It's been a long break but I am back! Recently I am preparing my newest set of experiments and I got a bit disconnected from RSS feeds drip-bag. Yesterday I realized that my Google account might eventually crash from information overload and that I haven't uploaded myself and You with some new infornography for a long time. So here are my favorite highlights from the last month:
1. Those of you interested in hardcore military neuropsychology - there is new call for you. Air Force Research Lab just opened a call for proposals for a six-year long project with $49 million to deploy extreme neuroscience and biotechnology in the service of welfare. One of the potential projects include 'artificially overwhelming enemy cognitive abilities with external stimuli'. Speaking simply - the goal is to use set of audiovisual techniques in some unknown format to fuss enemy sensory system in any situation. Suddenly the Man Who Stare At Goats doesn't look so crazy...
2. In the virtual science-fiction world EVE online, two big 'space corporations' succeeded in destroying £14,000 worth virtual spaceships and resources of the third corporations. They just wanted to push it away from particular space sector. Because there is a currency conversion between real and virtual world of EVE, those were... well, the real money. You can watch the battle below:
3. Finally, a super exciting study from recent Nature Review by Moran Cerf and lots of colleagues. In a huge chunk of neuroimaging studies, he claims that specific brain cells can be linked to specific topics, concepts, objects or people, and will flare up with the brain activity when the particular subject is mentioned. Because non-invasive brain scanners can't achieve a resolution good enough to monitor activity of the single cells, Cerf et al. use patients with already implanted electrodes deep inside the brain. He found that when volunteers thought about Marilyn Monroe, a particular neuron reliably lit up. So he could build a brain activity database of different concepts, usually famous ones, from buildings like Eiffel Tower to different celebrities. After that, researchers could reliably detect what concept subject was thinking about, just on the bases of neuronal activity. Cool eh?
More stuff coming soon, so stay tuned for the online makeover celebrating the first year of Geek On Acid blog being online!
Video source: YouTube
