Last night I crawled home at 4:30 am after a looooooong night of drinking. I woke up at 9 am and stumbled downstairs, a little drunk. I grabbed the sunday crossword puzzle and finished it in record time. Usually I get pissed off at one of the corners and lose interest. (You probably think I'm an idiot now, but whatever, we all have different skills. Mine are irrelevant blogging and Olympic-caliber dating. Yours are... crosswords? How fun for you.)
Next, I finished the quote acrostic. It's this bitch of a puzzle that I've been trying to beat for years... YEARS!!! Then I did the super jumble in less than 2 minutes. Last night in the bar, I couldn't calculate 20% tip on a $12 tab... and listen, I'm not THAT bad at math. It's $2.40, okay?
I wonder if alcohol changes the way the brain is balanced such that the power dynamic between hemispheres (or otherwise "opposing" brain regions) is upset? Finally, an fMRI study that doesn't bore me to death: how average regional BOLD activity changes before, during, and after copious alcohol consumption. Use each subject as his own control, provide an open bar and mingling with attractive strangers (to encourage excess imbibing), and make them get in the MRI machine to do word and math problems every four hours. I'd go to that party. I think the study would explain why so many great writers were also great drinkers, an issue of obvious interdisciplinary importance. What's that, NIH? What are "ethics"?
May 31, 2009
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so there's this Science Friday bit... about alcohol & MRI and you can totally win a grant to study alcohol effects on the brain. the patients don't even bother imbibing, it's all done through an i.v. (sign me up) which also removes any qualities of the liquor that make it socially acceptable - like palate. still, sign me up
link
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