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Sara Asnaghi made nine life-size human brains from different foods. This one is made from ground chili peppers, which is good, because having chili on your mind constantly is a respectable state of affairs.
Link -via The Mary Sue
This dessert looks creepy, but it’s actually delicious cake with brain-shaped frosting and a bit of raspberry jelly for blood, all stuffed on a jar. The instructions for making your own are at Living Locurto. Link -via Everlasting Blort
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While there are always tons of memes floating around the net, most of them are mediocre at best. Scumbag brain, on the other hand, is something all of us can relate to, whether it involves keeping us up at night or replaying the same catchy son over and over. Catch more of the meme over at BuzzFeed.
This sculpture by Olaf Mooji, appropriately dubbed “Braincar”, expresses his belief in “the nearly psychological connection between drivers and their cars.” There’s a projection system inside that permits Mooji to put weirdly psychedelic or clear, coherent images to people watching it drive by. At the link, you can find a video of the car as well as photos of its construction.
Link -via DVICE | Artist’s Website | Photo: Gé Hirdes
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Sour Gummi Brains – $5.95
Yum! Brains!
You don’t have to be a Zombie to appreciate the Sour Gummi Brains from the NeatoShop. This delectable candy, shaped like little pink brains, is a tasty treat for both the living and the undead.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more strange and fantastic Mints & Candies!
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It sounds strange, but it’s true. One of the vulgar humor site’s recent article dives in to five simple ways to make our kids smarter, which involve surprising simple things like starting school later, adding more windows to classrooms and taking kids out for a walk before they take a test. While the article is filled with typical Cracked humorous quips, it is surprisingly free of curse words, making me wonder what the site is up to these days.
Construction crews near York, UK, found the body of a man who died a violent death 2,500 years ago. Inside the skull was an almost completely intact brain, carefully preserved thanks to the soil in which the body was buried:
The Heslington remains, along with others O’Connor has discovered, appear to have been buried quickly after death in wet environments where the absence of oxygen prevented the brain tissue from putrefying. But while the oxygen-free environment seems key, it is not possible to rule out other factors like certain diseases or physiological changes, such as those that accompany starvation, that might predispose the brain to being preserved this way, according to O’Connor.
After being deposited in the water-logged pit, the Heslington brain began to change chemically, developing into a durable material and shrinking to a quarter of its size.
Link via Nerdcore | Photo: York Archaeological Trust
Previously: 800-Year Old Brain with Intact Cells
This Twaggie was drawn by David Barneda from a Tweet by @TeenDreaming. Bill Gates’ picture was skipped, possibly because we all know what he looks like. Link
Researchers at the Stanford School of Medicine attempted to measure the computational power of the combined synapses in the typical human brain. Lead researcher Stephen Smith wrote:
One synapse, by itself, is more like a microprocessor–with both memory-storage and information-processing elements–than a mere on/off switch. In fact, one synapse may contain on the order of 1,000 molecular-scale switches. A single human brain has more switches than all the computers and routers and Internet connections on Earth.
Link via Glenn Reynolds Photo by Flickr user dierk schaefer used under Creative Commons license
Researchers at the University of Tokyo created an interface that allows a rat to move a small car around with just his thoughts:
The rats were trained on the car by towing it around an enclosed area with the motors disengaged. A vision system positioned above tracked the rats by following colored markers on their backs and the vehicle. It fed the positions into a “locomotion estimation model” program that correlated the motion of the animals with readings from the electrodes.
Next the rats were suspended more tightly to the car so their limbs touched the floor only slightly. The researchers then switched the system into “neuro-robotic mode,” with the neural signals used to help drive the car. Six out of eight rats used in the study adapted well to the car.
The researchers hope that this project will lead to the development of thought-controlled mobility aids for disabled humans.
Link via Popular Science | Photo: IEEE Spectrum
Image via hurleygurley [Flickr] (BTW, if you want to make your own brain Jell-O, get the mold at the Neatoshop.)
Our brains are incredibly complex organs that allow us to comprehend both our surroundings and abstract concepts. Unfortunately, because our minds have to process so much information at once in order to help us understand things, they can also be easily tricked. Here are a number of ways your brain not be as reliable as you like to think.
We like to think that our memories work as photographs that preserve our pasts, but the reality is that memories change all the time and can be manipulated to change even faster.
Image via wallyg [Flickr]
Do you recall seeing the video of the first plane hit the World Trade Center on September 11? 73% of people remember seeing the video on that fateful day, but the truth is that the footage of the first plane wasn’t released until the next day. The problem is, according to neuroscientist Karim Nader, that every time you remember something, you change it just a little in your mind. Thus, the more we recall a memory, the more we forget the actual details of the event. In fact, if you make up a lie about something and tell it to yourself often enough, your brain will actually start to remember the fib as the cold hard truth.
If that wasn’t bad enough, other people can manipulate your memories just as easily. Remember when the concept of repressed memories came out a few decades ago and everyone started to believe it as absolute truth? As it turns out, repressed memories can be easily implanted in your mind through the power of suggestion. Researcher Elizabeth Loftus told study participants that she was conducting research on childhood memories. She gave them four accounts of stories from their childhood that were written by the relatives. One of the four accounts was a fictional story about being lost in the mall. Loftus then asked them questions about this incident and over a quarter of the volunteers recalled this imaginary event, citing incredible details about the incident.
After learning about these two facts, it’s not entirely surprising that repetition of something can lead to our acceptance of the statement as a truth. It’s called the Illusion-of-Truth effect and it means that we start to believe things are true, despite evidence to the contrary, if we just hear about it enough. It’s sort of our brain’s way of saying, “well if everyone else believes this, then I should too.”
