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Brain Cuttings #1
Brain Cuttings: Fifteen Journeys Through the Mind
The human brain has long been a mystery, but twenty-first century science is beginning to reveal some of its inner workings. With microscopes and brain scans, with psychological experiments and breakthroughs in genetics, neuroscientists are developing new theories about every aspect of our minds from the nature of consciousness to the causes of disorders like autism and schizophrenia. In Brain Cuttings, award-winning science writer Carl Zimmer takes readers on fascinating explorations of the frontiers of research, shedding light on our innermost existence the speed of thought, our perception of time, the complex flashes of electricity that give rise to fear and love, and more.
104 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2010
36 people are currently reading
822 people want to read
About the author
Carl Zimmer
53 books1,705 followersCarl Zimmer is a columnist for the New York Times and the author of 15 books about science. His latest book is Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe. Visit him at carlzimmer.com.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
March 23, 2019
I finished the book and can recommend it unreservedly to people who like reading science books and spending twice as long thinking about what they've read and even longer on the impolications it has for society. A wonderful book.
Fourth Carl Zimmer in a row. The way he writes science, not dumbing it down like Mary Roach but explaining the heavy science in a fairly accessible (if you concentrate and don't mind rereading) way, is exciting me. I am really learning stuff that is important and thinking of ethical problems brought about by the development of how science can change things we previously hardly thought of is just what I like in a book. He's a really good writer.
The last book, A Planet of Viruses was a dud. But the one before that, Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures was a 5 star, and the book that started off this present obsession, She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity was a golden 10 star, all-time great book. I hope that dud was just a blip.
Fourth Carl Zimmer in a row. The way he writes science, not dumbing it down like Mary Roach but explaining the heavy science in a fairly accessible (if you concentrate and don't mind rereading) way, is exciting me. I am really learning stuff that is important and thinking of ethical problems brought about by the development of how science can change things we previously hardly thought of is just what I like in a book. He's a really good writer.
The last book, A Planet of Viruses was a dud. But the one before that, Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures was a 5 star, and the book that started off this present obsession, She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity was a golden 10 star, all-time great book. I hope that dud was just a blip.
March 27, 2019
Vignettes of neuropsychology insight into our brain- and mindwork.
Cognitive prosthetics? Singularity? Onboard iPhones? Meh. Blech.
Q:
If a mammal face is an instrument for communication, the primate face is a Stradivarius. (c)
Q:
Why did one small group of mammals evolve such sophisticated faces? The answer probably has to do with the intensely social life of primates. Natural selection may have favored primates that could make a wide range of expressions and that could read those expressions in others. The right expression could let a primate stare down a rival or cement a bond. (c)
Q:
When we see faces, we don’t just recognize them; we also make the same face, if only for a moment. If you see someone wearing a big grin, muscles on your face will start contracting in about a third of a second. The same goes for angry faces and sad ones. We respond this way whether people are looking at us or at someone else. (c)
Q:
Oberman and a growing number of other psychologists believe that we empathize by mimicking faces. By putting ourselves in other people’s places, we understand what they’re feeling. (c)
Q:
When humans mimic others’ faces, in other words, we don’t just go through the motions. We also go through the emotions. (c)
Q:
We all have minds that extend out into our environments. (c)
Q:
We are, in Clark’s words, “natural-born cyborgs.” (c)
Q:
The old notion that our brains are governed by a single, simple clock is gone for good. In its place are many different ways to mark the time: multifarious, musically elastic, and even deceptive in hindsight. (c)
Q:
A gene is a gene is a gene. Two identical stretches of DNA ought to have the same effect on a child, regardless of which parent it comes from. But sometimes our genes break the rules of high-school genetics. The effects of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of genes depend on whether you inherited them from your mother or your father. (c)
Q:
Crespi and Badcock have identified several other imprinting disorders that have a similar mother-father symmetry. What is striking about them is that the father-leaning disorders tend to produce autistic symptoms. The mother-leaning disorders tend to produce schizophrenic ones. It is possible that autism and schizophrenia themselves are partly the result of conflicts between parental genes... (c)
Q:
One of the most striking contrasts between autism and schizophrenia is how they affect the ability to understand others. Autistic people have a difficult time figuring out what other people are feeling. Schizophrenic people, on the other hand, sometimes do too good a job. They may come to believe that a refrigerator is talking to them, for example, or that people are conspiring against them. (c)
Q:
Empathetic children can see how frazzled they’re making their mothers and how much attention their siblings need. Maternal genes should therefore boost our abilities to get inside other people’s heads. Paternal genes, on the other hand, may benefit by reducing these distractions from the business of getting more resources from mothers. (c)
Q:
Psychologists have also discovered ways to increase and decrease mind wandering. Jonathan Smallwood, a colleague of Schooler’s at Santa Barbara, instructed subjects to tap a key every time they saw a new number appear on a computer screen but to hold off tapping if the number was three. The more quickly the numbers came, the less often the subjects’ minds wandered. But as people practiced the task and became more familiar with it, their mind wandering increased. Smallwood has also found that mood affects mind wandering: If he showed people a short video about a sick dog before they performed the task, for example, they spent more time mind wandering than did a separate group that had watched a comedy clip.
