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Category Archives: Thinking

Close call

A long weekend, which was to be devoted to free-writing, instead became an occasion to fret and worry about the future.
 
Almost.
 
With the goal of 5,000 words a day for the next nine days, and a full-time job, I just can’t afford my usual rumination and recrimination mind-dances. I’m having some success distracting my ruminator with [...]

Posted 13 October 2008 † nickyp § Writing ‡ Comments (0) °

Write what you dream

Someone else in my extended posse might be getting divorced. Breakups of couples and families have been part of my life since I was a toddler; they make a big impression on me, and a new one can sometimes call up the rends and rips from the past.
 
I know this is partly why I am [...]

Posted 04 October 2008 † nickyp § Writing ‡ Comments (0) °

Not ‘political’ science

[crankypants alert]
I remember getting so mad last year reading the op-ed “This is your brain on politics” in the New York Times. At my job, we work so hard to get people interested in brain science and to help them understand it, then a not-flake but well-respected researcher comes out with something flaky like this—claiming [...]

Posted 14 September 2008 † nickyp § Brain science ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: ,

Seeking spirit by scanning brains

We did a cool out-of-the ordinary science story this week—”The ‘Search’ for God: Growing field of neurotheology explores the biology of religion.” More researchers are trying to find “spirituality” in brain scans the way we’ve been trying to find language and visual processing, and it seems like the tools we have (fMRI, EEG, etc.) may [...]

Posted 11 September 2008 † nickyp § Brain science ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

Another start

When did I realize I was happy? It wasn’t crossing a finish line, more like walking through a forest that straddles two countries; now I’m in a new country but no marker showed the line. Or like when you’re finally well after a long cold or a winter with chronic bronchitis. I can breathe today, [...]

Posted 29 August 2008 † nickyp § ‡ Comments (0) °