I’ve had a growing obsession with self study on the internet in the last year. I’ve collected links of great places on the web to read, watch and listen about neuroscience, psychology and more. Friends asked me for my reading list so here we go.
PODCASTS (audio only)
With the podcasts, look for the itunes links. Usually you can download just the mp3 and play in any music player but it’s so much easier if you manage it with itunes. Itunes picks up new episodes for you automatically.
Neuropod
Monthly, ’bout 30 minutes with 3 or four current topics.
The Brain Science podcast
Twice a month, 40 mins to an hour, one topic/interview. Can be agonising depending on the subject/person. (Avoid the C.elegans molecular biology one (!) but Chris Frith’s interview was good as was Alva Noe the next episode.)
Neuroscene
New to me but seems quite good. Short singular topics.
Scientific American: 60 Second Psych
THE most ‘pop’ of all of the podcasts, and not actually 60 seconds but a couple of minutes. Dinner party factoids. Still fun!
VIDEO ON THE WEB
TED talks
If you haven’t seen any of these, they are excellent. Lots of interesting topics by great speakers from all disciplines.
Dan Gilbert – Why are we happy?
GREAT talk, ultimately about the psychology of happiness and choice. Very lively and funny presenter.
Helen Fisher – The brain in Love
Love examined under the FMRI machine…VERY flowery but a few interesting studies referenced.
Martin Seligman – The state of psychology
Analysis of the changes in psychological approaches and ‘positive’ psychology. Starts well, goes on a bit.
Malcolm Gladwell – On spaghetti sauce
Fuzzy talk about choice and marketing, but good for Gladwell fans? (Who knew Malcolm Gladwell had such scary eyes?)
5 Neuroscience Uni lectures from Bangor Uni (module of a Psychology BSc?)
Very hard work these, bad quality audio over presentation slides, proper crammed textbook stuff, but useful if you want an overview of neuroscience.
WEB SITES
Excellent, often updated short blog with links to interesting Neuroscience and psychology articles.
BPS Twitter feed
Short links to all the cool stuff from the British Psychological Society.
RADIO
Radio 4 is in the middle of a ‘Mind Changers‘ series.
UK listeners can get them for a while after they air, then they are removed from the site.
Thanks for the links. I agree with you about Mind Hacks. It's one of my favourite blogs. I've heard a couple of the Mind Changers episodes on the radio. I think I'll queue up the rest for this evening while I work through some boring API code.
You might be interested in a feature on positive psychology that the Guardian ran about a week ago http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/aug/15/weekend
And if you've not come across this TED talk yet it's worth a look – Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight, a neuroscientist talks through her own experience of a having stroke. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html
Oh and Cafe Scientifique are hosting a talk on hypnosis by the wonderfully named Zoltan in October http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/2571357/
In the latest robots podcast Steve Potter talks about growing neuro-circuitry (from about 30 minutes in)
http://icanhaz.com/neuralpetridish