Alcohol tweaks mind wandering in a particularly interesting way. Schooler and his colleagues ran the War and Peace experiment again, but this time after serving their subjects some vodka with cranberry juice. Drunk readers actually reported less mind wandering than sober people did. That does not mean that you should swill vodka if you want a laser focus on Tolstoy’s deathless prose. Schooler has shown that there are, in fact, two kinds of mind wandering: mind wandering when you are aware that you’re thinking about something else and mind wandering without awareness. He calls this second kind “zoning out.” ...
These experiments show that we spend about 13 percent of our time zoning out. But when we are drunk, that figure doubles. In other words, boozy subjects report less mind wandering only because they are less aware of their own minds. (c)
Q:
Each of us has a magnificent hive of billions of neurons in our head, joined to each other by trillions of connections. (c)
Q:
In the 1930s, astronomers began to realize that all the things they could see through their telescopes—the stars, the galaxies, the nebulas—make up just a small fraction of the total mass of the universe. The rest, known as dark matter, still defies their best attempts at explanation. Between our ears, it turns out, each of us carries a personal supply of dark matter as well. (c)
Q:
But once our ancestors began to link their natural instinct for numbers with a new ability to understand symbols, everything changed. Math became a language of ideas, of measurements, and of engineering possibilities. The rest—the skyscrapers and supermarkets and weddings—were just a matter of derivation. (c)
Cognitive prosthetics? Singularity? Onboard iPhones? Meh. Blech.
Q:
If a mammal face is an instrument for communication, the primate face is a Stradivarius. (c)
Q:
Why did one small group of mammals evolve such sophisticated faces? The answer probably has to do with the intensely social life of primates. Natural selection may have favored primates that could make a wide range of expressions and that could read those expressions in others. The right expression could let a primate stare down a rival or cement a bond. (c)
Q:
When we see faces, we don’t just recognize them; we also make the same face, if only for a moment. If you see someone wearing a big grin, muscles on your face will start contracting in about a third of a second. The same goes for angry faces and sad ones. We respond this way whether people are looking at us or at someone else. (c)
Q:
Oberman and a growing number of other psychologists believe that we empathize by mimicking faces. By putting ourselves in other people’s places, we understand what they’re feeling. (c)
Q:
When humans mimic others’ faces, in other words, we don’t just go through the motions. We also go through the emotions. (c)
Q:
We all have minds that extend out into our environments. (c)
Q:
We are, in Clark’s words, “natural-born cyborgs.” (c)
Q:
The old notion that our brains are governed by a single, simple clock is gone for good. In its place are many different ways to mark the time: multifarious, musically elastic, and even deceptive in hindsight. (c)
Q:
A gene is a gene is a gene. Two identical stretches of DNA ought to have the same effect on a child, regardless of which parent it comes from. But sometimes our genes break the rules of high-school genetics. The effects of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of genes depend on whether you inherited them from your mother or your father. (c)
Q:
Crespi and Badcock have identified several other imprinting disorders that have a similar mother-father symmetry. What is striking about them is that the father-leaning disorders tend to produce autistic symptoms. The mother-leaning disorders tend to produce schizophrenic ones. It is possible that autism and schizophrenia themselves are partly the result of conflicts between parental genes... (c)
Q:
One of the most striking contrasts between autism and schizophrenia is how they affect the ability to understand others. Autistic people have a difficult time figuring out what other people are feeling. Schizophrenic people, on the other hand, sometimes do too good a job. They may come to believe that a refrigerator is talking to them, for example, or that people are conspiring against them. (c)
Q:
Empathetic children can see how frazzled they’re making their mothers and how much attention their siblings need. Maternal genes should therefore boost our abilities to get inside other people’s heads. Paternal genes, on the other hand, may benefit by reducing these distractions from the business of getting more resources from mothers. (c)
Q:
Psychologists have also discovered ways to increase and decrease mind wandering. Jonathan Smallwood, a colleague of Schooler’s at Santa Barbara, instructed subjects to tap a key every time they saw a new number appear on a computer screen but to hold off tapping if the number was three. The more quickly the numbers came, the less often the subjects’ minds wandered. But as people practiced the task and became more familiar with it, their mind wandering increased. Smallwood has also found that mood affects mind wandering: If he showed people a short video about a sick dog before they performed the task, for example, they spent more time mind wandering than did a separate group that had watched a comedy clip.
