Alayna’s Favorites has consistently linked to the stuff we post here, so time to shower a little attention on her. Her site provides links to other sites. Here’s one that I found through her favorites: a nice reflection on the absurdity of the summer mini-mester, one semester supposedly crammed into two weeks.

Erkan’s Field Diary, run by an anthropologist who covers both anthro blogs and European and Middle East politics and culture, has consistently included us in some of his round ups. Here’s his most recent anthro one, which covers a lot of excellent ground and also provides us an introduction to some of his own work. You can also download his paper, Blogging as a Research Tool for Ethnography.

Dr. X’s Free Associations. Where else can you get vintage photos and psychology in one place? Plus a little politics too. The recent man with hyena photo really struck me. And he has a fun take on Jerry Springer speaking at Northwesetern’s commencement.

And of course the biggie for last. Greg and I both appreciate how Vaughan at MindHacks helps promote so many mind-related blogs, including our own. And where else can you find out about the brains of dead Russian geniuses and electronic lovers with fake online identities?

There are other places that have mentioned us over the last months, such as Neurophilosophy and Purposive Drift. And if you dig into some of our archives, you’ll find links to places we like. Or check out our blogroll. So this is just today’s shout out. But if you really like us, well then, feel free to comment with a link! We’d love to hear from you.

Sue Sheridan, who blogs as The Life of Wiley with updates on life, round ups, and comments on politics as well as biological anthropology, osteology, and more, posted this really cool image to the right when she linked to our student posts. On the left is one she put up yesterday.

If you want more of these images, check Sue’s blog out, as well as Primatebonz, the place where she helps contribute as well as scrounge over at Flickr. And she links to other image-laden sites like Skull-A-Day and Home of the Skulls. For real-life replicas (yeah, that made sense), check out Fossils as Art and Bone Clones. Bone Clones is one of my favorite exhibits to visit at anthro meetings. You haven’t lived until you’ve held a boisei skull in your hands!

remote central has put up the latest Four Stone Hearth. Even on short notice (Tim took over for a blog that deleted itself), it’s a great version. Here are just a few highlights.

Puss ’N Boots slices his way through the evolution of mind and language.

If Inca neurosurgery is your thing, check out this nice square skull incision.

Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosome Adam get it on!

How about battle forks? Eat and fight at the same time! (Though I am personally more interested in the combo toothpick/earwax spoon.)

Neanderthals often get a bad wrap, but here’s the real deal about our bigger-brained cousins

The Swedes are swooning for their locked away booze

And finally, bite into some enamel chemistry—watch out, you were what you ate.

Drugs

Alexis Madrigal, Is Meth a ‘Smart Drug’?
Got to do my own promo… Wired is pretty cool

Not Exactly Rocket Science, Brain-enhancing Drugs Work by Focusing Brain Activity… For Better or Worse
A more brain-based take on the same thing: cognitive enhancers and context

Jonah Lehrer, The Hidden Cost of Smart Drugs
“Enhancement” and the loss of creativity

Vaughan Bell, How Neurotech Will Change the World, One Brain at a Time
“drugs and devices to cure diseases and optimise our brains”

Natasha Mitchell, Quitting the Habit: Neurobiology, Addiction and the Insidious Ciggie
The latest on smoking—quite a good show. Note that the transcript has lots of good links.

SparkNotes, Theories of Addiction
SparkNotes are study guides put together by Barnes & Noble. This one provides an overview of some basic psychobiological models.

Anthropology

Andy Coghlan, Religion a Figment of Human Imagination
Anthropologist Maurice Bloch argues that religion driven by imagination, not social cohesion

Scott London, The Ecology of Magic
Interview with David Abram, author of The Spell of the Sensuous

Scott Atran, The Religious Politics of Fictive Kinship
“friendship and others aspects of small group dynamics, especially acting together, trumping most everything else”

Heather Smith, Procrastinators without Borders
“Did perhaps just one anthropologist ever think to ask a penis-gourd-wearer if he wakes up some days and thinks he’s going to make a new penis gourd, but instead this happens and that happens, and making the new gourd just gets put off, along with everything else that he’s supposed to be doing, until he feels terrible and the only option seems to be to move to a place where no one notices that his gourd is outmoded?”

Continue reading “Wednesday Round Up #12”

Columbia University’s Brain and Mind video archive has some prominent speakers of neuroscience, psychiatry, development, and the like. It’s quite a good collection of 15 videos, including Michael Rutter, Nora Volkow, John Searle, and Eric Kandel. The hat-tip goes to Neurophilosophy.

Psique has put up an impressive collection of online neuroscience resources, all sorts of tutorials and information, a link which I will definitely add to our Web Resources.

Over at the London School of Economics, the Brain, Self and Society program has put together an extraordinary list of worldwide links covering academic institutions and research centres, academic societies, neuro-blogs, history of neuroscience, and journals.

Indiana University’s online journal Mind/Brain has just released its latest issue. It’s a great collection, including David Bricker’s piece, What’s A Mind Made Of? and Douglas Hofstadter’s The Elusive Apple of My ‘I’ . And more stuff on autism, addiction and mental illness, stress and the brain, and language learning. The hat-tip goes to Thinking Meat, which has been linking to a lot of good stuff recently.

Being Smarter

Paul Brown, How To Be Smarter
A round-up of recent ideas and recommendations

New York Times, Well: A Guided Tour of Your Body
Get to know yourself: Great graphics and summary pieces

Christopher Null, Brain Game Can Boost IQ—Here’s 5 New Brain Games to Play Now
Univ of Michigan game that boosts IQ, and another five commercial ones that are actually fun

Vaughan Bell, The History of the Brain
Everything you ever wanted to know, wrapped up in one radio program

Roni Caryn Rabin, For A Sharp Brain, Stimulation
Neurogenesis and the aging brain

Children & Being Smarter

Michael Merzenich, Children Left Behind
No Child Left Behind’s reading program leaves children behind…

Michael Merzenich, Poky Young Brains Speed Up
Learning difficulties, temporal processing, and specialized interventions making a difference

Bruce Hood, How Brains Develop
A Nature book review of two recent ones on children’s brain development

Will Dunham, Study Shows Breast-Fed Children Are Smarter
Well-designed study shows strong support for breast feeding as making kids smarter

Stereotypes, Beliefs & Knowledge

Richard Fenyman, Cargo Cult Science
Belief over data… even in science

Continue reading “Wednesday Round Up #11”