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(n.); an unwell feeling, particularly in the head; a moody depression; c. 1918, from Nevil Shute’s The Rose and the Rainbow The archetype of the mad genius dates back to at least classical times, when Aristotle noted, “Those who have been eminent in philosophy, politics, poetry, and the arts have all had tendencies toward melancholia.” […]
...moreNew research reveals how a creative writer’s brain functions while writing. As it turns out, it might not be so different from a basketball player’s brain. The New York Times has the whole story.
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I’ve never been clear on the nature of the injury to the brain. Something so fragile, I like to think of it as shattering like glass.
...moreAs science and technology dominate our lives more and more each day, those of us in the humanities find ourselves increasingly on the defensive. One way to demonstrate the humanities’ relevance is with neuroscience. Brain scans not only show us concrete evidence of the ways novels affect our thoughts and emotions, but also give us […]
...moreA sudden burst of improvisational creativity may feel almost supernatural in origin, but there’s a biological basis for it, say researchers. How did they study it? By scanning the brains of freestyling rappers, of course. They found that rapping memorized lyrics and rapping freestyle use entirely different parts of the brain. In fact, improvising actually […]
...more“Since the 19th century people have speculated that the essence of human identity is stored in the connections between our neurons. Today we have the technology to find out if this is true.” This year the Human Connectome Project will begin ambitiously mapping the “large-scale connections” of 1200 human brains. By figuring out how the […]
...moreRebecca Saxe at TED, on sensing other’s thoughts, and on changing moral judgments using magnetic pulses.
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