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POPSMind, body and goal: the embodied cognition revolution "In one particularly striking study, Proffitt and his colleagues found that we perceive distances as shorter when we have a tool in our hand, but only when we intend to use it. They suggest that we perceive the environment in terms of our intentions and abilities to act within it".
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POPSIs our emotions that make thought possible? "Before Damasio came onto the scene, most cognitive scientists assumed that emotions only interfered with rational thought. It was assumed that a person without any emotions would be a better thinker, since their “cortical computer” could process information without the hindrance of emotion. Damasio’s research challenged the assumption by showing that people who have suffered brain injuries which prevent them from perceiving their own feelings, are ineffective decision-makers. Most would spend hours deliberating over irrelevant details, such as where to eat lunch. Damasio’s research, among many other studies, is revealing that emotion is what enables us to make up our minds. It is pure reason- not feeling- that is the true hindrance to decision making. So take that, Mr. Spock!
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POPSPalin and the fruit fly or just plain ignorance
One might have thought that Sarah Palin would take a more active interest in one aspect of scientific research. Palin's youngest son has Down's syndrome, a genetic disorder caused by the presence of an extra chromosome 21. Although a geneticist by training, I am certainly no expert on the pathogenesis of this condition, nor the significance of Drosophila research into Down's syndrome. So, I typed "drosophila trisomy 21" into PubMed, the scholarly biomedical equivalent of Google. There were 109 results, the most recent published just the day before Palin's gaffe. The concluding sentence of that study — about the genetic cues that steer nerve fibres around during the growth of the fruit fly — suggests that the paper will "have implications for the pathogenesis of Down's syndrome". These two are drops in the ocean of fruit fly research that have clinical relevance. Down's syndrome, Alzheimer's disease, autism, diabetes, ageing research, cancers of all types
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POPSDELL Awards Frequently referred to as the “Oscar” of the industrial design world, iF awards are presented by one of the world’s leading design institutions, the Industrie Forum
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POPSYou're in Good Hands... with computer games Allstate insurance has contracted Posit Science to deliver its InSight software to older drivers to help them improve their cognitive abilities. So tell the kids they have to get off the joystick so granddad can do his homework.
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POPSThe ability to see through things... "In today's world, humans have more in common visually with tiny mice in a forest than with a large animal in the jungle. We aren't faced with a great deal of small clutter, and the things that do clutter our visual field — cars and skyscrapers — are much wider than the separation between our eyes, so we can't use our X-ray power to see through them," Changizi says. "If we froze ourselves today and woke up a million years from now, it's possible that it might be difficult for us to look the new human population in the eyes, because by then they might be facing sideways."
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POPSDo animals understand death? Do humans? "One example is famadihana - the turning of the bones - a traditional ritual carried out by the Malagasy people of Madagascar. Every seven years, the dead relatives are exhumed from the family tomb, re-wrapped, and danced around the tomb."
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POPSPioneering Research in Neuromorphic Electronics that Function Like the Biological Brain The HRL team's ultimate goal is to build a low-power, compact electronic chip combining a novel analog circuit design and a neuroscience-inspired architecture that can address a wide range of cognitive abilities--perception, planning, decision making, and motor control. In the initial two phases of the SyNAPSE program, the team will translate the neuronal and synaptic functions of the biological cortex into similar microelectronic functions.
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POPSOn Law and Neuroscience An interesting read describing the influence of evolution theory and neuroscience on basic legal and moral concepts such as responsibility and free will.
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POPSNaturalism's Hot Water The problem, as several thinkers (C. S. Lewis, for example) have seen, is that naturalism, or evolutionary naturalism, seems to lead to a deep and pervasive skepticism. It leads to the conclusion that our cognitive or belief-producing faculties—memory, perception, logical insight, etc.—are unreliable and cannot be trusted to produce a preponderance of true beliefs over false....
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POPSFuture Drugs Will Make Troops Want to Fight 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?
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POPSWorld's weirdest experiments Funny to read :-) You can try a variation on the 'white bear' experiment: Just put down the paper and don't think about CLIPMARKS for a while. But don't say you weren't warned. CLIPMARKS, once not invited in, can be devilishly hard to get rid of.
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