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This is one of the most frightening things I've ever heard. A man in Arizona who thought he simply had a chronic runny nose has actually been leaking brain fluid, and it went on for more than 18 months. The man is on the road to recovery, but what's truly awful about this story is that one doctor said this condition can commonly be missed for a long time.

Offering a sympathetic ear can be a kind and noble gesture, but it's one you should be careful of if you also need to be logical, say researchers at Case Western University. A study, released online today in the journal NeuroImage, shows that the brain is incapable of being simultaneously logical and empathetic. So if you need to be nice, get ready to stop being analytical, and if you need to channel your inner Vulcan, be ready for other people to call you a jerk, because you will probably be acting like a jerk.

The slime mold Physarum polycephalum is not traditionally regarded as exactly the brightest of life forms. Much of this perception has to do with the fact that a slime mold is a single-celled organism that has no brain or neural structure, which is really a pretty solid reason not to give a creature much credit in the intellect department. Despite this, though, slime mold has proven surprisingly capable of solving simple tests and mazes in lab settings. Now, researchers have even uncovered evidence that the mold doesn't need a brain to demonstrate that it uses memory as a problem solving tool, a feat you can check out in a video after the break.

Who among us hasn't wanted to poke Einstein's brain at some point? It's every nerdy kid's dream, as well as a really good way to get kicked out of some pretty classy archives. Thanks to a new app from the National Museum of Health and Medicine Chicago, anyone with an iPad and some kind of morbid inclinations can gawk at the brain that changed modern phsyics -- and in HD, no less! The catch? It's going to run you a couple of shekels to do so.

There are plenty of things about the way the brain works that remain a mystery to us. Where does a memory live? Do we actually have free will? Why do I sometimes worry that I've lost my phone because it's not in my pocket even though it is clearly in my hand?  While science doesn't have answers to any of those questions yet, researchers have weighed in on a long-standing mystery of neuroscience, shedding light on how the brain disposes of waste and keeps itself clean. In doing so, they've discovered a whole new plumbing system that seems to shadow the arteries and blood vessels in the organ.

Long known to be good for repeating things that pirates say and also not much else, it appears that grey parrots have more going on upstairs than once thought. A recent study found that the birds are capable of making inferences and using simple logic to solve problems or make predictions. Fairly simple predictions, but still predictions, and mostly correct ones. The demonstration puts the parrots' reasoning skills on par with those of human three-year-olds -- which is either a major victory for parrots or a serious blow to toddlers everywhere, depending on how you look at it.

The above image does not depict a shot glass full of red Kool-Aid that was left in a very warm garage for a few months, but a drink intentionally made to look insane. Dubbed the "Alien Brain Hemorrhage," the cocktail consists of half a shot glass full of peach schnapps, with Bailey's Irish Cream poured on top. Once the shot is almost full, a small amount of blue curacao is added, and once that settles, a small splash of grenadine tops the drink off. Head on past the break to check out a video of the concoction.

A study published in PLoS ONE by Amy Owen and her colleagues at Duke University showed greater atrophy in the hippocampus of people who identify with a specific religion, as well as people who do not identify with any; basically, the subjects who experienced shrinkage in certain areas of the brain were identified as religious, or specifically not, as opposed to those who are casual about religion.

Dr. Sam Schwarzkopf and his colleagues at University College London created an experiment based on the Ebbinghaus illusion, where two identical circles are placed next to each other, though one is surrounded by larger circles and the other identical circle is surrounded by smaller ones, and asked 30 volunteers to guess which of two circles was larger. Afterward, the researchers scanned the volunteers' brains, and noticed that people with a smaller visual cortex experienced the Ebbinghaus illusion more. Interestingly, the team found that the people with a smaller visual cortex tended to have bigger brains.

A pair of conjoined twins named Tatiana and Krista Hogan, who were born four years ago in Vancouver, partially share brains: There's a bridge between each girl's thalamus, which could allow them to share sensory information and more. One scientist who conducted tests on them concluded that "Their brains are recording signals from the other twin’s visual field ... one might be seeing what the other one is seeing.” Their grandmother is convinced that they can even share thoughts:

Adding to the conundrum, of course, are their linked brains, and the mysterious hints of what passes between them. The family regularly sees evidence of it. The way their heads are joined, they have markedly different fields of view. One child will look at a toy or a cup. The other can reach across and grab it, even though her own eyes couldn't possibly see its location. "They share thoughts, too," says Louise. "Nobody will be saying anything," adds Simms, "and Tati will just pipe up and say, 'Stop that!' And she'll smack her sister." While their verbal development is delayed, it continues to get better. Their sentences are two or three words at most so far, and their enunciation is at first difficult to understand. Both the family, and researchers, anxiously await the children's explanation for what they are experiencing.

Full fascinating profile on the Hogan twins and the implications their case has for neuroscience at Macleans.ca. (Macleans.ca via Kottke via Boing Boing. pic via Macleans.ca)

They say you are what you eat, so if you see someone chowing down on this delectable Zombie Meat treat, keep a safe distance, and maybe find a chainsaw or a shotgun. This zany Japanese delicacy, which claims to be aged in the haunted graveyards of Japan, is probably just jerky with blue food coloring in it. But really, can we be sure? For all we know, digested brains could end up being blue and jerky-like. And if you’re sure that’s not the case, you should probably stop eating so many brains.