Link feast

1. The fascinating story of how fall out from Cold War atomic bomb tests has helped, decades later, to settle the debate over whether or not adult brains can grow new neurons. The new findings suggest that more than 1400 new neurons are added to the adult hippocampus every day!

2. How do people survive solitary confinement? Also the focus of this afternoon’s (3.30BST) episode of The Truth About Mental Health on BBC World Service.

3. How much consciousness does an iPhone have? Interesting blog post on phi – a way of measuring consciousness. But it’s a cheeky headline – iPhones are barely mentioned in the article.

4. Michael Jackson was a paradox – the world’s greatest showman and yet so bashful in person. Scott Barry Kaufman, author of a new book Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined, explains that such a contradictory personality is actually common place among creative people.

5. Ever get that feeling that, no matter how much practice you put in, your progress seems to have stalled?  I found this post over at 99U really inspiring: 3 Tips on Overcoming Learning Plateaus.

6. BBC Radio 4 started a new series of Frontiers this week, featuring scientists who are building brains from scratch. “”I believe these cultures are half-way to having a mind,” says neuroengineer Steve Potter.

7. With all the recent talk about the need for replications in psychology and better rules about the storage and sharing of data, cognitive psychologist Rolf Zwaan urges us not to forget the value of weirdness and wackiness in science. Interesting post, but it felt like a bit of a false dichotomy to me. Surely science can be open, replicable and wacky.

8. This is your brain on coffee.

9. Need a gift idea for the neuroscientist in your life? – neuroscience dress featuring retinal ganglion cells (ht @vaughanbell)

10. Psychology confirms what Jerry Seinfeld knew – we’d enjoy restaurant meals more if we could pay for them in advance. Fun and interesting blog post by Dave Nussbaum based on a new book Happy Money.