Neuroanthropology

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Archive for the ‘Links’ Category

Gaming Round Up – Learning, Research, Addiction and Design

Posted by dlende on July 10, 2009

World Cyber Games
Great stuff covering the breadth of neuroanthropology – learning, research, addiction, art and criticism, and thinking about games and game design. One immersive round-up.

For our latest onsite, you can see Can Video Games Actually Be Good For You?, Robbie Cooper – Immersion, and the Contemporary Culture of Entertainment.

Also, the last round-up on video games, brain and psychology is one of our more popular posts, and includes links to more on-site stuff. Or simply check out our video game category.

Learning

Alvaro Pascual-Leone & Lotfi B. Merabet, Take Two Video Games and Call Me in the Morning
Scientific American article on how it can, with some quite context on how to think about plasticity, motivation, and virtuality.

Michael Abbott, Teach Me to Play
Great post at The Brainy Gamer about learning styles and game designs. See also his reporting from the Games for Change conference, Flashes of Light

Ben Silverman, Is Gaming Good for the Mind?
Certainly helps seniors with cognition. And it’s a commercial game, Boom Blox on the Wii.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Links, Video Games | 1 Comment »

The Breadth of the Net

Posted by dlende on July 2, 2009

Internet_map_1024

Five links that range across the things that interest us here at Neuroanthropology.net. Enjoy!

Global Voices Online
“The world is talking. Are you listening?”: Bringing together and highlighting stories that most global media ignore

Top 10 Psychology Blogs for Curious Minds
From BPS Digest to We’re Only Human, it’s a quality list

The You Tube Reporters’ Center
Interviews and advice from top-notch journalists on how we can all do better reporting

Top 20 TED Talks for Busy School Administrators
Definitely not for professors – they might watch too much. Especially if they are trying to get tenure.

Neuroimages
Neurophilosophy’s Mo Costandi has set up an image-only site, Neuroimages. Some beautiful stuff.

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Four Stone Hearth #70

Posted by dlende on July 2, 2009

Afarensis
A great issue of Four Stone Hearth, the anthropology carnival, is over at Afarensis: Anthropology, Evolution and Science.

From sex on the moon and virtual communities to orangs as our closest relatives?, this edition is extensive, with highlights from all four fields.

Also note that Afarnesis is now at a new site – moving from the old scienceblogs to the new wordpress. Besides getting his own real-life monster name, you can find out why your dog looks guilty and the relationships between lungfish, trout and humans.

From this edition I’d like to highlight two pieces on evolution of intellience, Blair Bolles’ meditation on tool use, language evolution, and the context of adaptation, and Razib’s piece on the evolution of the brain and the role of social competition in the increasing cranial size in our lineage. The two pieces work quite well together.

There is plenty more great stuff over at Four Stone Hearth #70, so run or walk (like a good afarensis) there now.

Link to Four Stone Hearth #70

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Four Stone 69

Posted by dlende on June 18, 2009

Kisokaido07_Konosu 69 Stations from Wikipedia
Wanna Be An Anthropologist is hosting the 69th edition of Four Stone Hearth, rounding up the best of anthro blogging over the past two weeks.

Ordinary ethnography (with video!), paleo-Indians and summer fieldwork, dredging for Neanderthals, internet controversies, linguistic anthro grad programs and more!

As for the image, it is taken from a series on the The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō, based on the actual Japanese route of the 69 stations of the Nakasendō.

Link to the 69 Stone Hearth.

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Social Networking and Anthropology: Sites to Cites

Posted by dlende on June 16, 2009

Besides the growing number of anthropology blogs, there is an emerging Internet infrastructure aimed at uniting anthropologists to do better work, make connections, and have a wider impact. If you know of more, please leave a comment!

Open Anthropology Cooperative
A place to converse, connect, and make a future for anthropology. Plenty of interest groups, advice and current events. Already 800 members strong.

Twitter Group – Anthropology and Twitter – Anthropologies
Get your tweet on! You can also join WeFollow: Anthropology or become a member in the Anthropology Twibe

World Anthropologies Network
Also called La Red de Antropologías del Mundo – linking anthropologists together, particularly in the US and Latin American

Moving Anthropology Student Network
“Students and scholars from more than 80 different countries have already become members of the MASN-community.”

LiveJournal Anthropologist Community
A site to network, discuss and find answers to questions you might have

Indigenous Caribbean Network
Like it sounds – sign up to network and more

Directory of Open Access Journals – Anthropology
Get your open access (yes, free!) articles on!

