it's called

Any chance someone wants to figure out exactly what this EyeCheck thing is and how it works? It sounds very suspect to say the least. Here's the company website.

The training will help them bust drug users, by learning the physiological signs, and through scanning the individual's eyes with the EyeCheck device.

The device looks like binoculars, and in seconds it scans an individuals pupils to detect a problem.

"They'll be able to tell if they're on drugs, and what kind, whether marijuana, cocaine, or alcohol. Or even in the case of a tractor trailer driver, is he too tired to drive his rig?" said Ohio County Sheriff Tom Burgoyne.

The device can also detect abnormalities from chemical and biological effects, as well as natural disasters.

Ewww.....cooool....ewwwww........neat! yuck!

I just dont know which one!
Watch videos of dissections - spines - brains - ears, etc.

Yeah.. and I don't know what the heck this picture is of, it's not related.

Still evolving... well at least some people... maybe

Here is a pretty interesting interview with Lahn who's research:

...asserts that new versions of two genes are currently spreading through the human population, and that these genes are more prevalent in some geographic regions than others. He has speculated that these genes may be linked to brain size and intelligence and has wondered if the mutations—one of which took place roughly 40,000 years ago, the other, 5,800 years ago—correlate with the development of art, written language, and the founding of cities. And he stepped on more than a few feet when he noted that, geographically speaking, the changes had occurred pretty much everywhere but sub-Saharan Africa.

Pretty controversial eh?!

Encephalon 6th Edition

Check out Encephalon's 6th Edition over at Retrospectacle!

The next Encephalon will be hosted here at Omni Brain - so get your posts submitted!
For the 7th edition I would love it if along with your stories you could submit an image that either has to do with the story or is just funny (in some dorky science way).

I look forward to seeing your submissions!

If you are curious about the guidelines for submissions you can find them here.

Sex day at omnibrain

The first 'real' science story is one of the craziest peer pressure situations I've ever heard of - these fish change sex based on social pressures! They sure are cool looking - I wonder what sex this one is going to be?

The fish, which start life as larvae without a specific sex, become either male or female as they develop.
But young males appear to be able to alter their sex depending on how many other fish there are living around the same reef.
The scientists found that there was a much greater chance of the youngsters turning female if there were only a handful of the species in one area as they would have a much greater chance of breeding than males.
If there were many fish in the social group, the youths are likely to undergo a dramatic transformation and become male, the study indicated.

Our second 'story' is well not really a story - just check out this picture! What do you think it's for?
Click on the picture for the correct answer.

And finally - http://www.world-sex-records.com/ where you can find things like

Largest human penis

Most capacious human vagina

Most prolific growth of pubic hair

And more!

P.S. Here are two sex stories from boingboing - the first is about greenpeace wanting the EU to ban dildos b/c they are dangerous - and the second is about the craigslist sex scandal

My nerd score

It's not as amazing as some of those Seed science bloggers' scores, where it's not only a score of 99 that makes you a nerd, but 99 and-then-look-at-my-collection-of-slide-rules-
computers-and-Star-Trek-figurines. But I did this nerd quiz on August 1st. My score was 95. I'd probably be a "Lesser Nerd God".

A safe high?

If you could get your hands on a drug that was perfectly safe and non-habit forming (think of masturbation as non-habit forming) would you use it? Would people begin using it all the time and cause societal problems?

A British scientist's recent announcement that he had found a way to develop a drug that mimics the happy effects of alcohol--sociability and relaxation--without producing next-day headaches or ravaging the body sparked an immediate controversy. “Every sip of alcohol does rot your liver,” said David Nutt, a professor of psychopharmacology at Bristol University, “and I think it would be preferable to have something that doesn’t rot your liver” but makes you feel happy. Nutt said he had also come up with a way to instantly sober up from the fake drunk feeling--by taking a drug now used to treat tranquilizer overdoses. But while this cocktail of drugs (still in the theoretical research phase) may seem like a dream come true for anyone who has ever awoken with a splitting headache following a night of overindulgence, is taking a drug to produce a “good drunk” really a good idea?

