Best. Coffee. Ever.

Following my attendance at the 20th annual meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, I am pleased to present, for NeuroCooking readers in the National Capital Area, these six simple steps to get the best coffee in the world:

1. Take the Washington D.C. Metro to National Airport (DCA).
2. Fly from DCA to Los Angeles (LAX).
3. Fly from LAX to Sydney (SYD).
4. Fly from SYD to Melbourne (MEL).
5. Take a bus or taxi downtown.
6. Go to Naked Espresso at 390 Little Bourke Street, and order an espresso.

Spring Flower-Blogging!

Peony.  (Click image for larger version. Compare. See also.)

Seeing Is Believing.

Last week I was in Melbourne, Australia, for the 20th annual meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, which took place in the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. There, I made a remarkable discovery. The toilets bear warning labels:

These labels, clearly, compel a startling conclusion: In Australia, dogs can read.

On going wide (& tall) without schlepping.

When I travelled Down Under this month, I did not bring a "real camera," but I was able to shoot wide

The Cove, Sydney, Australia. May 13, 2012.

and tall

Town Hall, Sydney, Australia. May 14, 2012.

using the iPhone "Pano" app (click photos for larger versions).

"Finally, SUPEREGO-related neural activity was localized to lateral prefrontal and parietal cortex."

"A Triple Dissociation of Neural Systems Supporting ID, EGO, and SUPEREGO" (because "... Social Neuroscience, Neuroeconomics, and Developmental Social Cognitive Affective Clinical Neuroscience are just not cutting edge enough anymore...") appears in Psyence.

e.g., "Rule number eight: exploit superstitious thinking"

"Ten ironic rules for non-statistical reviewers" ("... written for reviewers who may not have sufficient statistical expertise to provide an informed critique during the peer-reviewed process, but would like to recommend rejection on the basis of inappropriate or invalid statistical analysis") by Prof. Karl Friston will appear in the journal NeuroImage.

"h" vs. "H" (and the Mountain Goats, Down Under)

The Mountain Goats rocking Melbourne's Toff, 9 May 2012 (iPhone photo).

Last week I was in Melbourne, Australia, for the 20th annual meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. Melbourne is a great place for live music, and, as it happened, I found out in advance that the Mountain Goats would be in town! So, when I travelled Down Under I did so with a ticket for what was to be a sold-out show at Melbourne's The Toff in Town.

How eager was I to see the Mountain Goats (whose songs I've loved for years, but whom I'd never seen live)? Let's just say I went to the Toff a whole day early, to check out the venue, which is how I came to see Max Savage and the False Idols play soul-tinged country-western Rock-n-Roll:

Max Savage and the False Idols at the Toff, 8 May 2012 (camera: Ricoh GX-100).

However, dear NeuroCooking friends, my topic today may not be singer-songwriters, or rock-n-roll, or intimate venues for live music, or fantastic audiences who shout out the choruses to early Mountain Goats songs, allowing Mr. John Darnielle to sing just the verses, or even the persistent paradox of how listening to songs about self-destructive persons engaged in abusive relationships can be uplifting. No, my topic today may be beer.

I like hoppy beers, like India Pale Ales. When I visit someplace with unfamiliar offerings on tap, especially overseas, I will ask the bartender to recommend a beer. So, that Tuesday night at the Toff, I asked the bartender:

"What's hoppy? Like an IPA?"

And he replied:

"Yes. Would you like a taste?"

I did a double-take, and looked at the taps, and yes, they had a beer on tap called "Hoppy."

And yes, it was.

This "hoppy" vs. "Hoppy" reminded me, instantly, of the old "Who's on first" routine:

It's too late to see Abbott and Costello live, but, thankfully, it's not too late to see the Mountain Goats, which I recommend that you do, wherever and whenever you can!

"We love you, John!" The Mountain Goats at the Toff, 9 May 2012 (iPhone photo).

A & B.

A is for Azalea, B is for Bucky.

Board of Education member: Rock Creek Hills Park not "adequate size," so Montgomery Hills site would be needed, too.

Françoise Carrier, Chair of the Montgomery County (Maryland) Planning Board, attended the April 17th meeting of the Montgomery County Board of Education. There, Board of Education member Laura Berthiaume told Ms. Carrier that, due to the small size of Rock Creek Hills Park, if Montgomery County Public Schools were to take the park to build Bethesda-Chevy Chase (B-CC) middle school #2, then it would soon become necessary to build a third B-CC middle school, on the site of the former Montgomery Hills Junior High (currently the Yeshiva and Torah School of Greater Washington).

You can read their exchange on Kensington Patch.

To help spread the word, after you click through to the blog post on Patch, click on the Facebook "recommend" button on that page!

On average, each bike has a fork.

A mysterious video of what appears to be a pushmi/pullyu tandem bicycle has appeared on the Facebook page of Paul Component Engineering (There's no way to embed, or even to link to, the video here; you need to click through to their Facebook page, and then find and click on the video, which is entitled "Trust us. We're professionaaaaaaaahhhhhhls.").

On the other hand (h/t: cycleexif.com), Olli Erkkilä's beautiful and poetic Graduation Project at the Institute of Design in Lahti, Finland was a "forkless" cruiser: