Brain Food 10-27-09

1. Moving to the mid-west from the east coast several years back led to some pretty significant culture shock. But as Christopher Hitchens points out in his newest piece that outlines what he has learned from talking to religious zealots most fundamentalists are kind and tolerable people.

2. Dopamine seems to be the neurological buzzword of the “noughties” and with good reason. Natalie Angier of the Times breaks it down with her piece on rethinking dopamine’s function in the brain. BONUS: an additional post by Jona “the neuroscientist” Lehrer on how dopamine helps with abstract thinking.

3. Anti-vaxxers are a particularly upsetting bunch of hysterical polemics whose continued affront to science demonstrates why defending science isn’t always easy but is always necessary.

4. One of the most fascinating developments in the “local food” movement is the rise of urban agriculture. The prospect of Detroit going under cultivation (which it slowly, but surely, is) brings to mind images of old Ford dealerships being surrounded by fields of rutabaga and kale (also, who eats rutabaga?), while cows munch their way down main street.

5. I always took comfort in knowing that the world was going to end in 2012. Now Mayan researchers prove that I don’t even have that safety blanket.