I f you're lounging about this Saturday and in the mood for an hour-long Internet discussion about the cutting edge of neuroimaging and cognition, check out my diavlog at BloggingHeads.tv with Ricardo Gil da Costa, a neuroscientist with the Salk Institute, who is adapting brain imaging techniques to macaque monkeys in order to learn more about human cognition and the language centers of the brain. (For those who are wondering, no, I did not officially sign on to last year's boycott of BHTV, despite my unhappiness with the back-to-back proponents of Intelligent Design being featured there. I just haven't had time to do another diavlog until now.)
I met Ricardo when he volunteered his services to the Science & Entertainment Exchange last year, and he's become a good friend since then. He's equally good at lab research and brainstorming with Hollywood writers about how to get better neuroscience into their story lines -- and he rocks on panels, too! When the Exchange co-sponsored a Comic-Con panel on the science of science fiction with Discover magazine last summer, Ricardo was on hand with Rob Chiappetta and Glen Whitman, two writers on Fringe, to talk about the real-world science (as opposed to what's usually depicted on the entertaining and aptly named Fringe).
We had the usual weird technical difficulties, particularly since I was out of practice. Since we were chatting in the evening, there were lighting issues and my end of the video looks fuzzier than usual (on the other hand, who doesn't love the occasional soft-focus lens?). And because I accidentally hit the wrong volume setting on my MacBook Pro, there's the slightest bit of echo, too. Sorry. But it's a substantive discussion, if I say so myself, covering sharks, monkeys, whether coma patients have interior lives, how fMRIs have been over-hyped in recent years (and what they're really telling us), and why you can't necessarily use brain imaging techniques to tell if someone is lying -- although you can use cutting-edge technology to move a computer cursor with your thoughts (with practice, and the right implants). So if you can stomach my ineptitude at vlogging, please do check it out. I promise to hone my sound and lighting skills before attempting another one.
How do you actually do these things? Is there just a record feature in skype somewhere, or is there complex and diabolical software involved?
Posted by: Lab Lemming | April 04, 2010 at 07:37 AM