Loan words sometimes take on whole new meanings: for example the word ‘parka’ in Japan refers to a ‘hooded sweatshirt’ or ‘hoodie’ as opposed to the jacket commonly called a ‘parka’ in English: I’d be really curious to dig into the etymology of these kinds of words, and it’s probably fairly easy to trace their […]

The strong and simultaneous activation of both branches the autonomic nervous system, sympathetic and parasympathetic, is known as ‘autonomic conflict.’ In the cartoonish intro-biology view of the body, the sympathetic system fight or flight is an accelerator, the parasympathetic is pumping the breaks. (I always used to think parasympathetic = paramedics = ’rest and recover’.) […]

One nuance of language that I hadn’t considered before spending a year in Japan is how words for expressing categories sometimes don’t quite line up. For example, in Japanese ‘juusu’ or juice refers not just to fruit and vegetable juices, but also soft-drinks. But what’s more, the line between fruits and vegetables itself is different, […]

When Chris Ferguson, a professor at Stetson University, was trying to choose a textbook for his introductory psychology course, he realized his own field of study, video game violence was being misportrayed in some textbooks. “The data isn’t consistent or clear,” said Fergusen, but textbooks were picking sides and trying to portray it like it […]

As an intern at Gimlet Media’s Science Vs, I’ve learned a lot about making podcasts. The process of making a podcast can seem mysterious, if not impossible. And when it comes to tasks like finding the overall structuring of a story or selecting the very best audio from three-hour-long interviews, if you’re like me, you may be […]

Learning a new language can seem impossible, especially later in life, but it’s not–in fact, language learning is something our brains specially evolved to do! In this post I’ll share why why language learning is fascinating from a neuroscience perspective, my experience learning Japanese from scratch at twenty-eight, and end with three tricks for self-study […]

First off, if you’re experiencing the worst headache of your life, please stop reading and head to an emergency room, especially if it’s onset was sudden. Alright, moving on: I’ll start with a personal story and get to the studies, below. Feel free to skip ahead. I was thirteen, in English class and struggling to […]

Lab Wars Interview To subscribe to Neuroamer audio content in podcast form, click here. This is an unusual post for the blog because it’s primarily an audio interview  with charming Caezar Al-Jassar, Ph.D, co-creator of the game Lab Wars. The conversation goes into having a side project as a young academic and Caezar’s kickstarter success, but also touches […]

Do you drink a glass of water before going to bed? Then, hate to break it to you, but you have something in common with a mouse. Overview A new paper suggests that a mouse’s biological clock increases its thirst shortly before it sleeps.1 Why? The study’s authors suggest this increased drive to drink, allows a […]

Fast Food – Fast News Trump is really, really smart. His intellect is huge and he knows things. Many such things. Excellent man. One thing he knows: Our schools are really, really bad. Really, really, really bad. They’re nasty places. And maybe because of that, he uses plain language. Shaming or blaming people for being […]