Best of the Brain from Scientific American: Mind, Matter, and Tomorrow’s Brain
This book contains 21 articles about the mind and the brain from Scientific American, a popular-science magazine. |
Author: admin
Brain Scientist Describes Her Stroke and How She Achieved Nivana
Brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor gave this talk at TED where she showed us a real brain and how it consists of two separate halves. The right half thinks in parallel and knows the concept of “we”. The left half thinks in serial and knows that concept of “I”. One day she had a stroke on the left hemisphere and she is able to describe to us today what happened on that day as her brain functions started to shut down. She described how she lost the normal brain chatter that are always in our head, how she gained a perspective as an outsider looking at herself, and how she experienced nirvana.
Tom and Ray of CarTalk host documentary on Car of the Future
Watch the Nova documentary “Car of the Future” online.
This documentary explores alternative fuel vehicles which will be needed in the future as demand for fossil fuel outgrow supplies. And because this film is hosted by Tom and Ray Magliozzi (also known as Click and Clack) of the radio show CarTalk, you are sure to get a few laughs as well.
“Code Monkey” Song by Jonathan Coulton
For better sound quality, you can listen at MP3 at JonathanCoulton.com or on listen to Jonathan Coulton on Last.fm.
Or read the lyrics as you listen. Or here on YouTube if you like kinetic typography.
Last.fm has more videos of Jonathan Coulton.
This is a song by Jonathan Coulton about a software coder (code monkey) who likes a girl. Jonathan quit is day job of writing code, and now he writes songs instead. You can find more songs by Jonathan Coulton at JonathanCoulton.com
Video of Mark Bittman telling us what’s wrong with what we eat
Mark Bittman goes over the history of how we eat and explains what is wrong with the way we eat today. He advocates eating more plants and less animals — both for our own health as well as help prevent global warming. Oh, you didn’t know that raising cattle contribute to global warming? Mark Bittman says “livestock is the second highest contributing factor to atmosphere-altering gases. Nearly one-fifth of all greenhouse gases is generated by livestock production — more than transportation.”
Michael Moschen’s Unique Juggling Set to Music and Motion
Watch Michael Moschen’s unique juggling act set to music and motion.
Joke: Evolution of a Programmer
Take a look at the code of programmers of various levels linked here.
They are all writing the standard “Hello World” program. Especially funny is the one by the “Chief Executive”.
Funny Tech Songs and Talk about “Simplicity Sells”
David Pogue, New York Times columnist, starts off with a funny song about tech support. Before the talk has ended he also did a funny “Bill Gates Song” and another funny song on Steve Jobs. The rest of his talk is quite funny too as he shows why people like simplicity and as he shows examples of the opposite.
Book: “Brain Building in Just 12 Weeks”
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Brain Building in Just 12 Weeks
The sub-title of this book is “The World’s Smartest Person Shows You How to Exercise Yourself Smarter”. In the late 1980’s, the author Marilyn von Savant was listed by “Guinness Book of World Records” as having the highest IQ. You can see her bio on her website at MarilynVonSavant.com and read more about her on Wikipedia. |
Dr. John Medina Talks At Google About Brain Science
Dr. John Medina, developmental molecular biologist, gives an informative and humorous talk at Google about brain science and his book “Brain Rules”.
In this talk he talks about brain rule number one which is that aerobic exercise boosts cognitive performance especially executive function. He says “if you have an active lifestyle you have a 50% reduction in the risk of Alzheimer”. He answers the question of how much exercise if required to get these benefits: Two to three times a week for 20 minutes per session. Aerobic exercise increases blood flow to the dentate gyrus of brain and elevates BDNF which is like Miracle Grow for brains.
Then he talks about stress on the brain. Stressed brains does not learn the same way and hurts learning. He says “stress damages cognition in virtually every way cognition can be measured.”
And he ends with the most important brain rule of all: curiosity.