Hasta La Gadget!

Alt-week peels back the covers on some of the more curious sci-tech stories from the last seven days.

Are you reading this? Seriously, are you? Sure, we know you think you are, but what if you’re just a sub-feature of a complex computer program. A sprite, nothing more than the creation of software. The problem with this question is, how would you ever know? You wouldn’t, right? Well, not so fast there. Turns out, maybe there is a way to unravel the matrix (if there is one). It’ll come as no surprise, that this is one of the topics in this week’s collection of alternative stories. Think that’s all we got? Not even close. We’ll explore the truth behind cloning dinosaurs, as well a rare performance by singing mice — all before dinner. Or is it really dinner? This is alt-week.

Continue reading Alt-week 10.13.12: is the Universe a simulation, cloning dinosaurs and singing mice

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Alt-week 10.13.12: is the Universe a simulation, cloning dinosaurs and singing mice originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Oct 2012 17:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASAP Science does their thing again, this time explaining what happens to your brain when you smoke weed (or pot or marijuana or whatever the hell you call it). The nut of it: when you’re high, whatever you think about when you’re on marijuana starts to feel like the most important thought you ever had in your life. Until a new idea comes in and you get focused on that. Hmm… sounds about right. Watch the whole video to see the scientific breakdown with real sciencey words and all that. [AsapSCIENCE] More »

Fears are formed when we associate things with a strong, negative emotional response. Now, a team of scientists have developed a technique which lets them erase new emotional memories from the human brain—which could make it possible to wipe out your fears for good. More »

As a species, we’ve spent a lot of time learning how the human brain works, but we’ve had to go without a true, thorough map of how genes manifest themselves in our craniums; previous maps have been limited to the simpler minds of mice. The Allen Institute for Brain Science is now known to have solved that mystery by recently finishing an extensive, detailed 3D atlas of genetic expression within our own brain tissue. Accomplishing the feat required no small amount of resources, including the definition of 900 subdivisions, conducting over 62,000 gene expression probes and producing the MRI scans of two and a half brains, but the result is a potentially vital tool for neuroscience and education. Curious web users can see a visual map of gene expression based on virtually any criteria they need, whether it’s a physical region of the brain, a disease type or the exact gene they’d like to track down. For many, the best news about the map may simply be that it’s free and public: anyone with enough experience in genetics can learn more about what makes the mind tick through their browsers, and what they find might just lead to new discoveries.

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Allen Institute completes gene expression map of the human brain in high-resolution 3D originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Sep 2012 00:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I find this extremely hard to believe, but according to new research published in Nature Neuroscience, scientists have invented a method to induce memories in brains for the first time in history. More »