Daily Archives: 05/12/2005

X marks the spot

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I know this is old news for the US but it has a timeless quality for me: “CNN apologized on Tuesday 21 November and offered a rare explanation from its control booth for a technical glitch many viewers failed to notice — a large “X” the network flashed over Vice President Dick Cheney’s face.

The wayward graphic, which CNN said lasted for about one-seventh of a second, appeared during the network’s live coverage of Cheney’s speech on Monday addressing critics of the Bush administration’s conduct of the war. A spokesman for the vice president said Cheney had no comment on the incident.” (Yahoo News)

The caption at the bottom of the CNN screen says “CHENEY: I DO NOT BELIEVE IT IS WRONG TO CRITICIZE.” Apparently the technical hitch was caused by a ‘switcher device’ problem. Some CNN guy who answered a phoned-in complaint on the issue was fired after defending the fault on grounds of freedom of speech. I kid you not.

If you’d like to hear what Talk Show America thought about it try their 5 December podcast (63MB). It also includes some interesting pro-Iraq War ‘adverts’.

Brain mapping award

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How do people know where they are and how they got there? Two scientists who have helped identify the brain’s mapping system have earned the 2006 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Psychology.

John O’Keefe and Lynn Nadel, who explained their theory in a 1978 book, “The Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map” and in later journal articles, are both university researchers. O’Keefe is professor of cognitive neuroscience in the anatomy and developmental biology department at University College London. Nadel directs the cognition and neural systems program at the University of Arizona.

Coincidentally a piece on John O’Keefe just appeared last night on Channel 5 focusing on his study of the navigational abilities of London taxi drivers. I’ve even been a volunteer myself at his neurology labs at UCL, with his lowly PhD students as the scan shows..