Humans can follow scent trails across a field in the same way that dogs can ? and they improve with practice ? a intriguing new field study has revealed. Jess Porter and Noam Sobel at the University of California in Berkeley, US, and colleagues tested whether 32 people were able to follow a 10-metre-long scent […]
Year: 2006
Dickens and disease
But the hallmark of Lewy body disease is the real clincher in this diagnosis: vivid and detailed hallucinations featuring friends and relatives are common. And like Scrooge?s visions, these phantasms are distressing, often terrifying. Finally, in Lewy body dementia, hallucinations occur early in the disease, frequently before the cognitive deficits are apparent. I went back […]
Helsinki Complaints
The Helsinki Complaints Choir (video link) is, in the view of those who do not believe otherwise, the finest of the world’s several complaints choirs. Helsinki is a good place to study complaints and choirs, and the relation between them. Laura Lehto and three colleagues at Helsinki University Central Hospital recently published the possibly pertinent […]
The philosopher who loved Buffy
James B. South, Chair of the Philosophy Department at Marquette University, loves philosophizing about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He has edited a book called Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale. Other books in the “Popular Culture and Philosophy” series, of which South’s book is number 4, include Harry Potter and […]