Science Groningen Are You a Closet Synesthete? - Writing Blog “A person with synesthesia might hear and taste her husband’s voice as buttery golden brown, feel the flavor of food on her fingertips, sense the letter J as shimmering magenta or the number 5 as emerald green,” says the introduction to David Eagleman and Richard Cytowic’s 2009 book Wednesday Is Indigo Blue. The book explores the neuroscience and genetics behind the multisensory experience called synesthesia. In a strange and compelling May 2008 article in Wired Magazine entitled “Poetry Comes from Our Tree-Climbing Ancestors”, Brandon Kelm asks where synesthesia comes from: “Perhaps [synesthetes] are under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs…Or maybe they’re simply good with metaphors,” he suggests irreverently. According to Ramachandran, synesthesia developed to help our ancestors climb trees. Synesthesia comes from syn, for together, and aisthêsis, for sensation or perception in Greek. Synesthetic Metaphor in Literature His face flushed and he smiled carelessly.
ScienceSeeker | Science News Aggregator Quantum Diaries De RUG Discovery < Science LinX < Rijksuniversiteit Groningen Over jouw toekomst… en die van jouw energie Wat is jouw energie in 2030? Hoe verwarm jij je huis in 2040? Rijden er nog auto’s in 2050? Het antwoord op deze vragen is helemaal niet vanzelfsprekend! De Faculteit Wiskunde en Natuurwetenschappen van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen en GasTerra dagen jongeren van nu uit om mee te werken aan bruikbare oplossingen voor deze uitdaging. Dit gebeurt in en rond de Jouw Energie van Morgen truck.
Smell Like a Man | Masculine Style One of the more difficult things in curating an unashamedly masculine presence at home or at work is the issue of scent. Our sense of smell is often ignored to our own detriment as it can affect our emotions and level of focus. If you’ve ever worked next to someone who had terrible BO, you know how distracting it can be. On top of the way a man himself smells, the smell of his environment will have the same effect. A man’s world should smell manly as yet another way to project that he is king of his castle – be it his bachelor pad, office, or bedroom. Enter Man Cans. As part of the masculine aesthetic of their candles, Man Cans uses old soup cans. Hart was kind enough to do an interview with me and answer some questions I had about the nature of his business and why he wanted more masculine smells available to men: Tanner: Why do you believe men should have masculine scents in their home or their office? On top of the interview, his company also sent me a few candles to try out. PS.
ScienceOnline MiGUi NASA-funded game aims to make science more appealing Last week a curious, free release popped up on Steam: Moonbase Alpha, a NASA-funded game where up to six players can team up in order to save a near-future Lunar base crippled by a meteor strike. The game is just the first release from NASA's Learning Technologies program, which aims to help raise interest in the space program through gaming. Ars spoke with Daniel Laughlin, project manager of Learning Technologies, to learn more about the game and what we can expect to see in the future. The game was codeveloped by Army Game Studio and Virtual Heroes, two of the leading developers of "serious games." Though development of the game didn't start until last year, Laughlin actually began researching the prospect of using games as an educational tool back in 2004. "The US is facing a crisis in technical fields," explained Laughlin. And, according to Laughlin, the success of Moonbase Alpha could have a big affect on the development of the MMO.
NovaFuture Blog | Music, Techno, House, EBM, Industrial, Synth-Pop, Mute Physicist Proposes New Way To Think About Intelligence (ISNS) -- A single equation grounded in basic physics principles could describe intelligence and stimulate new insights in fields as diverse as finance and robotics, according to new research. Alexander Wissner-Gross, a physicist at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Cameron Freer, a mathematician at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, developed an equation that they say describes many intelligent or cognitive behaviors, such as upright walking and tool use. The researchers suggest that intelligent behavior stems from the impulse to seize control of future events in the environment. This is the exact opposite of the classic science-fiction scenario in which computers or robots become intelligent, then set their sights on taking over the world. "It's a provocative paper," said Simon DeDeo, a research fellow at the Santa Fe Institute, who studies biological and social systems. "It actually self-determines what its own objective is," said Wissner-Gross.