Alcohol tweaks mind wandering in a particularly interesting way. Schooler and his colleagues ran the War and Peace experiment again, but this time after serving their subjects some vodka with cranberry juice. Drunk readers actually reported less mind wandering than sober people did. That does not mean that you should swill vodka if you want a laser focus on Tolstoy’s deathless prose. Schooler has shown that there are, in fact, two kinds of mind wandering: mind wandering when you are aware that you’re thinking about something else and mind wandering without awareness. He calls this second kind “zoning out.” ...
These experiments show that we spend about 13 percent of our time zoning out. But when we are drunk, that figure doubles. In other words, boozy subjects report less mind wandering only because they are less aware of their own minds. (c)
Q:
Each of us has a magnificent hive of billions of neurons in our head, joined to each other by trillions of connections. (c)
Q:
In the 1930s, astronomers began to realize that all the things they could see through their telescopes—the stars, the galaxies, the nebulas—make up just a small fraction of the total mass of the universe. The rest, known as dark matter, still defies their best attempts at explanation. Between our ears, it turns out, each of us carries a personal supply of dark matter as well. (c)
Q:
But once our ancestors began to link their natural instinct for numbers with a new ability to understand symbols, everything changed. Math became a language of ideas, of measurements, and of engineering possibilities. The rest—the skyscrapers and supermarkets and weddings—were just a matter of derivation. (c)
November 3, 2015
Great collection of articles about the brain and current scientific understanding of how it works. I was able to pick up a few case studies and insights I hadn't read anywhere else before. Overall, a really interesting, short exploration of the mind and study of the mind. I'm happy that Zimmer has released another collection under this series, and I've already started that one because I enjoyed this one so much.
February 20, 2019
A slim volume (115 pages) with some interesting, sometimes amazing, topics. Since neuroscience is a rapidly progressing field, some content -- the book was published in 2010 -- may already be out of date. The first half is the best, the experiment showing that newborn human babies (and monkeys) already have a grasp of abstract mathematics was, to me, the most surprising, together with the "Hale Berry" neuron experiment. The sections on fear and the blind mind's eye are less interesting, as is the bit about Kurtzweil's singularity's nonsense. Still, I was fascinated by the brain implants possibilities.
That the book is dated can be seen in the section that claims that artificial intelligence will not be possible within at least a decade. In 2018, the resurgence of software neural networks, thanks to faster hardware and plenty of training data, also from social networks, has resulted in systems that accomplish tasks, e.g. face recognition or diagnosis, previously impossible without human help.
All in all, a reasonably interesting read. I cannot recommend it, also to myself, due to it being a bit out of date.
That the book is dated can be seen in the section that claims that artificial intelligence will not be possible within at least a decade. In 2018, the resurgence of software neural networks, thanks to faster hardware and plenty of training data, also from social networks, has resulted in systems that accomplish tasks, e.g. face recognition or diagnosis, previously impossible without human help.
All in all, a reasonably interesting read. I cannot recommend it, also to myself, due to it being a bit out of date.
