MetaFilter posts tagged with brains

Calories are delicious

silby — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:35:52 -0800

The Neuroscience of McGriddles: Evolutionary biology offers hypotheses about why we enjoy eating. "When you eat at McDonald's, a big part of the pleasure comes from the fact that the food is sustenance, fuel, energy. Even mediocre food is a little rewarding."

Thought for food.

Demogorgon — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:20:03 -0800

Like eating brains? I know you do. Why not add some new dishes to your collection of recipes that use the "fifth quarter?" Despite some negative cultural stereotypes, the practice of eating brains is common in cultures all over the world: Kat-a-Kat is a traditional Pakistani dish containing brains Maghaz Masala is an Arabic course Here is a recipe for Toscano calf brains In France they are known as Cerveaux Chef Mario Batali's restaurant Babbo serves a popular lamb's brains ravioli Sesos in Mexico Some great recipes for Spanish Tortilla Sacromonte Fried brain sandwiches can be found in St. Louis and the Ohio River Valley Australian Slippery Bob This recipe for carpetbag steak would be great with some brains subbed for the oysters Here is an ancient Roman recipe for calf's brains custard German brain soup and brains au gratin Croquettes Lebanese, Syrian and Jordanian recipe for brain omelets Vegan Mock Brains You may be wondering if eating brains is entirely safe. Besides being high in cholesterol, the brain is the main area where prions known to cause transmissible spongiform encephalopathy congregate in the body. In cows it's called Mad Cow disease (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy), Scrapie in sheep, and Chronic Wasting Disease in deer and other wild game. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and Kuru are two forms of spongiform encephalopathy in humans. Kuru was intensely studied among the Fore tribe of Papua New Guinea from the 1950's to the 70's and it was determined that the high instances of it in the tribe were due to their ritual endocannibalistic funeral practices. It has been posited recently that a resistance to prionic diseases may have been selected for in our ancestors, suggesting that cannibalism was not uncommon. Also of interest to cephalovores may be the effects of aerosolizing pork brains and inhaling them, as were recently demonstrated in a pork plant in Austin, MN.

Excuse me, I think I may have dropped my SAT scores by your table.

device55 — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:34:44 -0800

Smarter men have more sperm (via)

Solanum virus outbreak in Ancient Egypt

felix betachat — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 22:48:13 -0800

Zombie Attack at Hierakonpolis

So Size Really Doesn't Matter

saulgoodman — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 09:57:42 -0800

So you thought that old cliche about civil servants having only half a brain was just a conservative canard? Well, think again.

Interspecies fun (and benefits)

Jason Malloy — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 13:13:23 -0800

Neanderthal Lovin’! New research from evolutionary scientist Bruce Lahn suggests that humans and the now extinct Neanderthal species mixed, and humans snatched up a valuable brain gene in the process. (The gene, MCPH1, and Lahn, discussed last year on MeFi) This comes on the tails of yet another new study providing morphological evidence that there was nontrivial interbreeding between humans and Neanderthals in Eurasia, despite the fact that Neanderthals may have been genetically closer to chimps than humans. Contrary to popular imagination, though, the Neanderthal species had bigger brains and sophisticated intellects, at least roughly on par with that of human beings. The gene regulates brain size during development, but its exact utility to humans is still unknown (and controversial). The origin of this gene and the question of Neanderthal mixing will soon be answered more definitively by the, just launched, 2 year project to map the Neanderthal genome, headed by Svante Pääbo (profiled in recent Smithsonian and Wired articles). Pääbo calls Lahn’s study "the most compelling case to date for a genetic contribution of Neandertals to modern humans."

Carnival of brains

shoppingforsanity — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 09:30:15 -0800

We've seen zombie flash mobs and zombie flash games (this awesome post deserves a resurrection - pun intended - for Halloween)... even zombie awareness products and laser controlled headless zombie flies. But do zombies really exist? This video makes a sound case.

Knitting Zombies

jonson — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 20:36:09 -0800

This old post aboutknitted brains got me thinking, they'd be a delicious treat for some knitted zombies, like the cast of Dawn of the Dead (or Shaun of the Dead). For those of you non-zombie *but still made of wool* types, there's this fine selection of knitted foods.

More brains than you can shake a boomstick at.

stavrosthewonderchicken — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 06:54:29 -0800

We recently saw people playing at being zombies, which is fun and all, but wouldn't you rather kill zombies than be one? I sure as hell would, so there's [more inside]

Re: Your Brains

EarBucket — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 20:14:25 -0800

Spelling with zombies.

