You will forget most of what happens in the next 24 hours, and this post will probably be one of those things.
I hate blogs, and for some time I swore that I'd never start one. So why am I doing this?
I am a scientist. I spend most of my working life trying to learn about the complexities of the brain and then to get that information out so that others can see it. The problem is, most people never see most of what we scientists learn. This was a big problem and it's getting bigger as we have to compete with an onslaught of new media that is thoroughly unequipped to handle material that is not reducible to a soundbite.
It takes at least a year's worth of work between coming up with the idea for an experiment, running it, and going through peer review to get it out. Then some loser writes a paper saying it's all a measurement artifact and you spend another few years proving that to be wrong. Meanwhile, someone spends a few minutes posting a random uninformed opinion about something online, and it reaches more people than my hard-earned publication. Something is wrong here.
You can hate the game, but you can't hate the player (sorry I can't bring myself to say "playa"). So, now I am in the game. I will shamelessly use this as a means of communicating about the science from my lab, science that I like, and possibly science that I don't like. I will also probably end up using this to communicate random thoughts about obscure songs that I like, food I like to eat, or other stuff.
Who is this for? My relatives and friends (so you can have an idea of what I'm up to), the cognitive neuroscience community, the media (if you want to learn something about how science really works), People who are into science and want to learn a little about memory and the brain, TV producers who are looking for a charismatic star of a reality show about cognitive neuroscientists, activists who are upset about the underrepresentation of South Asians in punk rock and neuroscience, people who want tips on obscure bands, etc.
Fair warnings:
I may not post on this regularly.
I will probably not respond to your comments.
This is not peer reviewed, and therefore should not be taken seriously. It's probably more credible than the last thing you read online, though.
Nothing I say here is representative of UC Davis, the state of California, or any reasonable person.
I may end up deciding this is a pain and deleting the entire thing.
OK, by this point you probably hate blogs as much as I do so I'll wait until my next procrastination period to post something substantive. Enjoy!
Background music: "We hate it when our friends become successful" Morrissey; This song is a guilty pleasure.