September 30, 2011
Brain Cuttings by Carl Zimmer
Brain Cuttings is a book of essays about brain science from the excellent author Carl Zimmer. This interesting page-turner of a book takes us for a journey to the fascinating world of brain science. This 364 KB-book is composed of the following fifteen essays: 1. "Does Shame Excite a Blush?" 2. The Googled Mind, 3. The Music of Time, 4. They Imprint Your Genes, Your Mum and Dad, 5. Of Ether and Consciousness, 6. Stalking the Grandmother Cell, 7. The Flash of Desire, 8. Two Brains in One, 9. The Neurobiology of Zoning Out, 10. The Brains Dark Matter, 11. An Intuition for Math, 12. The Speed of Thought, 13. Fear's Anatomy, 14. The Mind's Eye Goes Blind, and 15. Too Clever.
Positives:
1. Carl Zimmer is a fantastic writer. Always produces consistent quality work.
2. One of the most fascinating topics in science, the brain.
3. Fifteen brief yet interesting essays that cover a wide spectrum of topics regarding the human brain. All accessible to the masses.
4. Where would we be without the grand theory of evolution?
5. Fascinating tidbits throughout. "People with Botox may be less vulnerable to the angry emotions..." perhaps somewhat speculative but fascinating nonetheless.
6. The extended mind theory.
7. How fear impacts our neurons, "scary" stuff...
8. Fascinating brain disorders.
9. Gene imprinting.
10. The mystery of anesthesia. The intriguing history.
11. The nature of consciousness.
12. How neurons work.
13. The essay "Flash of Desire" was hilarious yet as with all the essays informative.
14. What we know about areas of the brain and their functions. Including the two hemispheres.
15. Mind wandering, say what?
16. Glia, a sticky subject or is it?
17. Numbers and the brain, you can count on it.
18. The speed of neurons.
19. Studies of blindsight.
20. The future of neuroscience.
21. Great references section.
Negatives:
1. I wanted more and more depth.
2. Never gets into the more controversial topics like dualism, free will or out of body experiences.
3. A topic on how brain injuries impact the brain and hence the individual would have been welcomed.
In summary, this is a great science appetizer. It's a brief digital book but touches on many on-going fascinating topics in brain science. I enjoyed the book immensely and my only criticism is that it was too brief and left out some of the more controversial topics. That being said, I highly recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in brain science, it is such a fascinating world and it has many implications for the future.
Further suggestions: "The Believing Brain..." by Michael Shermer, "The Scientific American Brave New Brain..." by Judith Horstman, "The Blank Slate" by Steven Pinker, "Human" by Michael S. Gazzaniga, "SuperSense" by Bruce M. Hood, " "Hardwired Behavior" by Laurence Tancredi, "Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality" by Patricia S. Churchland, and "The Brain and the Meaning of Life" by Paul Thagard.
Brain Cuttings is a book of essays about brain science from the excellent author Carl Zimmer. This interesting page-turner of a book takes us for a journey to the fascinating world of brain science. This 364 KB-book is composed of the following fifteen essays: 1. "Does Shame Excite a Blush?" 2. The Googled Mind, 3. The Music of Time, 4. They Imprint Your Genes, Your Mum and Dad, 5. Of Ether and Consciousness, 6. Stalking the Grandmother Cell, 7. The Flash of Desire, 8. Two Brains in One, 9. The Neurobiology of Zoning Out, 10. The Brains Dark Matter, 11. An Intuition for Math, 12. The Speed of Thought, 13. Fear's Anatomy, 14. The Mind's Eye Goes Blind, and 15. Too Clever.
Positives:
1. Carl Zimmer is a fantastic writer. Always produces consistent quality work.
2. One of the most fascinating topics in science, the brain.
3. Fifteen brief yet interesting essays that cover a wide spectrum of topics regarding the human brain. All accessible to the masses.
4. Where would we be without the grand theory of evolution?
5. Fascinating tidbits throughout. "People with Botox may be less vulnerable to the angry emotions..." perhaps somewhat speculative but fascinating nonetheless.
