Debate has long raged between atheists and the faithful about whether God is all in our heads, and the discovery of a so-called “God module” in the brain has only fanned the flames. While a group of neuroscientists at the University of San Diego were studying the brain patterns of epileptics, they stumbled across something they weren’t expecting: that epileptics who suffer a certain kind of seizure are often intensely religious, reporting an unusual number of visions, communications with God and even paranormal experiences. Further tests revealed that there’s a specific place in the temporal lobe (the aforementioned “module”) which flares up when faithful subjects are asked questions about their faith, and that this spot was a common focal point for electrical discharges during epileptic seizures. Those San Diego neuroscientists quickly issued forth a theory: that “there may be dedicated neural machinery in the temporal lobes concerned with religion, which may have evolved to impose order and stability on society.” So did our brains create God — or did God create our brains? (more…)

I’ve watched more than my fair share of sitcoms during my lifetime… and I still enjoy them more than any “reality” TV currently on the airwaves. To me, TV is meant to be an escape. But enough editorializing! Here’s today’s Brain Game:

Click here for the answer.

If you missed our interview with David Pratt, author of the new book The Impossible Takes Longer: The 1,000 Wisest Things Ever Said by Nobel Prize Laureates, go check it out and then come on back because today, we’re giving away a copy to one creative reader. Here’s how to win the book:

Come up with a clever, witty, fake quote and attribute it to a notable person (real, mythological, fictitious, it’s up to you). For instance, what if the great mathematician Archimedes (of “Eureka!” fame), had said this one night after a satisfying meal with his wife:

“For dessert, can I slice you up a nice approximation of pi?”

We’ll pick 10 finalists and let you guys vote up the most original. That’s all there is to it. May the wittiest faux-quote win!

Blogging–It’s Good for You. Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery.
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Brutal New York - 1965/95. It’s part of the collection American Pictures by Danish photographer Jacob Holdt.
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Fred Astaire dances to Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal. I hear he could do the Fishstick well, too.
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12 Odd & Unusual Chocolate Flavored Items. I might try the toothpaste, but I’ll skip the sushi.
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Pneumatic tubes carried mail through New York City from 1897 to 1953. Books in at least two libraries are still delivered that way. And once they even sent a cat through the tubes!
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Imagine you are taking a CPR training course and your “dummy” wakes up! This prank was staged for a German TV show.
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Top 10 Ways to Show Teachers Your Appreciation. Even ex-students can do some of these things.
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The Prelinger Archive, a repository of advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur films. A truly historical treasure on the internet.

Tomorrow marks the 155th anniversary of the birth of the Swedish painter Carl Larsson. Larsson was born into the slums of Stockholm and went on to become one of Sweden’s most loved artists, famous throughout the world for his scenes of Swedish life. Larsson also painted monumental works, of which the greatly debated “Midvinterblot” was his last. A little background on Larsson and “Midvinterblot” (Midwinter Sacrifice)…

1. For a time, Carl Larsson lived and worked in Paris, hoping to exhibit his works at the Salons. He was unable to complete his first painting, a large 3-meter canvas, due to lack of funds. His second work, though completed, didn’t fare much better, as it was hung so high at the Salon of 1878 that no one could see it.

2. In his bedroom, Larsson kept a pistol that carried the inscription “Note: not loaded.”

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I have to admit, the long weekend has made me a little lazy today. This was my thought process in thinking of my Quick 10 Topic: “Quick 10… Quick 10… 10… Ten. The Ten. A Quick 10 of The Ten. Yes. Brilliant.”
The Ten is a group of 10 American Impressionist painters who quit the Society of American Artists in the late 1800s when they felt it had become too commercial. But who were they? I’m happy to oblige…

The Quick 10: The Ten

Seated, left to right: Edward Simmons, Willard L. Metcalf, Childe Hassam, J. Alden Weir, Robert Reid
Standing, left to right: William Merritt Chase, Frank W. Benson, Edmund C. Tarbell, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Joseph Rodefer De Camp

1. Childe Hassam. Hassam’s most famous works are the series of 22 flag paintings he started in 1916. They show Fifth Avenue, 57th Street and other streets near Hassam’s gallery at the time.

2. J. Alden Weir. Weir was the first president of the Association of American Painters and Sculptors but resigned only a year after being named when the society sponsored the modernist Armory show. His brother was a well-known landscape artist.

3. John Henry Twachtman. Twatchman is famous among art historians for his personal style – his interpretation of Impressionism was much more experimental than his contemporaries.

4. Robert Reid. Reid was a mostly “decorative” painter – many of his works were of young women sitting in the middle of a field of flowers. He was an instructor at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, of which he was also an alumnus.

5. Willard Metcalf. Speaking of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Willard Metcalf was a student there as well. He is thought to have been the first American painter to visit Giverny, the location of Claude Monet’s home and garden. He ended up marrying one of the models he used in a mural for a New York courthouse - Marguerite Beaufort Hailé, a stage performer 20 years younger than him. She ended up leaving him for one of his students. In 1923, his work Benediction sold for $13,000 – at the time, a record selling price for an American artist who was still alive.

