Cola for Mice / Read a bicycle / Head Organ / Life in Salt

This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: Cola: a swell tale — … If you are a male mouse who drinks lots of Pepsi or Coca-Cola, and if you mainly enjoy reading manly adventure stories, get yourself a copy of the latest write-up from […]

Exchanging Shit for Brains, Postmortem [research study]

Although they perhaps were not allowed to say it plainly in their published study, three scientists have identified a clear case of exchanging shit for brains. Details (with some euphemisms) are in the study: “Coprolites From Calvert Cliffs: Miocene Fecal Pellets and Burrowed Crocodilian Droppings from the Chesapeake Group of Maryland, U.S.A.“, Stephen J. Godfrey, […]

Hitchhiker’s Guide to Brain Science on Planet Earth

What will the brain research community thing about “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Brain Science on Planet Earth” (read the article free, here online)? Though this curious piece of writing does not explicitly explore ice cream, it is a featured part of the special ICE CREAM issue (volume 28, number 1) of the magazine, Annals of Improbable Research.

Enjoyment of Watching Pimple Popping Videos: An fMRI Investigation

Pimples take center stage in the brain, in this new study: “Enjoyment of Watching Pimple Popping Videos: An fMRI Investigation,” Albert Wabnegger, Carina Höfler, Thomas Zussner, Harald H Freudenthaler, Anne Schienle, Behavioural Brain Research, vol. 402, March 26, 2021, 113129.  The authors, at the University of Graz, Austria, explain: We administered a total of 96 […]

The Precuneus and Anterior Cingulate Gyrus of Professional Comedians

This study attempted to see if there is something funny in the brains of professional comedians. The study is: “Mapping the ‘Funny Bone’: Neuroanatomical Correlates of Humor Creativity in Professional Comedians, Jacob Brawer and Ori Amir, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, epub 2021. (Thanks to Emine Kidjo for bringing this to our attention.) Here are […]

How is a computer programmer like a dead salmon?

One statement, at least, in a June 5, 2020 press release would be hard to dispute: “Our goal was to develop a completely new approach to better understand the cognitive processes involved in programming.” The press release, issued by the Chemnitz University of Technology, comes with the headline “Programming ‘language’: Brain scans reveal coding uses […]