End note ...

Hi everybody!

Sorry, this is the last entry as far as I can see – Braincast/English is on hold, at least.

With the downloads being low and my worklevel being high, it just needed an extra ill translator to give me the insight: why not use the time for something else ... I had to face it: compared to the German version, the English was a flake. Obviously we did not get the pleasere from one language to the other.

Maybe I restart again some time.

Maybe someone likes to join the project.

But for now: Bye! And thank you for listening!

Braincast 025 - Materialism, Buddhism and Position Definition

Episode 25 is rather personal with a look behind my mental curtain: motivation and preferences, why Buddhism pops up on a regular basis and about my biggest problem on the topic. A definition of position.

MP3 File Duration: 19:35


NEWS

• Model of surprise has 'wow' factor built in
  
• Top 11 compounds in US drinking water
  
• Slumber quality important for learning
  
• Epigenentics reveals unexpected, and some identical, results
  
• What Makes You Uniquely "You"?
• Have we met?
  
• Fetal exposure to testosterone linked with presence of autistic traits in childhood
  
• Think Animals Don't Think Like Us? Think Again
  
• Neural Paths for Borderline Personality Disorder
  
• Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life
  
• Why we hiccup
  
• Researchers Try to Cure Racism
  
• Feeling Old? Blame Your Nuclear Pores
  
• Darkness, Melatonin may stall breast and prostate cancers
  
• What Do Women Want?
  
• Nicotine Activates More Than Just The Brain's Pleasure Pathway
  
• Misunderstanding sarcasm may signal dementia
  
• Cunning psychopaths manipulate their way out of jail
  
• Male bonding is rife in chimp society too
  
• Eat a little less, remember more
  
• The Legal Brain: How Does the Brain Make Judgments about Crimes?
  
• I feel your Pain, even though I can´t feel mine
  
• Voodoo Correlations: Have the Results of Some Brain Scanning Experiments Been Overstated?
  
• Parenting shapes genetic risk for drug use
  
• How the weather can affect your memory
  
• A brain cancer vaccine?
  
• This week´s topic, drastically on bps: Another shock for brain imaging research - the signal isn't always linked to neuronal activity. More relaxed on Science (Brain's Arteries Have a Mind of Their Own) and Nature (Brain imaging measures more than we think)
  

SHOWNOTES
We start with the beautiful After all by Alexander Blu, continue with Black Coffee by Aramitsu and end smoothly with Surise by Klavar.

Braincast 024 - Hard-headed

Planing, acting and, most of all, inhibiting – those are the main tasks of the prefrontal cortex. Additionally it has peer-to-peer connections to emotion- and social related areas. So this episode is about that part of the brain, that makes us human. An episode including bad mood and good bets.

MP3 File Duration: 21:00

NEWS

• Education builds Cognitive Reserve for Alzheimer’s Disease Protection
  
• Your personality could affect the age you live to
  
• The Amnesia Gene
  
• The Flynn Effect: Troubles with Intelligence
  
• Prozac may counter parasite mind control
  
• Blurring the Boundary Between Perception and Memory
  
• Optimizing Cognition for Multi-threading
  
• Intelligent soldiers most likely to die in battle
  
• Cosleeping and Biological Imperatives: Why Human Babies Do Not and Should Not Sleep Alone
  
• Out of sight but not out of mind
  
• Disturbed Sleep tied to Parkinson´s Risk
  
• Is Morphine a Guy Drug?
  
• Love skews your sense of smell
• Some Protect the Ego by Working on Their Excuses Early
  
• Culture Shock May Explain Similarity Between Humans
  
• How do you feel — now? The anterior insula and human awareness
  
• My Genome, My Self
  
• “Voodoo” neuroscience
  
• The Mystery of Borderline Personality Disorder
  
• Anxiety correlates with diminished prefrontal control of attention
  
• Armenian Cave yields ancient Human Brain
  
• Magic reveals the brain's response to the impossible
  
• High hormone levels in women linked to unfaithfulness
  
• Are You a Moneymaker? Look at Your Hands
  
• Genetic 'clock' made in lab
  
• Is it really bad to be sad?
  
• Practising describing wines could help you become a connoisseur
  
• Doubts raised over brain scan findings: on the bps – Do you voodoo –, another great Neurocritic Voodoo Schadenfreude – and a very good piece on Nature: Brain imaging studies under fire
  

SHOWNOTES
First song is Swallow your Head by Happy Gemini 3, followed by the beautiful Myself, 5 Minutes ago by furiousBall. Next is Alimagne and Freddy Hop: Is it Jazz? Rock? Downbeat? However, the last song is CyrusFx ist mit Wanderlust.

Braincast 023 - Driven by Emotion

Emotions are not just blessing or curse, they are much more. For example they are one way for the brain to talk to itself – via the body. They are the source of all our decisions. And first and foremost they are a way to survive.

MP3 File Duration: 19:00

If you are in need of something interesting to reed between christmas and new year´s eve: here are the brainy top ten of New Scientist 2008.

NEWS

• What’s the Value of a Big Bonus?
  
• Brains of autistic children slower at processing sound
  
• Never Let Them See You Sweat
  
• The Placebo Effect: Not All in Your Head
  
• Swapping your body becomes a virtual reality
  
• The secret sex signals in human sweat
  
• Thanks for the memories HM
  
• Strangers May Cheer You Up, Study Says
  
• Is There Really an Epidemic of Depression?
  