Research Blogging – Anthropology
Posts on substantive research, using the Research Blogging label

WikiProject – Anthropology
A group dedicated to improving Wikipedia’s coverage of anthropology

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Links | 7 Comments »

Trance Captured on Video

Posted by dlende on June 15, 2009

A great discussion on the Medical Anthropology listserve focused on good films for trance. I’ve provided the list below, complete with links to the films, extra notes in brackets, and some YouTube clips.

Joshua Moses asked:

Dear colleagues, I was wondering if people could recommend film footage of trance states of various kinds–rituals, dance, shamanic, church based etc.
The geographical region is not important. I would be grateful for you assistance. Thank you.

The Replies:

Sheila Cosminsky (Rutgers): A classic film on trance is Margaret Mead’s Trance and Dance in Bali, which shows dancers with knives under trance [also recommended by Beverly Bennett of Cultural Ideas].
Also, Jero on Jero, a Balinese Trance Seance Observed [also Balinese Trance Seance, included in the DVD, was recommended by Geraldine Moreno at Oregon].
Other films are: N/um Tchai: the Ceremonial Dance of the !Kung Bushmen, and Macumba, Trance, and Spirit Healing.

Michelle Ramirez (University of the Sciences in Philadelphia): There’s always the classic “Holy Ghost People” by Peter Adair, which shows folks in Appalachia (in what very much looks like trance-like states) handling snakes.
[You can also get this documentary in a series of six YouTube clips starting here; I’ve embedded below another clip that contains some of the most relevant footage]

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Posted in Human variation, Links, Meditation, Psychological anthropology | 11 Comments »

iCephalon!

Posted by dlende on June 8, 2009

Apple Skull
Cognitive Daily is hosting the 72nd edition of Encephalon, the biweekly round up of mind/brain blogging. This time it’s the i-theme. Yes, Apple is hosting its World Wide Developers conference today, complete with a new iPhone.
Apple Brain
We’ve got the iPeople app, the iPlant (imPlant…), the iSmoke, the iFit, and much more! I also found some groovy photos to liven up your day…

So go visit the iCephalon 2009 Keynote address!
Brain Food

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Culture and Compulsion: Student Posts 2009

Posted by dlende on June 4, 2009

Compulsion III by Sandra Doore

Compulsion III by Sandra Doore

Here are all the student posts from this year in the order I put them up. As a group they’ve already proven popular, getting attention from a range of high-power sites and social networks. That’s great, and well-deserved!

Below I also outline how I approached this project with my students. If you want to incorporate something similar into your teaching or comparable work, feel free to use and/or adapt these guidelines. Of course any suggestions or alternative approaches are always appreciated. Leave a comment below or email me at dlende at nd dot edu

The List

Why Do They Do It? Portrayals of Alcohol on Facebook and MySpace

Gambling and Compulsion: Neurobiology Meets Casinos

What’s the Dope on Music and Drugs?

Tobacco Worse Than Cocaine?

Caught in the Net – The Internet & Compulsion

Lights, Camera… Alcohol?

Confessions of a Shopaholic

Can Videogames Actually Be Good For You?

The New Performance Enhancing Drugs

These nine posts join the eight from last year, which went from understanding brain imaging to the differences between men and women drinking on campus – those were rounded up in Why A Final Essay When We Can Do This?

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Addiction, Education, Links | 3 Comments »

Smokin’ Hearth

Posted by dlende on June 4, 2009

Weavers' Hearth
remote central is hosting Four Stone Hearth – Smokers’ Delight edition, rounding up the best anthropology blogging of the past two weeks.

This time we’ve got scintillating zigzags and surrealism, the bearded lady syndrome, language as a technology?, miocene apes (don’t you love them too?), the open anthropology collective, and more!

Also, for those of you interested, I found that smokin’ hearth at this site on the Knapdale Hearth Tax of 1694.

Now set a smoke trail on over to the latest edition of Four Stone Hearth.

Posted in Links | Leave a Comment »

Encephalon #71: Big Night

Posted by dlende on May 25, 2009

Big Night
Welcome to Encephalon #71 – a Big Night here at Neuroanthropology, as we are hosting Encephalon for the second time (last year it was The Usual Suspects). Enjoy your multi-course mind feast!

