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andrewducker ([personal profile] andrewducker) wrote2012-05-14 12:00 pm
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Interesting Links for 14-05-2012

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simont: A picture of me in 2016 (Default)

[personal profile] simont 2012-05-14 02:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Edible Chocolate Brain from MRI Scan - 3D Printing FTW!

I wouldn't have believed it before following the link, but that title actually makes it sound less awesome than it really is – because it's possible to misunderstand as meaning merely that someone is making and selling these things, whereas the real article explains how to make your own based on your own brain, which is an order of magnitude cooler!

[identity profile] call-waiting.livejournal.com 2012-05-14 02:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Too many intermediate stages. What we need is this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIFi8but3Vw

Also I love love love how seriously they talk about chocolate in that video.

[identity profile] drdoug.livejournal.com 2012-05-14 04:40 pm (UTC)(link)
It explains the (to my mind) easy bit, which is the steps from having a 3D scan of your brain in digital form to having it in tasty, edible chocolate form. There are almost certainly loads of ways of doing that.

The tricky bit is getting the scan in the first place, and then getting your hands on the data in the second. In the UK at least, if a brain MRI is clinically indicated you'll get one, and if you're up to it and they're not too busy they might let you have a glance at it while they're looking, but AIUI getting hold of the data falls in to the 'extra costs, charge required' Data Protection procedures. If there's nothing obviously badly wrong with your head, getting one is expensive and very difficult.

If I'm wrong about this I would really, really like to know, because as well as a mould for making chocolate brains ("my brain has melted!") and jelly brains ("my brain's turned to jelly!" - great for Zombie party food too), I would like a lifesize model of my brain on my desk ("I need to put my brain on to that one"), possibly painted green in a jar of liquid. And also a little version to put on my keyring. ("I keep my brain handy, right here in my pocket.") And lots of little tiny ones, say 1 cm diameter, that I can stick to just about every tool I might use with Sugru, from shiny gadgets to lump hammers, so I can say "I need my brain for this job!".

(Why yes, yes I have thought about this one in the past ....)

[identity profile] naath.livejournal.com 2012-05-14 04:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Hereabouts there are lots of people advertising for experimental guineapigs - for your trouble you get a copy of the scan and a tenner, they get to make you do things like look at pictures or play gambling games in an fMRI machine.

(only reason I've not done it is because I have hard-to-remove piercing work)
andrewducker: (my brain)

[personal profile] andrewducker 2012-05-14 04:44 pm (UTC)(link)
I have had an MRI (see icon, which Julie made for me from the pics I got), but sadly I only got the pics, and not the raw data.

I got it by taking part in a study, specifically because I knew they were going to do MRI scans (comparing totally ordinary people like me to people with schizophrenia).

If you have a local university with a psychology/psychiatry department then keep an eye on their noticeboards...

[identity profile] octopoid-horror.livejournal.com 2012-05-14 08:14 pm (UTC)(link)
If you had a chocolate brain and said that it was yours, it would be extremely different for anyone to actually prove that it was not your specific brain.
andrewducker: (Default)

[personal profile] andrewducker 2012-05-14 08:20 pm (UTC)(link)
But also tricky for me to prove it was mine. Although I do have pictures to wave at people.
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