How can you collect data reflecting the changes in cognitive function that appear when someone has a concussion? BrainCheck combines neuroscience with a mobile platform to gauge changes from baseline.
Why do groups of people inflict violence on unarmed neighbors? (Germany, Rwanda, Darfur, Nanking....). Here's the neuroscience point of view.
Why don't we do what we know we should? Here's a talk I gave at Stanford Medical School telling why, and what to do about it.
The days of thinking of time as a river—evenly flowing, always advancing—are over. Time perception, just like vision, is a construction of the brain.
Well before we understand how brains work, we may find ourselves able to digitally copy the brain's structure and able to download the conscious mind into a computer. What are the possibilities and challenges?
Interested in the intersection of the brain and the legal system? Watch a talk I delivered at the Royal Society for the Arts in London, entitled "The Brain and the Law".
Read a Q&A with David in New Scientist to find out his ideas and advice to young scientists.
To the extent that consciousness is useful, it is useful in small quantities, and for very particular kinds of tasks. It's easy to understand why you would not want to be consciously aware of the intricacies of your muscle movement, but this can be less intuitive when applied to your perceptions, thoughts, and beliefs, which are also final products of the activity of billions of nerve cells.
Interested in issues of memory and the brain? Watch a clip of David on the History Channel.
From the Blog
-
Powers of the Subconscious
How significant is the subconscious?
-
Discussing dreaming with Henry Rollins
I spent an evening speaking at the Rubin Museum in NYC with punk rock legend, writer, and spoken word artist Henry Rollins. We discussed the origin, meaning, neuroscience, and bizarreness of dreams.
-
Can we produce our brains on other media?
Can we reproduce our brains on other media (say, on computers, or out of beer cans and tennis balls)?
-
Silicon Immortality: Downloading Consciousness into Computers
Well before we understand how brains work, we may find ourselves able to digitally copy the brain's structure and able to download the conscious mind into a computer. What are the possibilities and challenges?
In other news...
Sum named Book of the Year by New Scientist
Sum was the only book of fiction in New Scientist magazine's selection of Best Books of 2009.
Why the Net Matters on BBC Today
Listen to an interview on BBC's Today Programme regarding the new iPad book Why the Net Matters.
Neurolaw: The Brain on Trial
Want to know how neuroscience will force major changes in our criminal justice system? Read David's article The Brain on Trial in The Atlantic. Now anthologized in 2012 Best American Science and Nature Writing.
