Check out the newest events at the Exploratorium. They Sound Great!

Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Flow/Optimal Experience Researcher)
Among Renowned Speakers To Appear
Mind Lecture Series Continues
February 2, 9, and 23, 2008

"Flow" (Optimal Experience) researcher Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (February 9) is among the renowned speakers featured in the Exploratorium's continuing Mind Lecture Series in February 2008. The series is presented in conjunction with the opening of Mind, a major new Exploratorium collection, four years in the making, made possible by the National Science Foundation. At the exhibition, visitors experience their own thoughts, feelings and actions in provocative and unexpected ways. Lectures (and the exhibition) are included in the price of admission. Advance lecture reservations are required. To reserve tickets, go to www.ticketweb.com. The Mind Lecture Series schedule for February is as follows:

Saturday, February 2, 2008
Art, Emotion and the Brain
Prize-Winning Documentary War Photographer Smith Patrick and
Assistant Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company Rob Clare
Featured in Panel Discussion Hosted by Pireeni Sundaralingam
McBean Theater, 2pm
How do artists affect our emotions? How do our emotional reactions inform art? Join prize-winning war photographer Smith Patrick, Royal Shakespeare Company director Rob Clare, film composer William Susman, and neuroscientist Pireeni Sundaralingam in a symposium on the mood-altering powers of music, drama, and visual art.

Host Pireeni Sundaralingam likes hiking around on the Nabokovian ridge where "scientific knowledge meets artistic imagination." Educated at Oxford, she has held national fellowships in both cognitive science and poetry, and was the founding director of the Number Perception Laboratory at California State University, Los Angeles.

Saturday, February 9, 2008
The Creative Person and The Creative Context
A Talk with Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
McBean Theater, 2pm
When do you feel creative? Where does creativity come from? From inkling to invention, follow the course of imagination with the foremost authority on positive psychology and flow, Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He'll review the common traits of creative people and introduce the "Systems Model" of creativity, which describes the types of environments that foster innovation.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is C.S. and D.J. Davidson Professor of Psychology and Management and Director of The Quality of Life Research Center at Claremont Graduate University. He has written several books, including the best-selling Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience and Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. He is a member of the American Academy of Education, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Leisure Sciences.

Saturday, February 23, 2008
21st Century Brain: How Neuroscience is Changing the Way We Shop, Vote, and Pay Taxes With Joshua Freedman -- UCLA Psychiatry Professor
Panel Discussion Hosted by Pireeni Sundaralingam
McBean Theater, 2pm
What makes us choose one beauty product over another, or one presidential candidate over another? How free is our free will in the 21st century? Dr. Joshua Freedman of FKF Applied Research and Hans Lee of EmSense join neuroscientist Pireeni Sundaralingam to examine how retail companies, economic think tanks, and political campaign organizers use neuroscience to change the ways we think and feel.

Host Pireeni Sundaralingam likes hiking around on the Nabokovian ridge where "scientific knowledge meets artistic imagination." Educated at Oxford, she has held national fellowships in both cognitive science and poetry, and was the founding director of the Number Perception Laboratory at California State University, Los Angeles

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Friday February 1st is the final day for you to submit your wonderful ideas for the name of the news ScienceBlogs super blog started by Shelley of Retrospectacle and Steve Higgins of Omni Brain (me!). So get out those thinking caps and submit some great ideas right here.

Here's some guidelines from Shelley:

We're holding a contest to Name That Blog, with the winner receiving a slew of recent science books, a subscription to SEED, and a host of other sciency prizes. Plus my eternal love and adoration! The blog will be general wonderful science stuff with a neuroscience slant, so feel free to be creative as hell with the naming. Leave ideas in the comments here, or email them to me. Since there is a prize please be sure to let me know how to contact you in case you win. Multiple entries are fine! Thanks and good luck!

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The Super Bowl is all about chips and dip - so be careful. It could kill you!

If you're a Seinfeld watcher you probably remember this scene:

TIMMY: What are you doing?

GEORGE: What?

TIMMY: Did...did you just double-dip that chip?

GEORGE: Excuse me?

TIMMY: You double-dipped the chip!

GEORGE: "Double-dipped"? What are you talking about?

TIMMY: You dipped the chip. You took a bite. And you dipped again.

GEORGE: So...?

TIMMY: That's like putting your whole mouth right in the dip! From now on, when you take a chip - just take one dip and end it!

GEORGE: Well, I'm sorry, Timmy...but I don't dip that way.

TIMMY: Oh, you don't, huh?

GEORGE: No. You dip the way you want to dip... I'll dip the way I want to dip.

TIMMY: Gimme the chip! Gimme the chip!

And the video:

Timmy is clearly onto something with this. According to research by Judith Trevino, Brad Ballieu, Rachel Yost, Samantha Danna, Genevieve Harris, Jacklyn Dejonckheere , Danielle Dimitroff, Mark Philips from the Deptartment of Food Science & Human Nutrition at Clemson University, "Double-dipping does transfer bacteria: George was wrong!"

I'm imagining doing this experiment right now and giggling to myself. Basically the bacteria levels of each students mouth were measured and then

Each student in the CI team conducted four treatments. For the dipping treatments, a cracker was bitten, dipped in the sterile water then discarded (Figure 1). The control treatments consisted of dipping a cracker without biting. The four treatments were: 3 dips without biting, 6 dips without biting, 3 dips with biting, and 6 dips with biting.

After all the dipping and letting stuff sit around for a while they measured the bacteria levels in the sterile water.

Unsurprisingly they found that

For the "double dipping" experiment, a higher population of bacteria ( P?0.05)was found in solutions dipped with crackers after biting compared to solutions dipped without biting (Figure 3). There was no difference between the 3 and 6 dips (P>0.05) as far a bacteria transferred to the dipping solution. Bacterial populations found in the solution after crackers were dipped without biting were less than 10 cfu per ml of the dipping solution. The results of our research proved that bacteria can be transferred from the mouth to the dip.

If you're interested in more details you can Download the poster right here.

Have a happy and healthy Super Bowl - don't forget to only dip once!

HT:Brian L

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