6. The extended mind theory.
7. How fear impacts our neurons, "scary" stuff...
8. Fascinating brain disorders.
9. Gene imprinting.
10. The mystery of anesthesia. The intriguing history.
11. The nature of consciousness.
12. How neurons work.
13. The essay "Flash of Desire" was hilarious yet as with all the essays informative.
14. What we know about areas of the brain and their functions. Including the two hemispheres.
15. Mind wandering, say what?
16. Glia, a sticky subject or is it?
17. Numbers and the brain, you can count on it.
18. The speed of neurons.
19. Studies of blindsight.
20. The future of neuroscience.
21. Great references section.
Negatives:
1. I wanted more and more depth.
2. Never gets into the more controversial topics like dualism, free will or out of body experiences.
3. A topic on how brain injuries impact the brain and hence the individual would have been welcomed.
In summary, this is a great science appetizer. It's a brief digital book but touches on many on-going fascinating topics in brain science. I enjoyed the book immensely and my only criticism is that it was too brief and left out some of the more controversial topics. That being said, I highly recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in brain science, it is such a fascinating world and it has many implications for the future.
Further suggestions: "The Believing Brain..." by Michael Shermer, "The Scientific American Brave New Brain..." by Judith Horstman, "The Blank Slate" by Steven Pinker, "Human" by Michael S. Gazzaniga, "SuperSense" by Bruce M. Hood, " "Hardwired Behavior" by Laurence Tancredi, "Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality" by Patricia S. Churchland, and "The Brain and the Meaning of Life" by Paul Thagard.
January 24, 2015
The book is rather short but fairly good.
The book consisted of 15 chapters or journeys as Zimmer claims. Most chapters are 5 or 6 pages long so they are very convenient if you're reading them while commuting. The chapter I liked most is the Googled mind, I even have 2 quotes to share with you from that chapter.
" Socrates worried that writing would make people forgetful and unwise"
" We are, in Clark’s words, “natural-born cyborgs.”
Without even knowing much about the author, who I later figured out that he is a popular science writer from Yale, it was obvious that he is no scientist or neurologist. But that doesn't have to keep you away from reading the book which won't take much of your time anyway.
The book consisted of 15 chapters or journeys as Zimmer claims. Most chapters are 5 or 6 pages long so they are very convenient if you're reading them while commuting. The chapter I liked most is the Googled mind, I even have 2 quotes to share with you from that chapter.
" Socrates worried that writing would make people forgetful and unwise"
" We are, in Clark’s words, “natural-born cyborgs.”
Without even knowing much about the author, who I later figured out that he is a popular science writer from Yale, it was obvious that he is no scientist or neurologist. But that doesn't have to keep you away from reading the book which won't take much of your time anyway.
March 4, 2021
I can’t sum up what the story was all about,lost interest at the very beginning but I kept on reading. So that’s on me I guess. 🤦🏻♀️
September 8, 2020
This is the shortest book I have read from Carl Zimmer, but not an easy book. A lot to learn, a lot to think of. It is a complicated subject and very interesting but with lots of unknowns. It is a science book but with a lot of missing answers, some assumptions and a lot of recent research and pressure to move forward into understanding how the brain works.
January 20, 2016
A set of essays dealing with different aspects of the brain. As usual Carl Zimmer describes some fascinating information. It turns out that using Botox is causing some rather interesting social engineering (an unintended consequence). The last chapter deals with the singularity, and how difficult it is (and likely will continue to be) to become a cyborg or an enhanced human.
May 29, 2015
Amazing. Just amazing.
I'll be brief: Read this book. You will learn something about how our minds work, and your imagination will be sparked by the potential for monumental breakthroughs in the years to come.
I'll be brief: Read this book. You will learn something about how our minds work, and your imagination will be sparked by the potential for monumental breakthroughs in the years to come.
June 28, 2021
It's not you, it's me. Very interesting short stories about the brain. I forgot everything after I closed the book. I can only tell you after this book that the brain is complicated, we know a lot about it but just enough to realize how little we actually know.