Ahh heck...my nerd score as well

I guess I'm not all that nerdy - haha ohhhh well ;) I figured the scientist - computer dork thing would kick me up there a bit. I guess all that TV watching I do keeps me from doing many nerdy things.

Ohh and keep up with the "who's the nerdiest" contest
over at Retrospectacle.

Why robots shouldn't have human faces

Here is a video of an "Einstein robot."



It sure is creepy looking - just check out the facial expressions. It's so real but so artificial.

Older virgin

Here's an interesting article from salon about the difficulties that women have who remain virgins into their 20's and 30's. I guess once you reach a certain point it becomes more and more difficult to actually just do it.

So what ever happened to the idea that a man's ultimate fantasy is to deflower a virgin? Well, if she's a young, nubile girl the fantasy is still out there. But can you imagine a 30-year-old virgin as the star of Internet-porn spam? What about as one of the 72 virgins waiting for the jihadists up in heaven? University of Texas psychology professor David Buss, author of "Evolution of Desire," says that one reason an older virgin becomes essentially untouchable is because "people infer that there is something psychologically wrong with the person who substantially exceeds the cultural norm in age and is still a virgin. Perhaps she has deeply rooted sexual hang-ups or some other deep psychological problem." Or perhaps they just think she's asexual or frigid.

The Brain Bar

Pretty freakin' cool - I want one for my house.

Brainbar is a mechanical bar that mixes drinks according to the visitor's brainwaves. The bar reads the brain frequencies (EEG or electroencephalogram) in the alpha and beta wavelength. These wavelengths are generally considered to be synonymous with the states of relaxation and activity in the mind. Thus the BrainBar serves the drink most suited for you, at the moment of measurement. BrainBar can be seen as a mediator or manipulator designed to give a party its perfect state of enhanced socialising, carefully adjusting the drinks served so that every guest stays within acceptable parameters for a “good” behaviour or, if the settings allow, a “bad” behaviour. By the use of alcohol and medical herb essences, the bar can emotionally equalize or polarize the group of guests. This can be seen as a sociological experiment exploring how much a person is prepared to submit to external forces and how far the person can allow a machine to intrude on the body.

Uh.. Oh... the phone telephathy guy really pissed some people off

It looks like some people aren't just rolling their eyes and shaking their heads at this telepathy research junk (see article a couple places down), they are pretty pissed off.

A furious row broke out today at Britain's premier science forum over the decision to allow believers in the paranormal to promote their views without challenge from the mainstream.
The row was triggered by the British Association for the Advancement of Science's decision to showcase highly controversial research purporting to demonstrate telepathy and life after death. Critics including Lord Winston and Sir Walter Bodmer, both past presidents of the BA, expressed particular alarm that three speakers who think paranormal phenomena are real were allowed to hold a press conference without challenge from sceptics. Some said telepathy has already been found wanting in experiments, and has no place at a scientific meeting.

This cartoon is great! haha

For you physics people out there.

It looks like Stephen Hawking is looking for an graduate RA - coube be a sweet deal!

Wanted: bright graduate student to assist world-famous scientist. International travel, developing computer systems and dealing with the press required.Renowned astrophysicist and best-selling author Stephen Hawking has announced he is looking for a graduate student to work for him one to two years.The candidate can earn about £23,500 ($44,300) and would likely join Hawking on his many travels abroad, according to a job posting on the university's Web site. Planning lectures, maintaining computer, answering public inquiries and helping with scientific papers are a few of the responsibilities.

Phone telepathy

Ohh wow this is great:

Many people have experienced the phenomenon of receiving a telephone call from someone shortly after thinking about them -- now a scientist says he has proof of what he calls telephone telepathy.Rupert Sheldrake, whose research is funded by the respected Trinity College, Cambridge, said on Tuesday he had conducted experiments that proved that such precognition existed for telephone calls and even e-mails.

