Pure Pedantry hosted Grand Rounds, the medical carnival. A great edition using a funny South Park theme.
Testimony of the Spade hosted the anthropology carnival Four Stone Hearth, with plenty to satisfy your sojourner heart.
Mouse Trap hosted the most recent Encephalon, rounding up brain and mind blogging, as an engaging “ode to the brain.”
Culture and Biology Interact
Seed Magazine, Interview with Lambros Malafouris
Podcast with the archaeologist studying material culture, our “extended mind,” and neuroarchaeology. For more, see Mind Hacks.
Jeremy Hsu, The Secrets of Storytelling: Why We Love a Good Yarn
Scientific American on this human universal, including how narrative helps to organize emotion and empathy
Seed Magazine, Interview with Heejung Kim
Podcast with geneticist whose work illuminates the “competing yet complementary influences of genes and culture”
Drake Bennett, How Magicians Control Your Mind
Highlights from recent research on the cognitive neuroscience behind magicians’ tricks
Jonah Lehrer, Obesity and Food Culture
Eating habits, mixed-race adults, and obesity—some musings
Robert Krulwich, Virgina Woolf, At Intersection of Science and Art
The great writer, conveying our sense of the flow of ordinary sensations
Brain
The Neurocritic, Broken Social Scene
Individuals with Williams syndrome and autism (hyper vs. hypo sociality) and their reactions to pictures of social scenes—eye gaze and the importance of our social faces
Natalie Angier, The Nose, An Emotional Time Machine
Smell memories and becoming a better nose hound
Neuroanthropology 