The Suspense-loving Brain

My first experience with scary movies was Silence of the Lambs, of all things, when i was 10 years old. The demented acts of so-called 'Buffalo Bill' and psychotic mind of Hannibal Lecter seemed to make it all the more important that the killing was stopped--towards the end of this movie was when i first time in my life i actually experienced the emotion i would later call suspense.

There's an article at LiveScience that conjectures what's going on in the brain during these moments--something i've wondered since the day i first experienced the uptight feeling i've become so accustomed to (i now love scary movies.)

Evidently, the brain's primal fear systems are triggered by just the simple suggestion of a tense situation. It's either a credit to your wild imagination or to the quality of the movies that a scary reality can be so closely approximated.

So, why do we watch in the first place?

[Jeffrey Goldstein] and other social scientists suggest we watch for different reasons, which include enjoying the adrenaline rush, being distracted from mundane life, vicariously thumbing our noses at social norms, and enjoying a voyeuristic glimpse of the horrific from a safe distance

My thoughts were--maybe humans actually practice the fear response like, for instance, we imagine the future so we can be more ready for what might come.

How many kids did you say you wanted? Never mind.

OBS: The science of fall leaves

Last night, a piece of science journalism put me to sleep.

At about 11 oclock last night, Robert Krulwich, NPR science correspondent, delivered a delightful story about fall leaves from my iphone--propped up on the pillow next to me. I could vividly imagine his browning leaves at the end of their productive lives, cutting off contact with their parent trees: capping their stems with so-called 'abscission cells' and then, finally, fluttering off in the wind.

According to the piece, leaves don't just break off haphazardly, the choice is made by hormones in the tree itself which signal the abscission cells to do their scissor-work. Shorter fall days--famous for a less daylight--trigger the hormones and therefore the abscission process. Evidently, there is not enough light during the day to make it worth the energy it takes to make glucose in the leaves.

Fascinating. One of the beauties of science is you often find intention where accident used to be. Maybe that's comforting at the end of a hard day.