Commentary invited by editors of Scientific American Mind
On the heels of the decade of the brain and the development of neuroimaging, it is nearly impossible to open a science magazine or walk through a bookstore without encountering images of the human brain...
As Albert Einstein famously said, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” The history of science is littered with so-called “intractable” problems that researchers later cracked wide open using techniques their ancestors could hardly imagine...
In July, 2013, a video entitled “Is this paranormal activity caught on CCTV in a Whitstable shop?” appeared on YouTube. This contains footage from a security camera in the Whitstable Nutrition Centre, a health food store in southeast England...
Recently, two studies surfaced almost simultaneously that led to exclamations of “Vulcan mind meld!”, “Zombie armies!” and “Brains in jars!”
Recently, two studies surfaced almost simultaneously that led to exclamations of “Vulcan mind meld!”, “Zombie armies!” and “Brains in jars!”
Do NOT EAT the chemicals. It is the #1 laboratory safety rule young scientists learn to never break and for good reason; it keeps lab citizens alive and unscathed.
We’ve been here before. Two or three times a year, a team of neuroscientists comes along and tightropes over the chasm that is dystopian research.
I’d like to examine the concept of freedom in a somewhat unusual way — from the viewpoint of motivational psychology. The starting point is to realize that there are basically four ways of influencing behavior: reward, punishment, restraint, and compulsion...
Stacked layers have fascinated us humans for as long as we’ve sought to organize the universe around us. Authors and artists have developed primitive conceptions of heaven, earth and hell into elaborate hierarchies of celestial and infernal spheres...
So much of what happens to us in life is not by plan, but rather by coincidence or serendipity. Thus it was with me and my career. After completing my residency in psychiatry I was assigned the responsibility of developing a Children’s Unit at Winnebago Mental Health Institute here in Wisconsin. There were over 800 [...]..
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