What makes receiving a badge for completing a task so exciting? Why does seeing a progress bar almost full make us itch until we finish it? Gamification—the combination of game-design principles and elements—implements cognitive psychology and decision-making theory as its scientific foundation. If gamification were stuffed shells, science is the shell, and everything else is stuffing.
There are a lot of studies lately going back and forth on whether or not smoking pot is harmful to your brain. Does it lower your IQ? Is that change is permanent, or does it only last for the duration that you are smoking it? Here’s the scoop…
When you think of the ideal creative environment, what comes to mind? We may imagine a place where you have freedom of expression, a place that encourages breaking convention, somewhere that is abundant in resources that are readily accessible for innovative development of technology, and exposure to many different cultures for inspiration and collaboration. So as you imagine this ultimate creative playground, does Cuba come to mind?
As science communicators, we need to do more than just entertain — we need to inform; to persuade; to inspire action. One of the biggest challenges in selling ideas about radical science and technology is engaging and exciting an audience in a way that is non-threatening, believable, and structured in a way that they can relate to personally.
Our brains are slopping over full at this point at the end of the Humanity+ San Francisco 2012. Congratulations to Natasha and her team for putting on a great conference. Hopefully next time we’ll have control of the weather.
Its apoco-raining this weekend in San Francisco, proving that the transhumanists neither see the future clear enough to choose a nice weekend nor have magical evil powers over the natural world. But they do put on incredibly fascinating parties at wild warehouse-cum-commune spaces full of smart technophiles. We had to drag ourselves back in to the conference this morning so we wouldn’t miss Andrea Kuscewski, David Pearce, Ben Goertzel, Jamais Cascio, Ramez Naam and the others folks speaking today.
What happens in your brain when you experience pleasure? Why are fantasies so powerful? Why do our brains love dopamine so much? Why do some images arouse, while others turn us off? Why are the most attractive people often not the ones we are most drawn to sexually? How can you create the longest neurological orgasm possible?
A current trend in AI research involves attempts to replicate a human learning system at the neuronal level—beginning with a single functioning synapse, then an entire neuron, the ultimate goal being a complete replication of the human brain.
“My brain is not like a computer.” The day those words were spoken to me marked a significant milestone for both me and the 6-year-old who uttered them.
When you think of the ideal creative environment, what comes to mind? We may imagine a place where you have freedom of expression, a place that encourages breaking convention, somewhere that is abundant in resources that are readily accessible for innovative development of technology, and exposure to many different cultures for inspiration and collaboration. So as you imagine this ultimate creative playground, does Cuba come to mind?
Intelligence is being able to approach a new problem, recognize its important components, and solve it—then take that knowledge gained and put it towards solving the next, more complex problem. It’s about innovation and imagination, and about being able to put that to use to make the world a better place.
Intelligence is being able to approach a new problem, recognize its important components, and solve it—then take that knowledge gained and put it towards solving the next, more complex problem. It’s about innovation and imagination, and about being able to put that to use to make the world a better place.
What is supposed to be the most critical learning period for shaping children into the leaders of tomorrow has evolved over the years into a stifling of the creative instinct—wasting the age of imagination—which we then spend the rest of our lives trying to reconnect with.
Teleportation, cloaks of invisibility, smell-o-vision, 3D printing, and even holograms, were all ideas first imagined in science fiction—and now are real products and technologies in various stages of development by scientists. While this is common in fields like experimental physics, it isn’t as often that cognitive neuroscience and applied psychology score insights from this fantasy genre.
Wonder and curiosity. Those two simple words exquisitely describe what drives me in my work, and what keeps me readily tangled in my love affair with research.
If sex makes you smarter via changes in synaptic strength following the act, can you get the same benefit from virtual sex, as long as your brain is convinced it is real at the time?
While Christmas shopping with my sister and my little three year-old niece, I noticed something that rather disturbed me. And as difficult as it is for me to say this - it was Barbie.
Sexual images trigger chemical reactions in your brain, which in turn compel us to act in specific ways, or be drawn to certain things, or motivated to engage in particular behaviors.
A few weeks ago, The Science Cheerleaders grabbed headlines with their appearance at the USA Science and Engineering Festival, where they cheered for citizen science and science literacy as well as served to provide a new kind of role model for young girls, showing them they can be both cheerleaders and scientists.
If we could identify a gene for creativity - let’s call it the “creativity gene” - you would be hard pressed to find many people who would consider it a negative gene or a hazard to possess or carry.
When you think of the ideal creative environment, what comes to mind? We may imagine a place where you have freedom of expression, a place that encourages breaking convention, somewhere that is abundant in resources that are readily accessible for innovative development of technology, and exposure to many different cultures for inspiration and collaboration.
When we last spoke about sex, we discussed the neurotransmitters involved in pleasure and attraction, namely dopamine and oxytocin. Now let’s look a little deeper into the action of those neurotransmitters and how we can manipulate their action - to extend the neurological orgasm for as long as possible.
Sexual images trigger chemical reactions in your brain, which in turn compel us to act in specific ways, or be drawn to certain things, or motivated to engage in particular behaviors.
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