How snails think about eating could inform future robot decision-making designs. University of Sussex researchers have discovered that the creatures use just two brain cells for complex decisions: one cell told the snail if it was hungry, while anoth...
Today on In Case You Missed It: We are rounding up Space Week with NASA's detailed plan to get earthlings to settle on Mars. Meanwhile other scientists teamed up to unravel how a rat's brain works, to then simulate it with a computer. Early testing...
Each one of these coasters features a different slice of a theoretical human brain. When they’re stacked up, they create a 3D rendering of a human brain, which is sure to impress your guests with even a passing interest in, well, anything cool. They come in a set of 10, and stacking them in the right order should be easy considering they’re labeled. Made from glass, each coaster also features small rubber feet to keep them off your surface, and away from scratches. At $20 for the set, it’s an inexpensive way to let your guests know that you’re into science-y stuff.
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This is definitely the oddest yet most fascinating external hard drive we’ve ever come across. Since the hard drive is sort of like the brain of your computer (part of it anyway), why not encase one inside a brain shape? Then maybe add a giant spine for it to sit upon. That’s just what The Brain does. And it lights up. But not just light up like a lamp. This thing is a full on Chris Kuroda psychedelic jam session. Check the video:
Woo, so many pretty colors. The Brain actually has a method to it’s madness. When it’s idle, it flashes red. But as soon as the hard drive is accessed, it’s straight up dance party USA. Provide your own music. The whole thing was actually made completely from scratch. Basically everything is DIY except the hard drive itself. He started by sculpting a brain out of clay:
Then a vacuum formed transparent mold of it was created. He built the controlling components onto a circuit board, even laser cut the case and the acrylic “spine” with all the discs inside.
The base is home made as well. The hard drive is actually in the base. It took quite a bit of programming to get the LEDs to light up in the proper sequence and at the proper times. I probably never thought I’d be saying this about an unwieldy 5 foot tall hard drive but it’s pretty cool (I actually never imagined I’d be writing about a 5 foot tall hard drive, period). I’d love to see this baby all lit up in the dark.
Brain Shaped Hard Drive and Light
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There are quite a few “absolute truths” everybody knows when it comes to our brains – the 10% usage issue, …I remember being a kid and watching Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom. It was a great movie for kids, but one part that always grossed me out was the chilled monkey brains that were served in the palace. Gross.
Well, if you enjoyed that scene from the classic Indiana Jones movie, you can relive it with your own chilled monkey brains cake. Yes, you can make this and creep everyone out. This twisted cake comes from Instructable user BubbleandSweet.
You can bet it will taste better than the real thing. It looks just like the monkey from the movie. It even has the white hair just like in the movie. It looks delicious, but gross.
[via Neatorama]
Human brain-to-brain interfacing seems like the stuff of fiction (Pacific Rim, anyone?), but researchers at the University of Washington have made it a reality. A team led by faculty members Rajesh Rao and Andrea Stocco claim to have pioneered the world's first human-to-human experiment of the sort. Rao and Stocco were placed in different buildings and hooked up to two devices to record, interpret and send their brain signals via the internet. The sender (Rao) wore an EEG machine while the receiver (Stocco) was connected to a transcranial magnetic stimulation coil. The experiment was performed with a simple arcade-style video game, the objective of which was to shoot baddies out of the sky. Rao watched the screen and visualized lifting his hand to press the space bar to fire, but Stocco was the trigger man. Clear across campus, Stocco's finger tapped the space bar at the appropriate time, eliminating the target, despite being unable to hear or see the game's display. To learn more, check out the video after the break or the source link below.
Via: GeekWire
Source: University of Washington
You might pride yourself on your poker face, but there would be no way to hide from a skull-probing EEG helmet being developed by Veritas Scientific. The device takes advantage of a well-known medical response called P300, which causes your brain's voltage to drop a split-second after you put a name to a face or object. Simply by showing you a slideshow of different images, interrogators could tell whether or not you recognize a particular individual -- or maybe that LTE-connected railgun hidden in your trunk. The company is pursuing military contracts and hopes to have a prototype ready in time for this year's war game exercises, but meanwhile you might want to start thinking of a way to install that tinfoil hat inside your skull.
Filed under: Science
EEG headware probes your neurons, shows interrogators your cranial contact list originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Jul 2012 07:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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