reblog.jointselecta.net

It’s official! The best visual illusion, as voted for 2007, is this Leaning Tower Illusion by Kingdom, Yoonessi & Gheorghiu from McGill, 2007.

Here is a novel illusion that is as striking as it is simple. The two images of the Leaning Tower of Pisa are identical, yet one has the impression that the tower […]

Here’s the Pope, speaking on his recent trip to Brazil:
Where God is absent — God with the human face of Jesus Christ — these [moral] values fail to show themselves with their full force: nor does a consensus arise concerning them.
I do not mean that nonbelievers cannot live a lofty and exemplary morality; I am […]

Cory Doctorow:

Mommy’s Chairs are designer chairs that appear to have been drawn by a five-year-old with a poor grasp of perspective. Made of bent steel rods in uncertain, shaky lines, they come in four sizes, with a breathtaking pricetag of £250.
Link
(via Gizmodo)

Mommy Chairs look like they were drawn by children
Originally from Boing Boing […]

In testing at the Bimini Biological Research Station shark lab in the Bahamas, Stroud and Herrmann have found that sharks dramatically avoid magnets made from neodymium, iron and boron. The magnets even rouse sharks from tonic immobility, a coma-like state induced by turning them upside down.
Geeky Rare-Earth Magnets Repel Sharks

For
anyone who is interested, Medscape has a nice, concise summary
article about medication treatment options for bipolar
disorder.  They focus on the atypical antipsychotics, but
cover the mood stabilizers, too.

Generic Name
Trade Name
Manic
Mixed
Maint.
Depr.

Valproate
Depakote
X
 
 
 

Carbamazepine extended release
Equestro
X
X
 
 

Lamotrigine
Lamictal
 
 
X
 

Lithium

X
 
X
 

Aripiprazole
Abilify
X
X
X
 

Ziprasidone
Geodon
X
X
 
 

Risperidone
Risperdal
X
X
 
 

Quetiapine
Seroquel
X
 
 
X

Chlorpromazine
Thorazine
X
 
 
 

Olanzapine
Zyprexa
X
X
X
 

Olanzapine/fluoxetine Combination
Symbyax
 
 
 
X

The entire topic is complex, and sometimes it is nice to have a
condensed article to get oriented.  A more thorough treatment
guideline is here
(PDF), and […]

Apparently Toxoplasma gondii, a virus implicated in human behavior modification, might have its origins in South America. This puts a whole new spin on The Columbian Exchange. One of the underemphasized aspects of the meeting of “Old” and “New” World, to my mind, are the first order biological dynamics. That is, there is […]