Hmm, really?

I attended the most intriguing little seminar the other day, the first of a series of colloquia at the place I'm studying.
To start with, I came prepared to make the obligatory single visit and run back to the lab at the first break. Imagine my surprise when the session was actually interesting! I was even able to recognize the first speaker! (Please note that this was due not to his celebrity - poor fellow - but to the fact that he was one of those friendly TAs for one of my courses last year.) I was most amused to find that his presentation style was heavily influenced by his teaching style - or was it the other way around? Somehow, I don't think the professor sitting at 'X position' found it equally entertaining. However, the topic he was discussing was rather impressive. How funny, to think that the nice, somewhat dopey-appearing guy who taught the tutorials was actually in the midst of rather impressive research. A filter to identify genes on islands of pathogenicity in any sample of bacteria would be quite cool, I believe. Once it exists . . .

The next fellow, while a charming presenter, was talking about something to do with trees and Bugs and rescuing the lumber industry. I'm afraid I zoned in and out of that one - it has to do with my aversion to Bugs, you see. While I am in full support of all things that eliminate the little bastards, the mere mention of them has the power to either send me running for the shower, clawing at my skin to remove the feeling of little phantom legs on me or to send me to the Happy Place in my head, where Bugs have never existed, I never have to step into the big, scary room with the blue ceiling, and 'there is lo-ots of cooooffeeeee all daaaaaayy'. Hmm. That was the worst adaptation of 'Home on the Range' ever.

It was the last speaker, though, that I found most thought-provoking. He had found, through fMRI scanning on seizure-prone rats using some contrast-creating technique I forget the name of, that there were more brain areas affected during seizures than we were previously aware of . Good stuff. I wonder if they'll be tweaking the anti-seizure meds to compensate.

I wonder . . . if I take anti-anti-seizure meds, to drastically increase brain activity (does such a thing exist?), will I get superpowers?