February 02, 2006
NewSci on robots and chronobiology:
Today's New Scientist is a special on robots, particularly focusing on robots that mimic or model certain aspects of human behaviour.
The issue also has an additional article on whether it is possible to regulate the brain's 'time keeper' to change the conscious perception of time - a skill which could be used to allow for more conscious control of difficult tasks.
The article does suffer from a few points of frank weirdness (e.g. "Schizophrenics have too much dopamine activity in the brain so their clock is so fast that it feels like the whole world is crazy" - wtf?) but is otherwise an interesting look at chronobiology - the science of biological time perception.
For those wanting to know more about the area, you could do far worse than go to the insightful and informative blog Circadiana, for which chronobiology is a focus of interest.
Otherwise, your local library should have a copy of New Scientist if your newsagent doesn't, as unfortunately, the main feature articles aren't available online.
Link to table of contents for this week's New Scientist.
Link to Circadiana.
