Tag: Neuroscience

Dirty Minds: Your love life is supposed to be complicated

Kayt Sukel’s Dirty Minds is a book about neuroscience that has questions, not answers. That alone should be enough reason for you to pick it up. Sukel’s agenda is not to tell her reader how the human mind works. It is to convince her reader that our minds are complicated messes – they are dirty, in the cleanest sense of the term1. Our mind is the result of a rat’s nest of neurons bathed in a complex soup of hormones interacting with our environment. The point is not that our dirty minds have been solved, but that they are so damned interesting.

If you need another reason, a lot of the book is about sex2. Really, it is about research into the neurological basis of love. It covers relationships, parenting, even a wee bit of religion, and sex; but, when you say “and sex”, you might as well say “it’s about sex”.  Continue reading “Dirty Minds: Your love life is supposed to be complicated”

Guilty of a Broken Brain

Neuroscience is finding itself at the center of a growing controversy in the courtroom. Will judges weigh biological evidence that could suggest future dangerous activity or impaired control differently and how will that affect systems of sentencing and determinations of guilt in the court? This biological evidence could be considered “mitigating” or decreasing a sentence (their brain is broken, it’s not their fault) or it could be “aggravating” (their brain is broken and they will offend again) and increase a sentence. To test whether Judges would reason differently after receiving biological evidence in a trial, a group has conducted a study on U.S. state trial judges. Continue reading “Guilty of a Broken Brain”

Going with Your Gut

The bacteria in your gut (known as the microbiota) are the new cool. And, by cool, I mean the bogeyman for everything that is wrong with you. That is not to say they aren’t very, very important; but the science exploring the role of the complex colonies of microbes residing inside your gut[1] and comprising ten times as many cells as in your actual body[2] is still developing and enormously complex.

According to a new study by Heijtz et al. in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the gut microbiota also affects neural development in mice[3]. Continue reading “Going with Your Gut”

Chwarae Teg neu Budr

The big controversy from the weekend, amongst rugbyphiles[1], was about Jonathan Davies (center for Wales) tripping Chris Ashton (wing for England) in their recent Six Nations[2] match. Tripping is illegal in Rugby (but not in Glastonbury[3]) and considered quite dangerous, leading fans to wonder/worry whether Davies would be disciplined for the incident[4], seen here:

Continue reading “Chwarae Teg neu Budr”