6. Frank Weston Benson. Benson wasn’t really considered an Impressionist until after he joined The Ten. Prior to that he had been working on decorative murals for the Library of Congress. Late in his career, Benson became famous for his depictions of his wife and daughters exploring nature at their summer home in Maine. After 1920, however, he started painting a plethora of wildlife. In 1995, a Benson oil painting sold for $4.1 million. More recently, a Benson was donated to Goodwill, which put the work up for auction on its site. It started at $10, but once the piece was verified as an authentic Benson, it ended up selling for $165,002.

7. Edmund Charles Tarbell. Tarbell developed quite the following in Boston – in fact, his followers were called the Tarbellites. Like Benson, Tarbell used his wife and children as models in much of his work… except, of course, when he was doing portraits. His portraits included U.S. Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover and can still be found in the White House.

8. Thomas Wilmer Dewing. Look at Dewing’s paintings and you’ll probably notice a theme: women. Women playing instruments, women writing letters, women standing, women sitting. Lots of women. In fact, some critics call him sexist, saying he painted empty-eyed women lounging around in pretty dresses doing nothing.

9. Joseph DeCamp. Probably one of the lesser-known of The Ten, but with good reason: in 1904, his Boston studio caught on fire and hundreds of his works were destroyed, including pretty much all of his landscapes.

10. Edward Simmons. Simmons was probably best known for his murals. After graduating from Harvard, he went on to win the first commission of the Municipal Art Society. They had him paint a series inside of the Criminal Courthouse in Manhattan. He also did murals for the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, the Library of Congress and the Capital at Saint Paul, Minn.

Think quickly about what types of insurance you have. Health (if you’re lucky), renter’s/homeowner’s, car, and maybe a few other policies, right? If you think you’ve got as much coverage as you could ever need, think again. What happens if you get bitten by a werewolf? In fact, there are many other facets of your life you could be insuring. Here are a few of our favorites.

1. Body Parts

Celebrities are often known for a single physical feature, so it seems natural that they would want to protect their livelihoods by insuring these innate gifts. Enter the world of body part insurance. In this market, insurers, most notably Lloyd’s of London, offer policies that pay out if something mars the precious body part. Keith Richards’ fingers, Mariah Carey’s legs, silent film star Ben Turpin’s crossed eyes, and Dolly Parton’s breasts were all rumored to have been covered by hefty policies at one time.

So are these policies worth it? After all, how often do peoples’ eyes uncross? A 2006 piece on Slate’s always-terrific Explainer says no. While these policies are great for building up publicity and media buzz (after all, who wouldn’t want to talk about Mariah Carey’s billion-dollar legs?), the policyholders would be just as well off with general disability insurance. These traditional policies would also pay off if an injury or other misfortune ruined the body part and kept the star from being able to work, but the rates would be lower. As a publicity stunt, though, it’s hard to beat affixing a price tag to your famous appendages. (more…)

As we recover from the long weekend, here are a few classic quizzes from the archives. (As classic as something from February can be.) We return live tomorrow. Click on any image to take that quiz.

It’s a big deal when a new dance is invented. Whether it’s the Lindy Hop, the Electric Slide, or the immortal Crank That (Soulja Boy), a new dance can invigorate a nation and bring us together. So I kindly offer you the next dance craze sweeping the nation: the Fishstick.

The Fishstick was invented last week by dance experts Adam Lisagor, Merlin Mann, and Scott Simpson on their podcast You Look Nice Today (warning: some profanity and fart jokes). The Fishstick has simple rules:

1. Beginners should perform the Fishstick to the tune “Tighten Up” by Archie Bell & the Drells. “For presentation and learning purposes, you would want [’Tighten Up’] going.” -Adam Lisagor

2. The Fishstick should be subtle. “Unless you’re really staring at someone doing the Fishstick, you wouldn’t know that they were dancing.” -Scott Simpson; “…the Fishstick is mostly happening in your head.” -Merlin Mann

3. Performances may look like minor neurological disorders. To an untrained observer, “it might look like somebody was thinking about something…maybe trying to remember something, or that they’re having a very slight palsy.” -Merlin Mann

4. While generally done as a solo dance, the Fishstick can be performed “alone, with a study partner, or while […] waiting for something to finish cooking.” -Merlin Mann

But of course, it’s simplest just to show you the Fishstick in action. Here’s a video of Adam Lisagor, one of its creators, performing the Fishstick in public (be aware that he’s a master of the dance, so some moves are in fact visible to observers):

More Fishstick videos after the jump.

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For our fourth installment of “shorts that don’t suck,” we turn to an art form which many have declared dead or dying: the music video. It seems that the age of the internet has done something drastic not only to the business of music, whose coffers have been drained by file-sharing and music-pirating, but to the business of the music video, which goes through every crisis that its parent business goes through. The main result of this has been that music video budgets have shrunk — from the millions to the hundreds of thousands, to in many case the just-thousands — and the way most people see them has changed. As you’re probably aware, there aren’t a whole lot of music videos on MTV anymore; YouTube is now one of the industry’s main distribution platforms, and she is a fickle beast, indeed. It’s not the million-dollar Paris Hilton music videos that get the most views these days; it’s those silly OK Go people jumping around on their treadmills (34 million views) — a video that probably cost a few hundred dollars to shoot.

Weezer: “Pork and Beans”
Capitalizing brilliantly on this new model of success, ever-popular Weezer made their new video not only for the internet, but starring the internet. (Didn’t I just blog about internet memes?) Keep an eye out for the Numa Numa guy, Chris Crocker, some Mentos-’n'-Coke experiements, and countless more nerdy net in-jokes: (more…)