Ahh and the method and results:

Each person in the trials was asked to give researchers names and phone numbers of four relatives or friends. These were then called at random and told to ring the subject who had to identify the caller before answering the phone."The hit rate was 45 percent, well above the 25 percent you would have expected," he told the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. "The odds against this being a chance effect are 1,000 billion to one."He said he found the same result with people being asked to name one of four people sending them an e-mail before it had landed.

enlightening!

Ohh and check out the The Grand Mentalo - he'll give you $1000 if you can prove his act is a fake.

Sex with robots

Here's an interesting article on ethical issues concerning human robot loooooove.
Watch out though - the adds on the site are not safe for work - well assuming naked computer generated woman are actually considered naked women.

The trend of robotics research and development, from industrial robots to service robots to companion and carer robots for the elderly, has as its logical continuation the design and construction of partner robots, sufficiently human-like and sufficiently appealing in various ways to take on the role of a partner in a relationship with a human being. This trend immediately raises many questions relating to humans loving and being loved by robots, treating robots as life partners and being similarly treated by them, marrying robots and having sex with robots.

Dolphin intelligence

via Coturnix, Developing Intelligence has a short and excellent synopsis of the topic of dolphin intelligence: are they intelligent? My questions would be: What is the definition of intelligence? Intelligent compared to what? In what ways are humans intelligent?

The mozart effect - again?! still?! ugh...

Is this ever going to go away?

LONG suffering parents of adolescents might not agree, but scientists claim that listening to rock music can boost your brain power. Researchers at a Scottish university believe that the sound of guitar-based rock such as Jimi Hendrix, AC/DC and the Red Hot Chili Peppers improves concentration and boosts memory.
Contrary to received wisdom, children who listen to loud rock or pop music while swotting for exams are probably improving their chances of success. The finding follows claims that listening to classical music, particularly Mozart, can improve performance in cognitive tests.
...
While the classical music improved the concentration and memory of both groups, rock music also had a significant effect on the cognitive performance of the rock fans. Brain scans revealed that they required far less brainpower to complete the test successfully.

Ohh and check out this cog. neuro. podcast from the Cognitive Neuroscience Arena.

A couple wacky links

The first is a link to the International Trepanation Advocacy Group where the senior director says:

"ITAG is a grass roots organization comprised of people from many backgrounds and races who have experienced the benefits of being trepanned. Some of us are willing to present ourselves publicly so that the old stigma associated with making a hole in the skull will be worn down over time. When people say that they need something or other... "like they need a hole in the head", I laugh and think, '...if they could only have the experience themselves.' At age 57, I've been trepanned now for thirty years. I had the unique opportunity to learn how trepanation can improve mental functions back in my twenties when I traveled abroad. In Amsterdam, I met Bart Huges, the originator of the scientific concepts of consciousness expansion. I gave the subject a thorough review. Enhanced brain functions seemed a perfect antidote to the suffering and despair I observed in the world around me. I saw how people settle for less and have diminished expectations as their energy fades; how they loose direction and settle into an identity much smaller than who they really are."

And make sure you check out their art gallery of the history of trepanation. It's some pretty freaky stuff.

The next link is a little less scary - at Juggle on Acid! you can learn ...well.... how to juggle on acid.

The world's first and only resource for juggling nutters who love to juggle while tripping their tits off on LSD. As well being a very safe nutter-haven, this site will also be of great interest to the less psychotic jugglers out there, providing a wide array of tricks and videos to keep your favourite hobby evolving.

Why do you shiver when you wee?

If you haven't noticed - I have the humor of a middle school boy. I think bodily functions and fart jokes are still funny ;)

I kinda enjoy this article from The Register - entertaining :)

Shiver wee? This is not to be confused with chivalry (the valorous qualities of a knight or gentleman) or a shivaree (a noisy mock serenade by friends of a newly wed couple).

This is a surprisingly commonly-asked Odd Body Question (OBQ), and no research has been done on this topic.

Low room temperature as covered parts of the body are exposed could be an obvious cause. More seriously, the shivering is an example of the human body's autonomic nervous system (ANS) at work.

Do women shiver??