The Barmaid’s Brain

And Other Strange Tales from Science

Truth is stranger than fiction and these extraordinary stories of “weird science” told by Jay Ingram in The Barmaid’s Brain prove that point. “Weird science” does not mean crackpot theories about UFOs or abominable snow-folk, but rather the edges of science, unfamiliar territory that poses unusual challenges for researchers, such as building elevators from the earth to space stations or orbiting thousands of miles above it. Or it can mean territory that’s too familiar, seemingly simple questions that mainstream science has virtually ignored, like why moths are attracted to lights. Or obvious but still puzzling problems, such as the nature of laughter. Laughing is actually a very complex act involving, among other items, the lungs, throat, and facial muscles. It results in our producing “laugh notes… a series of short, vowel-like sounds.” But what causes it? Specifically, what mechanism turns our mental perception that something is “funny,” into the physical reaction of laughter? Is there a “laugh center” in the brain? Of course, why we perceive something as being “funny” is itself an extremely complex issue. There’s also the question of how the laughter of others affects us. And we often laugh for other reasons, because of nervousness or being tickled, for example. As Ingram explores the subject, he may not find all the answers (because they’re just not there yet), but he will enthrall you with his accounts of outlandish experiments, serious studies, and baffling cases of “pathological laughter”.

Laughter, elevators to outer space, moths and light – are just three of the strange and wonderful stories in this book, stories guaranteed to arouse your curiosity, introduce some new ideas, and generally engage your brain.