What’s worse though is that when someone has firmly accepted something this way, it’s nearly impossible to prove the truth to them. Think about a cult that says the world will end on a certain date. When the time comes and goes, the cult members don’t realize they’ve been had and move on with their lives, they start rationalizing it, saying that they changed god’s mind somehow. In many cases, being confronted with the truth will only make the mislead person believe his or her convictions even more strongly.
It doesn’t even take manipulation from another person to alter your memories. Your brain can be tricked with a Photoshopped image just as easily. Ms. Loftus, from the repressed memories study, also experimented with falsified images including the famed picture from the Tiananmen Square protest. People who saw the manipulated images were far more likely to remember the events in a different manner than those who didn’t see the altered pictures. By the way, if you realized the crowd in the image above was added after the photo was taken, you’re in the minority.
Our brain’s concentration can also lead to some strange problems with cognition. For example, watch the video below and count how many times the white team passes the ball.
Video link.
Did you notice the gorilla? Over 50% of people watching the white team don’t notice the fact that a man in a gorilla suit walks through the court. This phenomenon is known as selective inattentiveness and it makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. When you are hunting or being hunted, you don’t want to be distracted by every little thing going on around you. Sometimes though, this inattentiveness can be a problem. If the players in white were prey and the gorilla was a predator, half of all viewers would be an easy target for the hungry beast.
Interestingly, if we are told not to focus on something after it is brought to our attention, we usually can’t get the image out of our minds. Watch the video again and try to ignore the gorilla. Your eye and your mind will almost certainly keep going back to it.
Image via Marcus Vegas [Flickr]
Similarly, if you try not to think of a white bear, your mind will keep veering back to the white bear. If you’ve ever had a crush that just wouldn’t get out of your head even after you made a conscious effort to stop thinking about him or her, it’s the same problem; the conscious effort makes you focus on the one thing you aren’t supposed to think about. This can even lead to an obsession, which is why so many stalkers know very well that they shouldn’t be so focused on the person at hand.
Image via Sean Dreilinger [Flickr]
Did you know today is National French fry day? I don’t know about you, but where I live, everyone is frying them up. I can smell French fries all over the place, even in my house. Do you smell them? If so, then I have some bad news; it’s not National French fry day and unless someone’s in your kitchen making fries right this second, your mind is probably playing tricks on you.
Over 100 years ago, Professor Edwin Slosson proved that suggestion is a major part of our sense of smell. He poured distilled water on a cotton ball and told his class that he just poured a sample of a highly aromatic chemical. He then asked them to raise their hands when they could smell it. Within 15 seconds, the majority of the front row had their hands in the air and within 45 seconds, three-quarters of the class was raising their hands.
If you read the rest of this article saying “fine, my memories and my concentration can be manipulated, but my basic observations are more reliable,” then you’re wrong. Sensory manipulation is so easy that even professionals can be duped.
Image via digimist [Flickr]
A 1998 study by Frederic Brochet asked 54 professional wine tasters to try some wines and write down their opinions. He asked the specialists to taste two white wines and two red wines. The first set of red and white wines were different, but the second set was the same white wine with some red food coloring added, presented as “red wine.” The tasters used completely different adjectives to describe the colored wine as its uncolored equivalent. Their notes on the white wine included things like “dry, apricot, lemon, honey, and straw,” while the red wine notes included words like “deep, cherry, raspberry, spice and black currant.”
He later tried serving the specialists another wine, telling them it was a common table wine for the first sampling and for the second sampling, he told them it was an expensive vintage. The tasters loathed the first sample, calling it “simple, unbalanced and volatile.” When it was presented as a premium wine, they called it “complex, balanced, flavorsome and excellent. While it would be easy to say that this was a good way to prove that wine tasters are full of it, the study actually goes a lot deeper into how we give foods a perception prior to trying them and how this can affect our sense of taste.
The human mind is a complex and wondrous place, but the more you accept its ability to make mistakes, the fewer manipulations you will be subject to. And next time you’re arguing with someone about politics, just remember, whoever is wrong will never allow their mind to accept the truth, even when it is presented conclusively, so there’s really no point to the discussion.
Sources: Elephants on Acid, Smithsonian Mag, Boston Globe, Wiley InterScience, Wikipedia, Cracked
Mira Grant, author of the zombie novel Feed, shows how to make adorable braaains cupcakes for the zombies in your life.
So you’re preparing your ultimate zombie-themed dinner party, and you’re stuck for a dessert. Or you’re entertaining a zombie who’s recently gone vegetarian, and is jonesing for those good old days of gray matter and the delicious taste of human brains. Whatever your reasons, you need a brainy treat that puts the “sweet” back into “sweetmeats.”
From the Upcoming 
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After Mussolini was executed, his body was strung up before being brought to the hospital for autopsy and eventually returned to the family members. So, when an eBay auction started for the brain and some blood samples of the deceased dictator, it was entirely possible that the remains (which started at around $22,000) were authentic. Fortunately, eBay has a policy of not allowing these sorts of things, so the auction was canceled a few hours in, before his granddaughter had even heard about the auction.
Link Image Via Euskalanato [Flickr]
This brain cake looks terrifying, but the process to create it is pretty cool. The brain folds are simply made of frosting and the blood is only food coloring. I think a simple way to make things even more delicious would be to used a raspberry puree in place of food coloring.
Link Image Via kiffakitty
Boston.com has a very cool chart detailing how to mess with your mind’s perceptions, naturally. I think the most interesting one is definitely the first one. It tells you how to hallucinate with ping pong balls and a radio. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go cut some ping pong balls in half and listen to static for the next hour or so.