The kind of rationality that's... not.

anotherpanacea — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 08:00:54 -0800

The neurophysiology of political reasoning: "Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones." But where do we get our initial biases? (via)

has anyone seen my leptomeninges?

quonsar — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 19:38:28 -0800

BRAAAIIINNNSSSS!

FABRIC BRAINZ

kenko — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 20:59:03 -0800

The Museum of Scientifically Accurate Fabric Brain Art. Another view of a fabric brain.

Brain Gain

Jason Malloy — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 19:29:30 -0800

Genes Reveal Recent Human Brain Evolution. Two important new papers in the journal Science (available here) from the evolutionary geneticist and rising star, Bruce T. Lahn (see this recent profile from The Scientist), are potentially the tips of some very large icebergs. The papers document how two genes related to brain properties that underwent strong selection during the course of hominid evolution, have continued undergoing strong selection since the emergence of anatomically modern man. The papers wonderfully illustrate how biological evolution is an ongoing process as well as the artificial distinction between “micro” and “macro” evolution, and promise to be controversial for two reasons: First, the brain genes underwent the strongest selection during two periods of cultural and technological efflorescence (roughly 37,000 and 5,800 years ago). Second, the genes are distributed very differently in modern human population groups, existing at very high frequencies in some groups and being very rare in others, ensuring that the modern function of these genes will be a source of more research and much impassioned debate. More observations from anthropologist John Hawks.

rat brain in a jar

ShawnString — Fri, 22 Oct 2004 11:30:21 -0800

wow..and it can fly a flight sim using only the power of its mind.....via boing boing

OOOoooeeeEEEeeOOOooO!

five fresh fish — Tue, 06 Jul 2004 09:11:49 -0800

Mindguard ... protects your mind by actively jamming and/or scrambling psychotronic mind-control signals and removing harmful engrammic pollutants from your brain. It also has the ability to scan for and decipher into English specific signals so you can see exactly Who wants to control you and what They are trying to make you think.

I am John's brain.

cohappy — Mon, 23 Jun 2003 23:14:47 -0800

I am John's brain. Amusingly written, yet astutely raising an important point. What exactly are we to do about consciousness? Although clearly different theories a b o u n d, one must still ponder whether or not the problem is even solvable in the first place. Where then can we turn to for our solution? Why, bicamerality, of course.

2003ReithLectures

srboisvert — Sat, 24 May 2003 14:35:20 -0800

2003 Reith Lectures. Neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, Director of the Centre for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, talks about a number of fascinating neurological disorders and the insights they provide into mental functioning.

Have you a male or female brain?

jamespake — Thu, 17 Apr 2003 03:22:21 -0800

How male or female is your brain? Psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen argues in today's Guardian that the male and female brains tend to be hard-wired for different kinds of thinking - empathising (more common in females) or systemising (more common in males). Take the test.

How much RAM would you like with your brain, sir?

zerofoks — Thu, 13 Mar 2003 01:05:03 -0800

World's first brain prosthesis revealed. Well, first hippocampus replacement at least. If this is not a dead end for science (which I doubt), I am gonna get my soul fully digitalized in 2020, then spreading it on the whole net with some new version of a code-red virus. :-)

brain museum

hama7 — Sun, 08 Dec 2002 04:58:42 -0800

Comparative Mammalian Brain Collections [via the extraordinary nsop]

Espoo2 — Tue, 20 Aug 2002 11:30:09 -0800

Nasa plans to read the minds of terrorists... NASA wants to use "noninvasive neuro-electric sensors," imbedded in gates, to collect tiny electric signals that all brains and hearts transmit. Computers would apply statistical algorithms to correlate physiologic patterns with computerized data on travel routines, criminal background and credit information from "hundreds to thousands of data sources," NASA documents say

daver — Thu, 18 Jul 2002 13:38:57 -0800

Turning on a single gene makes mouse brains grow huge, and fold in the skull similarly to human brains. Fancy discussing Derida over tea with a rodent? more inside...

headspace — Fri, 15 Feb 2002 07:18:36 -0800

Okay, so you can smell my brains... which is sort of required viewing to, uh... enjoy the sequel. Which may or may not be safe for work, depending on how your employer feels about animated kitty porn.

atom128 — Sun, 02 Dec 2001 15:25:18 -0800

Your Brain on God. "After restoring everything to its proper working position, the techies exit, and I'm left sitting inside the utterly silent, utterly black vault. A few commands are typed into a computer outside the chamber, and selected electromagnetic fields begin gently thrumming my brain's temporal lobes. The fields are no more intense than what you'd get as by-product from an ordinary blow-dryer, but what's coming is anything but ordinary. My lobes are about to be bathed with precise wavelength patterns that are supposed to affect my mind in a stunning way, artificially inducing the sensation that I am seeing God. "