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Friday, May 18, 2012 Famous Brain Yields Its Secrets It's easy enough to understand the ghastly accident that befell poor Phineas Gage in Cavendish, Vermont on Sept. 13, 1848: the 25-year-old railroad worker was using an iron rod to tamp down blasting powder when the stuff exploded, sending the 43-inch-long, 13-pound rod through his left cheek and out the top of his head. What's not so easy to understand is why Gage survived the accident--or the precise reason for the dramatic change in his personality afterward. John Harlow, the doctor who treated the once-affable Gage, wrote that he "could not stick to plans, uttered 'the grossest profanity' and showed 'little deference for his fellows,'" Smithsonian magazine reported in 2010. But now researchers are closing in on answers. Click the link above for more. Weird Sea Creatures Still 'Breathing' After 86 Million Years DETAILED MAP: How To See Sunday's Solar Eclipse 'Titanoboa' Had Colossal Companion NASA Spotlights Asteroid Danger Can Beasts Settle Breast Debate? BLOG POSTS Scott Atran: Religion Is a Potent Force for Ingroup Cooperation and Intergroup Conflict, Science Article Maintains In an age where religious and sacred causes are resurgent, there is urgent need for joint scientific effort to understand them, to help identify and isolate the moral imperatives for decisions on war or peace. Tom Huston: Will the Future Be As Bright As You Think? Are you a pessimist or an optimist? When you've eaten all the whipped cream and upper midsection of your Venti Soy Mocha Frappuccino, is that cup half empty or is it half full of stuff you probably shouldn't be drinking at the start of your day? Gregory Weinkauf: The Science Behind Battleship We discuss a term used in Battleship -- "Goldilocks planet" -- where "the porridge is just right" for life. And this leads to the notion that if there were life out there, would it resemble Hollywood aliens, friend or foe? Michael Kleinmann: Male Underwear Models: Just People According to a new study, men and women in sexy underwear ads are processed astonishingly differently by the human brain. James A. Shapiro: Variation and Selection: What's the Difference? What Are the Issues? How could natural selection operate so that "the good ones spread in the population" if there were no positive variants in the first place? That is why I am confounded by Jerry Coyne's comment that he can explain natural genetic engineering by "garden variety natural selection."

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