Sci is at SciAm Blogs today, talking about another aspect of dopamine. I usually talk about dopamine in the context of reward and addiction, but dopamine also plays a role in attention and learning, especially in something called prediction errors, learning how much your expectations match reality. But it turns out that, instead of being […]
It is more than coincidence. It is FATE that brought us today’s Friday Weird Science. First, Mr. S alerted me to the reviews for this hair removal product. Warning: do not read the reviews unless you have the space and time to laugh til you cry. As a brief excerpt: I didn’t have long to […]
Sci is at SciAm Blogs today, wrapping up my second session from Science Online 2013, a session on Identity. We had a really productive discussion, and we’d like to build on it! Is there a way that you use your identity in your writing? Is there a way you could use one of your identities […]
Sci is back from Science Online 2013. It was so lovely to hang out with wonderful old internet friends and to meet so many new ones! It’s one of my favorite conferences, full of deep (and often highly silly) conversations about science communication. It always leaves me re-energized, and even more eager to do it […]
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a hermaphroditic flatworm in possession of its own sperm, rarely runs short of sperm, and thus must be in want of another hermaphrodite of suitable quality to inseminate.” -Jane Austen, if she had studied flatworms What are the economics of donating sperm? In many species where you have […]
Over at SciAm Blogs today, I’m hosting this month’s Scicurious Guest Writer, Phil Corlett! Phil is an Assistant Professor at Yale, and is talking about the potential interaction between our sense of “self”, the immune system’s sense of “self”, and how it might relate to psychosis. Head over and check it out!
Sci is over at SciAm Blogs today, talking about my other session for Science online 2013! On Saturday afternoon, we’ll be talking about Identity, and the way that different identities can affect our writing and how we approach social media. And the session is going to be live videoed in room 3!! It promises to […]
Echidnas, aka Spiny Ant Eaters, are among the species that, until now, I usually forgot existed. When it comes to monotremes, the platypus is the most charismatic (or at least, definitely the oddest looking) of the bunch. And echidnas, well, they just look like…kind of a cross between a hedgehog and an anteater. Kind of […]
I’m so honored this year to be leading TWO discussions at Science Online!! The first up will be Dr. Zen and I, talking about blogging for the long haul. How do you keep it going, build your “brand”, and avoid the ever-looming fear of burnout? Let’s talk about strategies and where it all might be […]
If you’re reading this sentence, chances are you’re reading it silently (if you’re reading it out loud, hey, that’s cool too). Your lips aren’t moving, you’re not making any sound that other people can hear. But are you making “sound” in your head? Many people who read silently do so by imagining a voice speaking […]