Carl Sagan’s Secret Sauce: Tapping Into Our Religious Sense?
Carl Sagan's Cosmos series was special in its power to motivate students to devote their lives to science. What was Sagan's secret sauce?read more
View ArticleThe Colorful Smell of Richard Dawkins
Why is color the butt of all the "permuted qualia" jokes?read more
View ArticleLevels of Real World Wizardry: A Review of the Invisible Gorilla by Chris...
Are all visual illusions equally potent?read more
View ArticleWhat Does Music Look Like to Our Brain?
Your brain's opinion of what music looks like suggests music sounds like people...moving.read more
View ArticleThe Power of the Brain Through the Window of Savants
How powerful is your brain, really? The answer from autistic savants.read more
View ArticleP, NP, And Is Academia Inhospitable to Big Discoveries?
The Big Theoretical Breakthrough: How Does One Write a Grant Proposal For That?read more
View ArticleStephen Pinker's Miracle of Language...and Writing?
Reading has the same "instinct smell" as speech and music, but there's no reading instinct. Perhaps the story of the origins of writing is also the story of the origins of speech and music.read more
View ArticleWhat Are Big Brains For?
The big embarrassment of neuroscience is that we don't know what big brains are for.read more
View ArticleHow to Write a Popular Science Book
I once had the chance to chat with John Brockman, agent to the science stars (like Dawkins and Pinker). Here's what I gleaned.read more
View ArticleWhy Humans Are So Smart…and Groovy
When you are next in the shower, take a look at your wrinkled fingers. They aren't pretty to look at, but they help make you smart. Pruney fingers are not an accidental side effect of getting soaked as...
View ArticleWhen Exactly Will Computers Go Ape-Shi* and Take Over?
Why Reverse-Engineering Postponed the Singularity read more
View Article3D Movies Are Missing the Point...Of View
How 3D movies can get the viewer into the head of the protagonist.read more
View ArticleThe Problem With the Web and E-Books Is That There’s No Space for Them
Libraries and books -- the real, physical ones -- harnessed our evolved powers of navigation, and were profitable extensions of our brains. The web and today's e-books, on the other hand, have given up...
View ArticleIs the Valentine Heart Really a Red, Engorged, Upturned Rump?
What does a Valentine heart have to do with love? Evolutionary cognitive scientist Mark Changizi goes there and does that.read more
View ArticleThe Web Is Not a Gadget
The web hasn't been designed to do anything, and so it doesn't do anything, much less anything smart, creative, or suggesting awareness... and Jaron Lanier.read more
View ArticleCan Art and Brain Be Put Together?
What initially looks like neuroscientific principles being used to explain artistic phenomena is, more commonly, suspect brain principles being used to explain artistic phenomena that may not...
View ArticleWhat's Next, After Humans
We're already Human 2.0. Question is, What is Human 3.0?read more
View ArticleHarnessed on Falling Skies: What the TV Show Teaches Us About Ourselves
The skitters on the television show "Falling Skies" hold a terrible secret. They've been harnessed. But -- wait! So have you and I!read more
View ArticleAre Pruney Fingers Human Rain Treads?
Pruney fingers don't just have any old wrinkles. They're special. They're just what's needed if they're...primate rain treads.read more
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