Niku Banaie - Naked Communications.

Niku Banaie of Naked Communications offers Twenty-Five Signals for Change at the PSFK Conference London. I'm looking into making these files into iPod watchable files so you can watch then on the way home from work, but for now, you'll have to watch them from the site.

Timo Veikkola - Nokia Futurist

Lecture given at the PSK Conference. Begs the question that as design is the reflection of society, how can we envision the future through trends, observation and informed intuition. What values, attitudes and behaviours of today will shape our future?

Fundamentals of the Brain and Mind: A Short Course in Neuroscience

This is a lecture series from MIT that acts as an introduction to neuroscience. Absolutely enthralling stuff. Go get yourself some popcorn and settle in, these lectures are great. By the way, I've put the lectures in reverse order, but I really like Steven Pinker so he get's to go first.

Lecture 1:
Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language - Steven Pinker After fifteen years of studying words in history, in the laboratory, and in everyday speech, Steven Pinker has worked out the dynamic relationship – searching memory vs. following rules – that determines the forms our speech takes. In one of his final lectures at MIT Pinker gives the ultimate lecture on verbs, in a rich mixture of linguistics, cognitive neuroscience, and a surprising amount of humor.

Lecture 2:
Cognitive Control: Understanding the Brain's Executive - Prof. Earl K. Miller
We often take it for granted that we know the difference between a cat and a dog. Where and how do we store the visual information that categorizes “catness” in our minds, so that the next time we see a cat, we know that it is not a dog?

Lecture 3:
Neurobiology of Memory: How Do We Acquire, Consolidate and Recall Memory - Susumu Tonegawa
Tonegawa’s work involves manipulating genes to explore memory and learning from the most basic biochemical and cellular levels, up to the most complex behaviors. One of Tonegawa’s goals in designing defective mice is to simulate profound human disorders, like schizophrenia.

Lecture 4:
Architecture of the Brain - Elly Nedivi
In this lecture Elly Nedivi provides an overview on the basics of brain anatomy, working her way up the spinal column to the deepest recesses of the cerebral cortex

Lecture 5:
The Changing Brain - Mark Bear
How do our right and left eyes take in two separate streams of visual information and end up with a single view of the world? This question has come under intense scrutiny from neuroscientists for decades, and Mark Bear brings us up to date in his lecture (There are serious audio problems until around 4:15, at which time the audio is dramatically improved.Hang in there, it's worth it)

Lecture 6:
Vision: Challenges and Prospects - Pawan Sinha
In a fraction of a second, most of us can recognize a face in a crowd, or make out a face from a blurry image. Pawan Sinha focuses on our uncanny ability to recognize faces as a way of getting at one of the key problems of neuroscience: how our brains represent and then encode objects.

Lecture 7:
The Brain and Mind - Mriganka Sur

In his kickoff lecture for this series on neuroscience, Sur provides both a current overview of brain models and function, and a peek at his own research

Dr Gregory Berns - Satisfaction

Dr Gregory Berns discusses his book, "Satisfaction", which deals with the neuroscience behind motivation and satisfaction in life. Berns argues the more complicated and challenging a life you pursue the more likely it is that you will be satisfied. Which is why I wrestle alligators. This is a loooooong lecture. A little thin, but also some scary dated schizophrenia treatments.

Michael Gazzaniga speaks with Willian Safire

The father of neuroscience discusses the brain and how it learns. Michael Gazzaniga is always amazing to listen to and William Safire is always self deprecating and funny.

You're looking at the shape of anger

In an interesting art/neuroscience project, participnats were hypnotised and asked to recall traumatic events and to emote primary emotions such as anger. Each participant was wired to EEG, and EKG sensors and monitored. The resulting ingormation was visualized as still images using Iris Explorer and visualized in realtime, interactive space using specialy develop data acuisition modules in EonReality.
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All in the mind - Mindreading: Neuroscience on the witness stand

Brain scans are becoming commonplace as evidence in US courts, in the bid to convict offenders or free them. But is the technology half-baked? Download this audio before it's taken offline.

