You should subscribe to Brain Pizza
👋 BrainPizza Newsletter: you can expect a fresh look at life through an informed, empirical, neuroscience and psychology lens. I do regular in-depth treatments of topics such as metabolism, AI hype, memory, hunger, thinking and much, much more, as well as occasional listicles, readings, book reviews, and commentaries. You can browse the archives here; if you’d like to get these regular in-depth emails in your inbox, you can subscribe here). Coming soon for subscribers only - downloadable PDFs/EPUBs (for Kindle/ereader) of archived pieces.
And please share/forward this piece with anyone you think might be interested - maybe post it on Facebook, Bluesky, or LinkedIn, or wherever works for you. I'd be delighted if you spread the word.
Here’s a few representative pieces
Hypersleep in Aliens, torpor in animals: Slowing your metabolism, energy conservation, and other metabolic marvels
The myth of the magical city: Why I hated Paris, why I was wrong, and what New York taught me - Prediction error is the problem: We bring the magic
In praise of 'mindlessness' - escaping self - Forget mindfulness: embrace not thinking about anything in particular at all
Surviving Combat: The Effects of Predator Stress on Brain and Body - Extreme stress significantly impairs memory, mood, and cognition in combat soldiers
Notes on a neuroscience of nationalism: Collective memory, imagined communities, mental time travel, agency, identity
How Great Storytelling Lingers in the Mind: Shirley Jackson's ominous foreboding; thought stickiness; living rent-free in your head; Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom; introspection; meaning
I also write occasional pieces of flash fiction I've written over the years, often using movie titles or book titles as prompts. Some dark, some light, some pointless, some fun, some ironic.
Professionally, I am Professor of Experimental Brain Research at Trinity College, Dublin - neuroscientist, psychologist, and writer. My research interests are roughly, to borrow a phrase, ‘brain meets world’.
I’m a @Substack Writers @Substack ‘Featured Publication’! I managed this status last year as well - thank you to all my readers. I look forward to sharing much more with you over the coming months and years.
My new book:
Talking Heads: The New Science of How Conversation Shapes Our Worlds
For less than the price of a pizza, you can pre-order my new book 'Talking Heads: The New Science of How Conversation Shapes Our Worlds' for your Kindle, to be autodelivered on 3rd Aug 2023 for some nice summer/autumn reading (also: Amazon (UK), or Amazon.com)!
'Talking Heads is a stunning survey of the science of human connection and communication - from neurons to nations'
I am widely published in academic journals; in the popular press, I have had bylines in the Wall St Journal; Chronicle of Higher Education; Foreign Affairs; Project Syndicate/World Economic Forum; Times Higher Education; Developing Leaders Quarterly; Aeon; and many more.
My other books
In Praise of Walking: The New Science of How We Walk and Why It’s Good for us (PenguinRandomHouse/Bodley Head/Vintage; WW Norton; Amazon; Trans: (2020/21: French, Dutch, Spanish, Norwegian, Russian, Chinese, Greek, German, Polish, Italian, Slovenian, Romanian). ‘In Praise of Walking’ was chosen by the editors of Amazon.com as one of the best science books of 2020.
A Brain for Business – A Brain for Life (published by PalgraveMacmillan, 2017).
Why Torture Doesn’t Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation (Harvard University Press, 2015) Trans: French, Condition Humaine.
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You can also find me on Mastodon.
