The atom is like a solar system, with electrons whirling around the nucleus like planets orbiting a star. No, actually, it isn’t. But as a first approximation to help us visualize something that is so invisible, that image works as a metaphor. (continue reading…)
topics in this post: brain modularity, fMRI, mental, neuroscience, New Phrenology
Have you ever watched a white rat choose between an 8 and 32 percent sucrose solution by pressing two different bars on variable-interval schedules of reinforcement? No? Lucky you. I devoted two years of what would otherwise have been a misspent youth to running choice experiments with rats in Skinner boxes for my master’s thesis on “Choice in Rats as a Function of Reinforcer Intensity and Quality.” Boys gone wild! (continue reading…)
topics in this post: behavioral economics, economics, neuroscience, Read Montague
Michael Shermer travels to Laurentian University in Sudbury, Canada, to strap on the “God Helmet” in neuroscientist Michael Persinger’s lab that duplicates out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, alien abductions, and other paranormal phenomena.
topics in this post: altered states of consciousness, mind, near-death, neuroscience, out-of-body, paranormal, psychology