Mind and Brain – Page 80

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Boggle Your Brain

November 19, 2010

A new animation of a trip through a brain shows mind-boggling complexity in more detail than ever before. The animation, posted by freelance journalist Elizabeth A. Moore on CNET News, represents years of work by Stanford University School of Medicine. Using green fluorescent protein in a mouse brain to light up synapses, and photographing the […]

Amazing Facts

Windows into the Mind

November 3, 2010

What would it be like to see things for the first time? You can watch the reaction on Live Science #1 and Live Science #2. Blind patients were implanted with a microchip that allowed them, for the first time, to roughly sense the visual input of objects in front of them. Amazing as it was, […]

Bible and Theology

Mind Matters

October 22, 2010

The conundrum of how reasoning could have emerged by an undirected evolutionary process persists. Atheists and materialists are convinced that natural selection is up to the task, while theists strongly disagree and use human rationality as evidence for creation by an intelligent source (usually God). Perhaps a few recent findings can illuminate on the options. […]

Intelligent Design

SETI: To the Unknown, Full Speed Ahead

October 16, 2010

This year marks the 50th year of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute and one of its most outspoken spokesmen, made the cover of Sky and Telescope’s November 2010 issue. He stands proudly over his Allen Telescope Array in his feature story, “Closing in on E.T.” celebrating […]

Amazing Facts

Brain Rewires for Lost Senses

October 11, 2010

Born without vision or hearing? The brain can apparently rewire itself to accommodate the loss, reported the BBC News. Dr Stephen Lomber, who led research published in Nature Neuroscience, said: The brain is very efficient, and doesn’t let unused space go to waste. The brain wants to compensate for the lost sense with […]

Darwin and Evolution

The Evolution of Speech, and v.v.

September 23, 2010

The brain just got more complex – that is, the part that helps us speak. “Complex brain landscape controls speech,” reported PhysOrg, discussing findings by German researchers that show Broca’s region, implicated in speech disorders when damaged, appears to be “a much more complexly structured centre of language than was previously believed.” Not just a […]

Darwin and Evolution

More Neanderthal Promotion

September 22, 2010

It’s a good time to be a Neanderthal. You’ll get more respect than ever before from paleoanthropologists. The latest example, published in PhysOrg, is headlined, “Neanderthals more advanced than previously thought.” Julien Riel-Salvatore [U of Colorado at Denver] says he is “rehabilitating Neanderthals” by challenging a half-century of “conventional wisdom” that portrayed them as numbskulls. […]

Amazing Facts

Archer Fish See Like People

September 13, 2010

An archer fish can spit out a man’s cigarette. That’s actually a humorous scene at the end of a video clip on The Scientist that talks about the amazing eyes of this underwater sharpshooter. New research shows that these freshwater fish, known for their ability to spit bugs off bushes, have a mammal-like ability to […]

Amazing Facts

Nerve Traffic Cop Identified

September 13, 2010

What makes signals go in one direction in neurons? It’s important, because a reflex signal from a bump on your knee needs to go in the direction of the controlling muscle and on to the brain, not any which way. Is there some kind of traffic cop that directs the placement of “one way” signs […]

Darwin and Evolution

Evolution Storytellers Unrepentant

September 10, 2010

Evolutionists have been criticized for telling “just-so stories”1 for decades and decades, even by other evolutionists (see 08/08/2010), yet the storytelling continues, as recent examples in the news media illustrate. Blame Mom: In its “Science News” category, Science Daily trumpeted the headline, “Acting Selfish? Blame Your Mother!” In the article, we are told, “The fact […]

Bible and Theology

Who Invited the Scientist in Here?

August 25, 2010

If you envision science in terms of white-coated lab chemists holding flasks, field biologists gathering bird eggs, astronomers peering through a telescope or geologists chipping rocks with hand picks, think again. Today’s science sweeps everything into its domain, including the human mind, intellect, emotions, will, creativity, and our most sincere beliefs and actions. When not […]

Bible and Theology

Is Our World Natural?

July 27, 2010

At first glance, the headline sounds absurd: is our world natural? Of course the world is natural. Nature is natural, isn’t it? Often, though, we picture what humans do as unnatural – oil spills, landfills, pollution, nuclear waste, crime, war. But if humans are a part of nature, then whatever they do is natural. Some […]

Darwin and Evolution

Recapitulation Theory Gets Recap

July 26, 2010

The long-discounted “recapitulation theory” of Ernst Haeckel, the idea that the development of an embryo replays its evolutionary history, pops up every once in awhile in evolutionary explanations. Evolutionary biologists (most notably the late Stephen Jay Gould) have long since disparaged the idea that evolutionary history would be preserved in embryos. In addition, photos of […]

Bible and Theology

Spinning Webs of Belief: Accounting for George Price

July 16, 2010

It’s instructive to take a story and compare how evolutionists and creationists report it. A recent example can be found in the story of George Price: an ex-atheist scientist who, as a creationist, contributed original ideas to evolutionary theory. How did reviewers from both sides of the origins aisle characterize his creationist beliefs? […]

Bible and Theology

Is Psychology Adding Scientific Knowledge?

July 8, 2010

Psychologists have a knack for proving the obvious. It leads to a question, though: do we really need their help? Broken relationships are bad: A press release on PhysOrg about a study at the University of Queensland reported that “Separation has an enormous impact on both men and women.” Rudeness at work is bad: According […]

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