IBM’s Blue Gene Supercomputer Models a Cat’s Entire Brain | Popular Science

IBM’s Blue Gene Supercomputer Models a Cat’s Entire Brain | Popular Science
Cats may retain an aura of mystery about their smug selves, but that could change with scientists using a supercomputer to simulate the the feline brain. That translates into 144 terabytes of working memory for the digital kitty mind.

Why We Talk and Chimps Don’t | Psychology Today

Why We Talk and Chimps Don’t
As much as I love science, I love science fiction more. Science tells us what is; science fiction tells us what might be. I recently read a unique and revealing science fiction story, “Immersion,” written by U-Cal-Irvine physics professor Gregory Benford. In his story, Benford invents the technophile’s brand of [...]

Is Our Brain to Blame If We’re Not Sociable? | Newsweek Voices - Sharon Begley | Newsweek.com

Is Our Brain to Blame If We’re Not Sociable? | Newsweek Voices - Sharon Begley | Newsweek.com
There must be something deep in the human soul that makes us blame fate, birth, our parents and all sorts of other things beyond our control for how we turn out, and scientists are no less guilty of this. [...]

Fascinating Article about the Placebo Effect

Jane D. was a regular visitor to our ER, usually showing up late at night demanding an injection of the narcotic Demerol, the only thing that worked for her severe headaches. One night the staff psychiatrist had the nurse give her an injection of saline instead. It worked! He told Jane she had responded to [...]

Sensed Presences in Extreme Contexts

John Geiger’s book is a highly readable compendium of anecdotes about the remarkably common experience of feeling the presence of a companion for whom there is no objective evidence. The companion is seldom seen but strongly sensed and hence is often referred to as a “sensed presence.” The presence is usually taken to be a [...]

To The Brain, God Is Just Another Guy

The human brain, it appears, responds to God as if he were just another person, according to a team at the National Institutes of Health.
A study of 40 people — some religious, some nonreligious — found that phrases such as “I believe God is with me throughout the day and watches over me” lit up [...]

Promoting Psychological Literacy I: The need | Psychology Today Blogs

Science education is a top priority in this country. We believe that science education is important for at least two reasons. First, the more students learn about science, the more likely they will be to go into careers in the sciences and engineering. These careers pay well and help the economy. Second, a basic level [...]

Predictably Irrational

Chapter 1: The Truth About Relativity
We always seek to draw comparisons.  Thus, given three choices, A, B (very distinct, but equally as attractive as A), and A- (similar to A, but inferior), we will almost always choose A, because it is clearly superior to A-.

Ariely did an experiment where he used photos of undergrads to [...]

Study: Poverty dramatically affects children’s brains

By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY
A new study finds that certain brain functions of some low-income 9- and 10-year-olds pale in comparison with those of wealthy children and that the difference is almost equivalent to the damage from a stroke.
“It is a similar pattern to what’s seen in patients with strokes that have led to lesions [...]

The Brand Loyalty of Religion is Unsurpassed.

For most brand managers, brand loyalty is a crucial metric of success. One way to measure brand loyalty is by gauging the extent of repeat purchases. Suppose that we were to keep track of the next ten purchases of soft drinks for consumers A and B. If consumer A buys Pepsi on each of the [...]

Analyze Your Handwriting (cursive)

Analyze Now!

Technology Making Changes to Human Cognition?

Bill Thompson considers how our multi-media world is impacted the way we see ourselves.
In her recently published book ID: The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century, Professor Susan Greenfield brings her considerable expertise as a neuroscientist to bear on the question of whether and how our current use of computers is changing the [...]