Editor’s Selections
What is this: ‘Too much’? HEY! It is never ‘too much’; it is only ‘not enough’! Bite your teeth into the ass of life and drag it to you!

Carl Feagans, A Hot Cup of Joe
Artificial Cranial Modification: Trephination and Head Shaping

Alvaro Fernandez, Sharp Brains
The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness: 18 Interviews with Scientists, Practical Advice, and Product Reviews, To Keep Your Brain Sharp

Students @ Neuroanthropology – their own Big Night!
Gambling and Compulsion: Neurobiology Meets Casinos

Ginger Campbell, Brain Science Podcasts
Brain Science Podcast #57: Chris Frith, PhD (author of “Making Up The Mind: How the Brain Creates Our Mental World”)

Learning
“People should come just for the food!” “I know that, I know. But they don’t.”

Dave Munger, Cognitive Daily
Musicians Have Better Memory – Not Just for Music, but Words and Pictures Too

Greg Downey, Neuroanthropology
Talent: A Difference That Makes a Difference

Walter van den Broek, i.e., Dr. Shock
Neuroscience of Learning Arithmetic

Nicky Penttila, Sharp Brains
Brain Scientists Identify Links between Arts, Learning

Brain Health
I’m a businessman. I’m anything I need to be at anytime.

My Mind on Books
“What Makes Us Happy?”: George Vaillant and the Harvard Study of Adult Development @ The Atlantic

Adam Benforado, The Situationist
Something to Smile About

The Neurocritic
Suicide Rates in Greenland Are Highest During the Summer

Ward Plunet, Brain Health Hacks
How to Increase Your D2 Receptor Levels, and therefore the Dopamine System – for Better Brain Health

Dr. Shock
Neuroscience of Exercise

On the Basics
Sometimes spaghetti likes to be alone.

Vaughan Bell, Mind Hacks
The Psychology of Being Scammed

Sandeep Gautam, The Mouse Trap
Synaptic Plasticity: Angelman’s/Autism and Psychosis

Jacy Young, Advances in the History of Psychology
Interview with Alexandra Rutherford, author of “Beyond the Box: B.F. Skinner’s Technology of Behavior from Laboratory to Life”

Mo Costandi, Neurophilosophy
Decoding the Brain’s Response to Vocal Emotions

Critique and Comment
“She’s a criminal. I want to talk to her.” “You want to talk to her? Okay! You want to talk to her? That’s great.”

Eugene Raikhel, Somatosphere
A Critical Neurosciences Manifesto

The Neurocritic
The Constant State of Desire: Broccoli & Self-Control

Jared Tanner, Brain Blogger
What is Free Will?

Cristopher Green, Advances in the History of Psychology
“Homosexuality Conversion” Classics Fraudulent?

Philip Dawdy, Furious Seasons
Psychiatrist Calls Profession’s Leaders Out Of Touch

Sandra K., Channel N
Neuroethics Diavlog – Neuroscience and the Law with Carl Zimmer and Michael Gazzanniga

Greg Downey, Neuroanthropology
Escaping Orientalism in Cultural Psychology

Anthropology
Give to people what they want, then later you can give them what you want.

Edmund Blair Bolles, Babel’s Dawn
From Protolanguage to True Language

Dan Sperber, Cognition and Culture
Is the Left Hemisphere more Whorfian than the Right One?

Jacy Young, Advances in the History of Psychology
Interviews with Milgram’s Participants

David DiSalvo, Neuronarrative
Are We Born Believers or Cultural Receivers? A Discussion with Author and Psychologist Bruce Hood

Addiction
This place is eating us alive.

Dirk Hanson, Brain Blogger,
Clearing the Haze – Is Marijuana Addictive?

Scicurious, Neurotopia
Things I like to Blog About: Addiction and the Opponent Process Theory
Opponent-Process Theory: Welcome to the Dark Side

Vaughan Bell, Mind Hacks
Numbers Up for Dopamine Myth

Notes on Big Night

For more on the 1996 film Big Night, you can see the IMDb site and Wikipedia. The quotes (with occasional slight modifications) were taken from two sources: IMDb and MovieQuotes.

The movie inspired a cookbook Cucina & Famiglia, where you can actually find the recipe for the wonderful Timpano (see these images) featured in the movie.

Or you can do directly to the web and find the Timpano recipe straight from the cookbook or a slightly modified one. You can also get a 2007 account and a 2008 account of the process of making Timpano.

Posted in Links, general | 3 Comments »