December 9, 2013
Some kindle quotes:
People with Botox may be less vulnerable to the angry emotions of other people because they themselves can’t make angry or unhappy faces as easily. And because people with Botox can’t spread bad feelings to others via their expressions, people without Botox may be happier too. The surgeons grant that this is just speculation for now. - location 259
What’s even more remarkable about our brains is that they actually search for new things to make part of this feedback system. Imagine you are poking a stick into an animal’s burrow. As you poke away, you are aware of what the far end of the stick is touching, not the end you’re holding in your hand. This kind of extended sensation appears to be the result of a reorganization of the brain. - location 327
Which disease a child gets depends on which parent’s chromosome 15 carries the defect. Prader-Willi syndrome is caused by a mutation in a father’s genes that deletes a chunk of DNA on chromosome 15. Angelman syndrome is associated with a mutation on the mother’s chromosome 15. If you think back to the genetics you learned in school, this pattern makes no sense. A gene is a gene is a gene. Two identical stretches of DNA ought to have the same effect on a child, regardless of which parent it comes from. - location 442
In Angelman syndrome, the mother’s genes are silenced, allowing the father’s genes to act without any restraint. Children with Angelman try to nurse more than average children do. The smiles and laughter that are associated with Angelman may also come from attention-grabbing strategies encoded by paternal genes. Prader-Willi emerges from an opposite breakdown, in which the father’s DNA in the same segment of chromosome 15 is deleted. Many symptoms of Prader-Willi make sense as exaggerated versions of strategies that benefit mothers. Babies with Prader-Willi syndrome make few demands on their mothers—so few that they risk starving themselves. Only after they finish weaning does their insatiable hunger emerge. By foraging for food themselves, they don’t make demands on their mothers. Crespi and Badcock have identified several other imprinting disorders that have a similar mother-father symmetry. What is striking about them is that the father-leaning disorders tend to produce autistic symptoms. The mother-leaning disorders tend to produce schizophrenic ones. It is possible that autism and schizophrenia themselves are partly the result of conflicts between parental genes, Crespi and Badcock say. Autism, they argue, is a father-dominated imprinting disorder. Consistent with this idea is the fact that autistic children are more likely to have had placentas that grew aggressively in the womb. Schizophrenia appears to be influenced by mother-dominated genes. Some studies link schizophrenia with low birth weight and slow growth, both of which can benefit mothers. One of the most striking contrasts between autism and schizophrenia is how they affect the ability to understand others. Autistic people have a difficult time figuring out what other people are feeling. Schizophrenic people, on the other hand, sometimes do too good a job. They may come to believe that a refrigerator is talking to them, for example, or that people are conspiring against them. Crespi and Badcock propose that these symptoms are also the result of genetic conflict. Empathetic children can see how frazzled they’re making their mothers and how much attention their siblings need. Maternal genes should therefore boost our abilities to get inside other people’s heads. Paternal genes, on the other hand, may benefit by reducing these distractions from the business of getting more resources from mothers. “Between these extremes would sit normal cognition,” Crespi and Badcock write. The same conflict that gives rise to autism and schizophrenia may be at work in all of us, nudging us one way or another on the spectrum from father-brain to mother-brain. - location 487
each year only one person in a million suffers an anesthesia-related death in the United States. - location 531
Lateralized brains are not unique to humans. Parrots prefer picking up things with their left foot. Toads tend to attack other toads from the right but go after prey from the left. Zebrafish are likely to look at new things with their right eye and familiar things with their left. - location 785
Drunk readers actually reported less mind wandering than sober people did. That does not mean that you should swill vodka if you want a laser focus on Tolstoy’s deathless prose. Schooler has shown that there are, in fact, two kinds of mind wandering: mind wandering when you are aware that you’re thinking about something else and mind wandering without awareness. He calls this second kind “zoning out.” To determine which kind of mind wandering people experience, Schooler and his collaborators told the participants in the War and Peace experiment to report their own drifting but also asked them every few minutes if they were thinking of something else. If people responded to those questions with a yes, that meant they weren’t aware enough of their own minds to report their mind wandering on their own. These experiments show that we spend about 13 percent of our time zoning out. But when we are drunk, that figure doubles. In other words, boozy subjects report less mind wandering only because they are less aware of their own minds. - location 845
Some of the common words we use are frozen mistakes. The term influenza comes from the Italian word meaning “influence”—an allusion to the influence the stars were once believed to have on our health. - location 899
