New film from Andrew Niccol, director of Gattaca (one of my very favorite sci-fi movies).

In the late 21st century, time has replaced money as the unit of currency. At 25 years old, aging stops and each person is given one more year to live. Unless you replenish your clock, you die.

FMRI has become an industry standard for neuroimaging, and while it’s relatively easy to understand the basics of the BOLD response and how neural activity can effect blood flow, trying to visualize the fundamentals of MRI physics can be really difficult. Luckily, friendly New Zealand company Magritek has produced an incredibly easy to follow and informative series of videos covering the basic physics of magnetic resonance all the way up through 2D MRI. They also make a really neat desktop MRI apparatus that uses the Earth’s magnetic field as its primary field, thus avoiding the need for cryogenics and superconducting magnets.

Eric Schwitzgebel has just posted an interesting argument suggesting that there may be ways to experimentally disprove radical solipsism, using nothing more than your own mathematical ability and a copy of Excel. It’s certainly preliminary work, but fascinating nonetheless.

The Times has an interesting article and video interview with Dr. Nora Volkow, great-granddaughter of Leon Trotsky, and director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Keynes vs. Hayek: A Rap Battle Renewed – NYTimes.com.