SSS 2008-03-26（在线收听）

Welcome to Science Talk, the weekly podcast of Scientific American for the 7 days starting March 26, 2008. I’m Steve Mirsky. The baseball season is already underway, so this week on the podcast we’ll talk about some baseball related science with editor Dan Gordon and statistician Shane Jensen, who are not Joe Gordon and Jackie Jensen. Plus we'll test your knowledge about some recent science in the news. Dan Gordon is the managing editor at Dana Press which publishes books and articles about the brain. It’s part of the Dana Foundation which supports brain research. Gordon edited new volume that looks at baseball and the brain. I called him at his office in Washington D.C.

Mr. Gordon, good to talk to you today!

Hi, Steve! Good to talk to you.

Inside the heads of players and fans, there is a subtitle, the title is "Your Brain On Cubs". Tell me about the origins of this book. How did this book happen?

 Well, it arose from actually a pretty sad memory for a, especially for a Cub fans,meant for the baseball fans too, who feel for us and that was the post-season in 2003, when the Cubs appear to be just moments away from making it to the world series for the first time in decades and then it all fell apart. Um, it was the following season when I was back to Wrigley Field  for the, for the first time since that happen that I thought what is the that they keeps me coming back for more, even though my team has disappointed me? What is it they keeps me loyal to this ball club? And more I thought about it,that, you know, I work for a foundation that does an eighth neuroscience research and so I work on publications related to the brain, and more I thought about it, the more I thought really there is a...