Zero made its debut in A.D. 876. - location 987
In 1854 physicist William Thomson showed that the wider a telegraph wire, the faster its signal and the farther the signal could travel. That same principle applies to nerves. Some neurons are fat and fast, while others are thin and slow. Another way to speed up wires is to insulate them, and again the same goes for neurons. Some neurons are wrapped in an insulating material known as myelin. In the heavily myelinated neurons running down the spine, signals can travel up to 180 miles an hour. In neurons that lack myelin, signals travel just over half a mile an hour. Nerve fibers that carry pain are among the slowest. Pain can take many seconds to reach the brain, explaining why sometimes we seem to react to a stubbed toe in slow motion. - location 1099
scientists reported 15 people with Tourette’s syndrome had 52 percent fewer tics thanks to deep-brain stimulation. - location 1452
People with Botox may be less vulnerable to the angry emotions of other people because they themselves can’t make angry or unhappy faces as easily. And because people with Botox can’t spread bad feelings to others via their expressions, people without Botox may be happier too. The surgeons grant that this is just speculation for now. - location 259
What’s even more remarkable about our brains is that they actually search for new things to make part of this feedback system. Imagine you are poking a stick into an animal’s burrow. As you poke away, you are aware of what the far end of the stick is touching, not the end you’re holding in your hand. This kind of extended sensation appears to be the result of a reorganization of the brain. - location 327
Which disease a child gets depends on which parent’s chromosome 15 carries the defect. Prader-Willi syndrome is caused by a mutation in a father’s genes that deletes a chunk of DNA on chromosome 15. Angelman syndrome is associated with a mutation on the mother’s chromosome 15. If you think back to the genetics you learned in school, this pattern makes no sense. A gene is a gene is a gene. Two identical stretches of DNA ought to have the same effect on a child, regardless of which parent it comes from. - location 442
In Angelman syndrome, the mother’s genes are silenced, allowing the father’s genes to act without any restraint. Children with Angelman try to nurse more than average children do. The smiles and laughter that are associated with Angelman may also come from attention-grabbing strategies encoded by paternal genes. Prader-Willi emerges from an opposite breakdown, in which the father’s DNA in the same segment of chromosome 15 is deleted. Many symptoms of Prader-Willi make sense as exaggerated versions of strategies that benefit mothers. Babies with Prader-Willi syndrome make few demands on their mothers—so few that they risk starving themselves. Only after they finish weaning does their insatiable hunger emerge. By foraging for food themselves, they don’t make demands on their mothers. Crespi and Badcock have identified several other imprinting disorders that have a similar mother-father symmetry. What is striking about them is that the father-leaning disorders tend to produce autistic symptoms. The mother-leaning disorders tend to produce schizophrenic ones. It is possible that autism and schizophrenia themselves are partly the result of conflicts between parental genes, Crespi and Badcock say. Autism, they argue, is a father-dominated imprinting disorder. Consistent with this idea is the fact that autistic children are more likely to have had placentas that grew aggressively in the womb. Schizophrenia appears to be influenced by mother-dominated genes. Some studies link schizophrenia with low birth weight and slow growth, both of which can benefit mothers. One of the most striking contrasts between autism and schizophrenia is how they affect the ability to understand others. Autistic people have a difficult time figuring out what other people are feeling. Schizophrenic people, on the other hand, sometimes do too good a job. They may come to believe that a refrigerator is talking to them, for example, or that people are conspiring against them. Crespi and Badcock propose that these symptoms are also the result of genetic conflict. Empathetic children can see how frazzled they’re making their mothers and how much attention their siblings need. Maternal genes should therefore boost our abilities to get inside other people’s heads. Paternal genes, on the other hand, may benefit by reducing these distractions from the business of getting more resources from mothers. “Between these extremes would sit normal cognition,” Crespi and Badcock write. The same conflict that gives rise to autism and schizophrenia may be at work in all of us, nudging us one way or another on the spectrum from father-brain to mother-brain. - location 487
each year only one person in a million suffers an anesthesia-related death in the United States. - location 531
Lateralized brains are not unique to humans. Parrots prefer picking up things with their left foot. Toads tend to attack other toads from the right but go after prey from the left. Zebrafish are likely to look at new things with their right eye and familiar things with their left. - location 785
