Science

My brain needs exercise.

I just cannot gather up the mental energy to do anything today. Is it the big post-Christmas crash? The pre-New Year’s lull? The fact that I’m a lazy jerk? Let’s just say it’s all of those things together.

Reader Rav sent me this article from the New York Times about an upcoming trend in brain exercises, designed to prevent or delay the onset of dementia. I read the article and found it thought-provoking, yet alarmingly when I tried to write about it, my own brain decided to wander off. Should I start eating more fish and walnuts? Should I complete more sudokus? Is that the plural of sudoku? I don’t know! So just read the article yourself and I’m going to go back to staring at these photos of nude women posing with robots, some of which may be unsafe for work.

Rebecca Watson

Rebecca is a writer, speaker, YouTube personality, and unrepentant science nerd. In addition to founding and continuing to run Skepchick, she hosts Quiz-o-Tron, a monthly science-themed quiz show and podcast that pits comedians against nerds. There is an asteroid named in her honor. Twitter @rebeccawatson Mastodon mstdn.social/@rebeccawatson Instagram @actuallyrebeccawatson TikTok @actuallyrebeccawatson YouTube @rebeccawatson BlueSky @rebeccawatson.bsky.social

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24 Comments

  1. That is some truly world class girl on robot action (A.K.A. La erotica del robot) Is it just me or does the fact that is in Spanish make it way sexier somehow?

  2. Well, I’m not sure about my prefrontal cortex, but my limbic system is doing handsprings about now!

  3. Robbie the Robot had a shoe fetish?

    Who knew?

    “Danger, Will Robinson! You need better arch support!”

    I would say that this is an area thus far left unexplored by scifi authors, but I suspect I would be wrong. Anybody read any scifi stories with robots who had foot fetishes?

    Oh yes, I AM being productive at work today!

  4. Speaking of "out-nerdings," I fondly remember reading "Magnus: Robot Fighter!" in my far-off youth.

  5. Speaking of lazyness, I've been in the same situation as you for almost three months now.

    Perhaps I should start looking for work …

  6. I've had a fever since tuesday and my brain has done *nothing* till today…my post chrismtas lull was even less productive than usual – no books read, no dvd's watched, just sleeping and occasionally staring into space going spare from boredom but unable to concentrate enough to do anything! It's when I'm

    ill that I *really* begrudge that any money at all goes into nutty alternative medicines! All that money wasted on testing *water*! Oh the humanity!

    At least I was awake for the christmas episode of Doctor Who…is everyone on this blog a nerd?

  7. slashnull,

    I'm not sure there is a direct equivalency between being a skeptic and being a nerd, but I am willing to bet the correlation factor would be QUITE high!

    Sorry to hear about your fever. I hope you are recovering and beginning to feel better.

    I wish I could blame my recent lack of productivity on being sick! That's a perfectly reasonable excuse. I'll have to come up with something else.

    Oh, and I must ask, exarch, how does one survive for three months being out of work? Aren't you getting a tad bit hungry?

  8. It's called severance pay, and after having worked there for a few years, it amounts to seven months wages. In theory, I should be able to last until May, at which point I become officially unemployed.

    Actually, what I meant to say was: after having joined the breatharians, I was able to drastically reduce my expenses. Yeah, that's it 8)

  9. Ah yes, the Breatharians! I had always imagined that particular idiocy to have gone away. Silly me! I see from good old Google that they are still breathing, as it were. A group that must consider vegans to be horrible backsliders!

    I always thought that if I were a Breatharian, I would want to live in Los Angeles. The air may not taste very good, but at least there would be something there to chew on!

    So would a really militant air-breather be called a BreathAryan?

  10. I am a Foodarian. It is a crime against nature to not eat and consume. And any who do not consume and take part in the cycle of consumation are hurting the fabric of the universe and the delicate balance which must be balanced with consumeing. CONSUME!

  11. I think they have another name for alcoholarians, and most police stations have a special room where they keep them overnight, most likely to observe them and be sure they aren't cheating on their alcoholarianism.

    As for me? I'm a breatharianarian. I kill and eat breatharians as my main form of sustenance. I'm not so sure about the long-term survival prospects of this method, as it seems my food source is shrinking all the time, but I'll be damned if it isn't fun for now.

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