ok, there’s a few i want to throw out there (though how do you follow up something with Stephen Hawking and Monty Python???):
I’m big on podcasts, and there’s several wonderful science-related ones –
Brain Science is hosted by Dr. Ginger Campbell and is a great source for learning about new, groundbreaking research that’s underway in the field of neuroscience. Some topics I’ve enjoyed range widely from neuralplasticity to conscious mind and cognitive functions to consequences of brain damage. It’s presented in a transparent way and can be enjoyed by anyone with a passing interest to the brain as well as professionals.
Physicscentral I don’t think is as popular, which is unfortunate because it’s really, really cool. It deals with physics in the context of basically any and all topics. There’s a lot on cosmology, but also physics of pop culture and historical influences. As with Brain science, it’s presented in layman’s terms, so it’s easily accessible to casual listeners.
As for books, I recently finished Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind by V.S. Ramachandran and I loved it. Both this and its successor (The Tell-Tale Brain) are well-written explorations of the mysteries of the mind. Ramachandran takes a very experimental approach; he utilizes tons of clinical case studies and incorporates current understanding and his own theories for how and why our brain attempts to make head or tail of deviations from the norm, such as phantom limb syndrome. The book is a bit heavier in subject matter and there are some parts that may be difficult, but overall it’s laid out in classic sign-symptoms-effects-treatment pattern. Ramachandran is funny and his writing comes across in a charming way.
(this got really long, whoops)
-
This reply was modified 9 years, 12 months ago by
Dee.