Neurotronics.org

In his last years of life, Albert Einstein knew he was ill and refused operations that would save his life. He made his wishes clear: “I want to be cremated so people won’t come to worship at my bones” [source: Paterniti]. Einstein died on April 18, 1955, at the age of 76 of a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurism, and he got his wish as far as his bones were concerned; his ashes were scattered in an undisclosed location. But Einstein’s brain was a different matter.

http://health.howstuffworks.com/einsteins-brain.htm

Doctors believe that a burst of brain activity occurs just before death and this could account for vivid “spiritual” experiences reported by those who come back from the brink.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7785944/A-cascade-of-brain-activity-as-people-die-could-explain-near-death-experiences.html?

Comment: This is a very high-level article, but I thought the conclusion was interesting.

Most of the time the brain works as it ought to: limbs move, memories are retrieved and experiences processed. But occasionally things go awry.

In tip-of-the-tongue experiences, for instance, words suddenly and perplexingly go missing only to reappear seconds or minutes later. Another brain quirk – déjà vu – confirms the fallibility of memory. Now two new studies have shed light on both phenomena.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17263-why-your-brain-just-cant-remember-that-word.html

Abstract on the journal article:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T24-4WCT00D-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=d7a5c254a14c5e5796244d108d768a2d

When you compare the brain’s detectives, neuroscientists, to other detectives, the neuroscientists seem to fall short in solving mysteries.

http://health.howstuffworks.com/5-brain-mysteries.htm

Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions — motion, speech, self-awareness — shut down one by one. An astonishing story.

This is the most moving and intriguing TED talk that I’ve ever watched.

BrainMaps.org is an interactive multiresolution next-generation brain atlas that is based on over 20 million megapixels of sub-micron resolution, annotated, scanned images of serial sections of both primate and non-primate brains and that is integrated with a high-speed database for querying and retrieving data about brain structure and function over the internet. Currently featured are complete brain atlas datasets for various species, including Macaca mulatta, Chlorocebus aethiops, Felis catus, Mus musculus, Rattus norvegicus, and Tyto alba.

What makes people gay? Biologists may never get a complete answer to that question, but researchers in Sweden have found one more sign that the answer lies in the structure of the brain.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1815538,00.html

“Most people think that when you’re sleep-deprived, what happens to the brain is that it becomes sleepy and less active,” says Matthew Walker, assistant professor of psychology at Berkeley and a former Harvard sleep researcher. But Walker says the imaging study published in today’s issue of Current Biology found that the brain’s emotional centers become “60% more reactive.”

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2007-10-22-sleep-deprivation-brain_N.htm

Fishing in the stream of consciousness, researchers now can detect our intentions and predict our choices before we are aware of them ourselves. The brain, they have found, appears to make up its mind 10 seconds before we become conscious of a decision — an eternity at the speed of thought.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121450609076407973.html?mod=hpp_us_inside_today