Les Bonnes Choses

The title of this entry is a quote from Mr. Meyer, our 10th grade science teacher. And I'd have to agree, given the amount of equipment Mark and I managed to destroy that year. Now I'm almost a full-fledged scientist, and finding that, while engaging in science can be fun even without destroying anything, reporting it invariably isn't. And I'd like to change that.

Take my task for today, for example. Some while ago, I put a bunch of people into an MRI scanner (not at the same time; the experiment had nothing to do with breaking a record). The point was to see how your brain files away the crap you know about things. Many smart people are of the opinion that your brain files what you know according to how it got in there. Smells? Aisle 11. Colours? Aisle 40. Today, I was painstakingly going through the brain scan data for each of my participants finding the spot most lit up during the experiment for each of the senses. But there's a snag: the part of your brain that controls your muscles (loosely speaking) is called the motor strip. Like the name implies, it's long. And it's got an interesting layout:

As you can see, the layout of this part of your brain reflects the layout of your body. Why is this relevant? Well, as you might guess, if you're thinking about something that you hold in your hand, some of this information will be in a different spot than for something you kick with your feet. Now, most of the stuff in my experiment are things you would hold in your hands. But not everything. And some things we can only guess at. Take puppies. If you like 'em, you might hold them in your hand. If not, maybe you kick them. Because we don't know how each person feels about puppies, I think I should just look at the whole damn thing. But when it comes time to write up a paper, I'm going to have to find a much blander way of making this argument. I just think that scientific literature would be more interesting to read if I didn't have to.