On the Human » news

fMRI researcher looks at religion (NPR)

Jason King — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 22:33:13 +0000

National Public Radio has a story on ways researchers are using functional MRI to map religious beliefs.

All Things Considered
March 9, 2009
The human brain, it appears, responds to God as if he were just another person, according to a team at the National Institutes of Health.

A study of 40 people — some religious, some nonreligious — found that phrases such as “I believe God is with me throughout the day and watches over me” lit up the same areas of the brain we use to decipher the emotions and intentions of other people…

Read on… and click the Listen Now link on NPR’s page to hear the broadcast.

Chimp plans for future? (Guardian)

Gary Comstock — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:22:08 +0000

Santino, a 31-year-old male at Furuvik zoo in Sweden, may be the first animal to exhibit an unambiguous ability to plan for the future.

UPDATE: The BBC also has the story, which includes an audio interview with researcher Mathias Osvath.

‘Being Human’ series (Nature)

Gary Comstock — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:23:32 +0000

Why do we behave in the way that we do? In a series of 8 essays, contributors to Nature reveal how the latest research is altering our understanding of what it is to be human. Whether in relation to religion or to our collective behaviour in cities, experts explore the potential impact on society, now and in the future, of discoveries in psychology, anthropology, genetics, neuroscience, game theory and network engineering.

Baby robot learns by trial and error? (New Scientist)

Gary Comstock — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 01:25:17 +0000

Babybot’s software mimics biological neural networks, adjusting the strength of links between the computer program’s artificial neurons to perfect learned tasks. Is the program training its arm to pick up the rubber ducky in a way analogous to the way Junior trains his arm? Read more.

Whistling orangutan (Great Ape Trust, YouTube)

Gary Comstock — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 01:07:24 +0000

Apparently imitating human handlers, an orangutan spontaneously begins whistling. Read more.

Eye of a Dream Beheld (Washington Post)

Jason King — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 20:00:12 +0000

In January, the Washington Post reports on a crash survivor seeking a bionic eye to replace her otherwise inert glass eye.

You used to need hubris, millions of dollars and the support of a great research university to imagine building a replacement for the human eye.

Now it’s become dream and quest material for artists and tinkerers.

Read the rest of the article by Joel Garreau here.

It’s all about the food (News and Observer)

Jason King — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 21:46:09 +0000

The News and Observer has an article about Michael Pollan’s upcoming visit to the National Humanities Center.

Pollan’s book, published this year by Penguin Press, is about its title: the plethora of food choices facing the typical American. In it, he traces the paths of four meals:

* an industrial-produced meal (McDonald’s) consumed the way a fifth of all American meals are consumed, i.e., in the car;

* a meal made from organic ingredients purchased from the upscale Whole Foods;

* one relying on his own hunter-and-gatherer wiles (for the main course, he shoots and slaughters a wild boar);

* a chicken dinner from a Virginia farm practicing sustainable agriculture.

That industrial meal, Pollan writes, is behind what he calls our “national eating disorder.” It’s a disorder, he says, that not only fuels our obesity epidemic but makes us increasingly vulnerable to unpredictable supplies of foreign oil.

Read the rest of the article on the News and Observer’s website.