Drunk readers actually reported less mind wandering than sober people did. That does not mean that you should swill vodka if you want a laser focus on Tolstoy’s deathless prose. Schooler has shown that there are, in fact, two kinds of mind wandering: mind wandering when you are aware that you’re thinking about something else and mind wandering without awareness. He calls this second kind “zoning out.” To determine which kind of mind wandering people experience, Schooler and his collaborators told the participants in the War and Peace experiment to report their own drifting but also asked them every few minutes if they were thinking of something else. If people responded to those questions with a yes, that meant they weren’t aware enough of their own minds to report their mind wandering on their own. These experiments show that we spend about 13 percent of our time zoning out. But when we are drunk, that figure doubles. In other words, boozy subjects report less mind wandering only because they are less aware of their own minds. - location 845
Some of the common words we use are frozen mistakes. The term influenza comes from the Italian word meaning “influence”—an allusion to the influence the stars were once believed to have on our health. - location 899
Zero made its debut in A.D. 876. - location 987
In 1854 physicist William Thomson showed that the wider a telegraph wire, the faster its signal and the farther the signal could travel. That same principle applies to nerves. Some neurons are fat and fast, while others are thin and slow. Another way to speed up wires is to insulate them, and again the same goes for neurons. Some neurons are wrapped in an insulating material known as myelin. In the heavily myelinated neurons running down the spine, signals can travel up to 180 miles an hour. In neurons that lack myelin, signals travel just over half a mile an hour. Nerve fibers that carry pain are among the slowest. Pain can take many seconds to reach the brain, explaining why sometimes we seem to react to a stubbed toe in slow motion. - location 1099
scientists reported 15 people with Tourette’s syndrome had 52 percent fewer tics thanks to deep-brain stimulation. - location 1452
August 21, 2019
Years of research have shown how complex the brain is and we can take even further to clarify some unsolved questions. People sometimes forget about the individuality of the brain like a unique organ of the human body, I think in some cultures, religion and the estimate of a soul has taken place on it. This book collects some good articles about the brain-mind and everyone should read not because it's a scientific book, but because of your deep approach and perspective view of fields like technology and artificial intelligence (my favorite part in the whole book).
June 24, 2017
Good book for learning a tiny bit about a particular brain subject. Only a launching board if you want to learn more. He has several tidbits, so you learn a little about many things. Not very technical.
April 12, 2018
I found the essays interesting. It is a book that motivates the reader to do additional research into the topics Mr. Zimmer discusses. I am looking forward to reading the sequel.
February 25, 2019
As always, Karl Zimmer manages to impress, amaze and bring you up to date in brain studies and research. I recommend this book a lot, very easy to read, very explanatory and relevant.
January 22, 2020
This book is now 10 years old.
I can tell.
I can tell.
December 27, 2021
Me recordó un poquito a Oliver Sacks
January 30, 2018
Very disappointing because it is only simple and superficial.
March 10, 2016
I see that other reviewers have not always given these books by Carl Zimmer raving reviews, but I love this kind of stuff. It helps that I have a couple of neuroscience degrees, so this stuff is up my alley. Like another reviewer said, this kind of science writing is brain candy...to me it's like grabbing dark chocolate. It really satisfies something in me to read this kind of current and pertinent information about the brain and it's impact in other fields. In neuroscience, I was more involved in diseases like Alzheimer's and HIV encephalitis...so I didn't get to explore other things that interested me like sleep or artificial intelligence. A book like this lets you peek into these fields and see what is going on. And it reminds me of things that I may have forgotten, so I go find papers and look them up again.
Anyone who enjoys books along the lines of short stories about medical science should enjoy Zimmer's books. I plan on getting his other Brain Cuttings book and reading that as well. It will be fun...
Anyone who enjoys books along the lines of short stories about medical science should enjoy Zimmer's books. I plan on getting his other Brain Cuttings book and reading that as well. It will be fun...
November 18, 2010
Great book! Zimmer's a master at making the complex clear.
January 6, 2012
Great Book! Very investing examples and stories from the fascinating world of neuroscience. Highly recommended.
October 21, 2011
This is like a KFC/BigMac version of short, crispy neuroscience articles. If you have two hours to spare, on a flight or in a train, and if you like the brain, this is the book to go with.
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October 1, 2012Recommended on Skeptically Speaking show #90 on December 17, 2010. http://skepticallyspeaking.ca/episode...
February 24, 2015
Too-short collection of essays about the works and quirks of the human brain. Zimmer remains a top-notch science writer, one of my two favorites.
May 1, 2015
Short, interesting stories and facts about the brain.
October 21, 2015
A Short book with great ideas...
August 7, 2014
Next time around I want to be a neuroscientist.
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