Macolm Gladwell - Can we really believe what people tell us?

Sociologist and Psychologist Malcolm Gladwell asks the question, can we really believe what people tell us?

Gilbert & George discuss their work.

Gilbert & George are really quite lovely to listen to. Like two uncles. I worked with an art director who really loved G&G. I now understand.

Stefan Sagameister talks about happy designing

Talks like a terminator. Designs like a visionary. Looks like a funky Austrian designer. Everyone love Stefan. He speaks here about what makes him happy with his work and life.

Richard Restak talks about Neuroscience

Richard Restak talks about how the principles of Neuroscience are beginning to be adopted in regular life and introduces the concept of memory morphing and it's importance to advertising.

Leda Cosmides talks about tranhumanism

Leda Cosmides gives a calm, reasoned view of transhumanism and points out that while we're far from putting our brains into a computer and living forever, we do use a good deal of body modifications and augmentations in day to day life. She also does a good job of tempering some of the wilder notions of the transhumanist movement. Leda is one of the most important evolutionary psychologists in the world and a great lecturer, you will enjoy this, I proimise. Open in iTunes so you might have to make sure it's open first.

Sam Harris - The end of faith

The always engaging Sam Harris speaks about his book "The End of Faith". It's nice to know that not all Atheists are as angry as Richard Dawkins and that a moderate and reasonable voice can come out the secular corner. This is a really, really good lecture.

All in the mind - Happiness

The latest podcast from All in the mind comes from the neuroscience conference in Melbourne and discuses the importance of happiness. Isn't it crazy to think we actually have to devote serious discussion on the merits of being happy. Ask a kid, they'll tell you it's the easiest thing in the world.

Photosynth. The Future of the internet

Your jaw will drop. I promise. Watch it. It's the future. Then afterwards, visit the site.

Jeff Hawkins - Brain Science and computing

Jeff Hawkins is awesome. Even if you have no interest in Neuroscience you should watch this TED lecture. He gives his ideas about the framework of how the brain works, which is essentially a predictive model, (or rather one in which the neo cortex observes patterns and sends this informtaion to the other parts of the brain) and explains why it is high time we had a workable model of the mind. Plus he gets a few laughs.

Cliff Freeman & Partners CEO work / life split

Ever since the "Where's the beef?" commercials of the 80's, I have wanted to work at Cliff Freeman Partners. The CEO gives a podcast here that while not quite as gut bustingly funny as an elderly lady saying the word beef five times inside thirty seconds, is still very good. Something for you workaholics to think about. Oh and the little logo fellas above were designed by Stirling Mclaughlin for CFP. I like the Scorpicat.

V.S.Ramachandran Lectures on Synethesia

A series of lectures from the always charming V.S.Ramachandran who researches Synethesia and Neuroscience. He was lucky enough to find a colour blind synesthete who could only see the colour red when they looked at the number five. Again, through Real Audio, the betamax of the internet streaming world.

Lecture one: Phantoms in the brain

Lecture two: Synapses and the self

Lecture three: The Artful Brain

Lecture four: Purple numbers and sharp cheese.

Lecture five: Neuroscience, the new philosophy.

Another great Art & Neuroscience lecture from Margaret Livingstone

Apart from having to put up with the endless, "Dr Livingstone I presume" jokes from fellow neuroscientists, Margaret Livingstone also has to convince people that what they see isn't actually what they see. This lecture on vision and aesthetics is fantastic.

Dr Margaret Livingstone's Art & Neuroscience Lecture

Margaret Livingstone's lecture about what art can tell us about the brain is fascinating. It's about 45 minutes and you can't download it to your iPod, but it's well worth eating lunch at your desk and watching it. She explains why certain colour combinations send parts of the brain blind and even explains how the eye's centre surround visual system makes the Mona Lisa smile. You'll never take your eyes for granted again.