http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2008/07/12/now-is-the-time/ A blog about life, past and future. Written by DISCOVER contributing editor and columnist Carl Zimmer. Tue, 02 Dec 2008 07:12:32 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.1 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2008/07/12/now-is-the-time/#comment-8527 neozorba Wed, 30 Jul 2008 02:03:53 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2008/07/12/now-is-the-time/#comment-8527 Great article! I'm still perplexed when I reach down to touch my toe with a finger and all the sensations seem simultaneous: visual touch, finger perception, toe perception. Each neural pathway is different in length yet they all seem to happen at once. Does the brain wait for all impulses to arrive before presenting the result? The long toe-to-brain must take a significant time and should be noticably different from the super-fast eye to brain. How does this happen? Great article! I’m still perplexed when I reach down to touch my toe with a finger and all the sensations seem simultaneous: visual touch, finger perception, toe perception. Each neural pathway is different in length yet they all seem to happen at once. Does the brain wait for all impulses to arrive before presenting the result? The long toe-to-brain must take a significant time and should be noticably different from the super-fast eye to brain. How does this happen?

]]> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2008/07/12/now-is-the-time/#comment-6811 EastwoodDC Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:26:52 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2008/07/12/now-is-the-time/#comment-6811 What I want to know is why the music plays to much faster (perception of time slows) the closer it gets to quitting time. :-) What I want to know is why the music plays to much faster (perception of time slows) the closer it gets to quitting time.

]]> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2008/07/12/now-is-the-time/#comment-6807 maria Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:22:20 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2008/07/12/now-is-the-time/#comment-6807 carl, i work for a brazilian science news magazine, and am always tense when a story of mine comes out. will there be horrible mistakes, will someone be offended? thanks for this last sentence of yours, i'm thinking i'll adopt it as my motto. carl,
i work for a brazilian science news magazine, and am always tense when a story of mine comes out. will there be horrible mistakes, will someone be offended? thanks for this last sentence of yours, i’m thinking i’ll adopt it as my motto.

]]> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2008/07/12/now-is-the-time/#comment-6777 sailor Sun, 13 Jul 2008 01:22:37 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2008/07/12/now-is-the-time/#comment-6777 My first thought was that there may be no specific "timing mechanism" in the brain. We could get an experience of time based on the pattern of the day, how much goes on and our own rhythms of things like hunger. In this case an ability to tell time somewhat accurately would be learnt, and so someone who carried a watch and referred to it often, might be better at measuring short intervals say, one to five minutes, than someone who did not worry about time and seldom had to adhere to it. So brain studies showing that specific brain areas may be involved, runs counter to that, and makes it really interesting. My first thought was that there may be no specific “timing mechanism” in the brain. We could get an experience of time based on the pattern of the day, how much goes on and our own rhythms of things like hunger. In this case an ability to tell time somewhat accurately would be learnt, and so someone who carried a watch and referred to it often, might be better at measuring short intervals say, one to five minutes, than someone who did not worry about time and seldom had to adhere to it. So brain studies showing that specific brain areas may be involved, runs counter to that, and makes it really interesting.

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