• The Fear Factor
  
• Antidepressants make for Sad Fish
  
• Revovering Memories that never left
  
• Dogs Have a Nose for Inequity
  
• Time with dad is time well spent
  
• Bored? Your brain is disconnecting
  
• In the Brain, Justice is served from many Parts
  
• Sudoku puzzles show we're all capable of deductive reasoning
  
• Inside the Shopping Brain
  
• Medical jargon alters our understanding of disease
  
• Pareidolia
  
• Time to Grow Up
  
• Are daughters-in-law to blame for the menopause?
  
• How to stop creationism gaining a hold in Islam
  
• 2 : 0 für die Bitterschokolade
  
• The neuroenhancer-debate - starting with the Nature-article: Towards responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the healthy, commented by Mind Hacks: Mainstreaming cognitive enhancement and, from another perspective by Brain Waves The Case for Legal Cognitive Enhancement by the Healthy.
  

SHOWNOTES
It´s the time to play nice and easy music, so we start smoothly with Brian Turner and Midnight Caravan, continue with the easy, autumn-like guitar of Dan Tharp and Ian and round it up with the wonderful Beautiful Wife of Al Phlipp & The Woo Team.

Braincast 022 - Creative perception

Part 2 about senses and perception is about how the brain deals with incoming data. It shows that some things simply are droped, while others are constructed. A braincast about roses, gorillas, blind spots and two self-experiments.

MP3 File Duration: 18:06

If you haven´t seen it yet: here is the Gorilla on the field.

NEWS

• Jonestown (The Situation of Evil) Revisited
  
• Older people have more black and white dreams
  
• Illegal drug shows promise in treating trauma symptoms
  
• Religion alters visual perception
  
• Feed your brain: News from Neuroscience
  
• Still crazy (in love) after all these years
  
• Ginko Biloba fails drug test
  
• Sleep makes room for memories
  
• Marijuana Could Be Good for Memory — But Not if You Get High
  
• Monkey gossip hints at social origins of language
  
• In Bias Test, Shades of Gray
  
• The role of self-esteem in Obama's electoral success
  
• Brain reorganizes to make room for math
  
• Bird Brains: Are Parrots Smarter than a Human Two-Year Old?
  
• Brain implant allows mute man to speak
  
• Adultery for heroin users:
  
• A Brain Circuit for Bungee Jumping
  
• Can everyone be an Einstein?
  
• We're better at spotting fake smiles when we're feeling rejected
  
• Fitness and the Brain: Can a Walk a Day Keep Alzheimer's Away?
  
• The Meaning of Psychological Abnormality
  
• Amoebae Family Values
  
• Down's symptoms may be treatable in the womb
  
• Memories may be stored on your DNA
  

SHOWNOTES
A crude stylemix this time, starting ambient with Briareus and Ivory Bills, continuing jazzy with Deerfoot and 22x and ending with a downtempo Christophe Goze and About Us.

Braincast 021 - Basics: Senses

In dealing with reality the brain might be quite creative, but the senses are not: They send in the real world, one gig of data per second. This and other impressive numbers in Braincast 21. Plus: seeing with the tongue.

MP3 File Duration: 16:23

NEWS

• Are You Evil? Profiling That Which Is Truly Wicked
  
• How parasites spread religion
  
• Primate researchers ask the big questions
  
• Molecular Motor Tied to Memory
  
• Is cannabis being doped with Viagra?
  
• Why Do We Forget Things?
  
• Can animals escape the present?
  
• Suffering Souls, via MindHacks 
  
• The Science of Gossip: Why We Can't Stop Ourselves
  
• Is mirror neuron activity just a mirage?
  
• Rare, profound positive events won't make you happy, but lots of little ones will
  
• The Maverickiness Paradox
  
• Getting Hooked on Sin
  
• Itch
  
• Connectomics - Tracing the Wires of the Brain
  
• Mom and Dad Are Fighting in Your Genes—and in Your Brain
  
• Mirror Neurons
  
• Undoing cocaine's consequences
  
• How warfare shaped human evolution
  

SHOWNOTES
We start nice and easy with Hack & Tear from Doubleplay & La Bella, continue likewise with Dave Percell and Eternal Traveler and end quite and beautiful on Berwick Road by the Dave Lambert Band.

Braincast 020 - Autists and Savants

Autism is quite extreme: affected people shrink into theirselfs, live complicated rituals and have trouble understanding emotions. But out of autism can arise a real wonder: the savant syndrome, showing the real possibilities of the brain.

MP3 File Duration: 16:45

Here is The Boy With The Incredible Brain.

NEWS

• Nicotine´s new appeal
  
• The mental wealth of nations
  
• The mental wealth of nations
  
• Being a daddy makes you kinder and smarter
  
• Being a daddy makes you kinder and smarter
  
• General Stuff I Blog About: Dopamine!
  
• The age when children begin attempting to appear racially colour-blind
  
• Should you let your toddler watch TV?
  
• Why Children Like to Share - People are programmed to avoid inequality
  
• Immune to Anxiety
  
• Magnet triggers colours in 'blind' man's brain
  
• Brain scans show the difference between love and hate
  
• In the age of paranoia, my MTV wants me
  
• Are brain damaged people who confabulate even trying to remember?
  
• An iron will runs in the family
  
• Memory Problems? Perhaps you are Multitasking
  
• Memory Problems? Perhaps you are Multitasking
  
• Older people are less optimistic, but more realistic
  

SHOWNOTES
Somehow, piano seems to be the right choice: we begin with Brian Drotar and Melodic Memory continue with Remember When by Carlos Tabora and – rather soundtrack – Graeme Hindmarsh and The Lady. The last title is Equinoxal by Incidental Fusion.