hey teach!

the vega science trust

well worth the look.

The Vega Science Trust aims to create a broadcast platform for the science, engineering and technology (SET) communities, so enabling them to communicate on all aspects of their fields of expertise using the exciting new TV and Internet opportunities.

link to vega!

want to see a magic trick?

jesus grapevine

this sounds like a bad soap opera:

jesus has returned as Dr. Jose Luis De Jesus Miranda to collect rolex watches and random companies from his followers whilst a bikini girl, one of His exclusive singers, sings about how she loves how her lover knows what she likes in her coffee.

but just when you thought it was safe, it turns out he’s the antichrist. the end is nigh! save yourself latina lovegirl!

maybe latina lovegirl can give us some solace, after all ‘Latina lovergirl is in love with love and loving it–whether she’s splashing poolside in a bikini or shimmying bare-midriff style on a soundstage she’s selling it big time in this infectious, horn-peppered pop.’ Watch it! The apocalypse was never sexier.

via pharyngula

yet another reason to love ‘daily dose of imagery’

In my post-synapse, pre-Christmas, bored at work phase I really cannot find it in me to blog very critically these days.  Something more serious will come up soon, but, quite frankly, I love Daily Dose of Imagery now more than ever and would rather hang around his beautiful images.

clive wearing

parts:
1a 1b full
2a 2b 2c 2d

The Observer The Telegraph Sixty Minutes Spiegel

Neuroimaging Poses Ethical Dilemmas

An excellent video on neuroimaging and neuroethics. I saw some of those slides during your talk at HBM, Dr. Raichle! Oh well, they’re worth recycling. Dig the iceberg.

In May 2005, the Library of Congress, the Dana Foundation, Columbia University, and the National Institute of Mental Health gathered leaders in neuroscience and ethics to discuss the rights and wrongs of using or not using new therapies and enhancements. By defining the most advanced and promising research findings, the conference sought to dispel public confusion about what brain science today can and cannot do.

Link to Neuroimaging Poses Ethical Dilemmas Webcast

SFN Break.

CLICK HERE FOR A MOVIE I CAN’T UNDERSTAND!!!!

I have to really update this. Too much has happened over the past 4 days here in Atlanta. I shall try to in my down time should I decide to play hookey and visit the aquarium with some Calgarians. In the interim though, I just received an email from a very good friend of mine. She’s playing a part in a film directed by another friend that has been selected for the Calgary and Toronto film festivals! If you’re in the Calgary or the Toronto regions, check this out. Looks like it will screen in Toronto for the After Dark Film Festival this coming Sunday (October 22). Congratulations Rany and Candace!

Brain Mirror

This is too cool

The Mechanization of Cognition

bigger

The cog was put back in cognition (at least in theory) this past May at IBM’s Almaden Research Center which holds an annual series of talks.

// The Almaden Institute is held annually at IBM’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California. The Institute brings together eminent, innovative thinkers from academia, government, industry, research labs and the media for an intellectually charged, stimulating and vigorous dialogue that addresses fundamental challenges at the very edge of science and technology.

Some pretty big names made the short list, namely: Toby Berger (Cornell), Gerald Edelman (The Neurosciences Institute), Joaquin Fuster (UCLA), Jeff Hawkins (Palm/Numenta), Robert Hecht-Nielsen (UCSD), Christof Koch (CalTech), Henry Markram (EPFL/BlueBrain), V. S. Ramachandran (UCSD), John Searle (UC Berkeley) and Leslie Valiant (Harvard).

Videos and powerpoints are freely available from the Almaden Institute site, as are bigger videos from google video. Things that look particularly interesting: Searle’s talk ‘Beyond Dualism’, Ramachandran’s ‘The uniqueness of the human brain’, and the panel discussion ‘How the brain works, what it computes and how/when we might build intelligent machines’.