Ig Nobel Prize winner Chris Frith lecturing at Harvard this week

The long-named Harvard Mind/Brain/Body Interfaculty Initiative announces:

MBB 2013 Distinguished Lecture Series
Uta Frith and Chris Frith (University College London)

Wednesday, April 24th, 5:15 p.m., Science Center Hall D

Chris Frith - How the Brain Creates Culture

Thursday, April 25th, 5 p.m., Science Center Hall D

BACKGROUND: Chris Frith, together with colleagues Eleanor Maguire, David Gadian, Ingrid Johnsrude, Catriona Good, John Ashburner and Richard Frackowiak, were awarded the 2003 Ig Nobel Prize for medicine, for presenting evidence that the brains of London taxi drivers are more highly developed than those of their fellow citizens. [That research was published in the report "Navigation-Related Structural Change In the Hippocampi of Taxi Drivers," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 97, no. 8, April 11, 2000, pp. 4398-403.]

BONUS: To become a London taxi driver, one must have The Knowledge. It is said that The Blue Book is a valuable aid in attaining The Knowledge. [The NBC News Photo Blog recently looked at would-be London taxi drivers striving to attain The Knowledge.

BONUS: The application to become a London taxi driver