Articles on the senses
Sense of smell and taste
“Restoring scents: Faulty sniffers may get help” by Janet Raloff,
Science News, July 7, 2007.
“Creating a stink in the name of science” by Jonathan Fildes,
BBC News, October 13, 2006.
“At Denver Zoo, Orangutans Now Calmed by a Dab of Basil” by Louise Palmer, Spirituality and Health, May/June 2004.
“Progress Continues” by Maya Pines, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, from an online report entitled “Seeing, Hearing, and Smelling the World”.
Sense of hearing
“Monkey See, Monkey Hear” by Nikhil Swaminathan,
Scientific American, February 23, 2007.
“Inner ear implant may bring balance back” by Aria Pearson,
NewScientist, February 13, 2007.
Sense of vision
“Faces, Faces Everywhere” by Elizabeth Svoboda,
New York Times, February 13, 2007.
“Innate or learned, recognition begins almost at birth” by Scott LaFee,
San Diego Union-Tribune, March 8, 2007.
“Our Expanded View” by Dan Glass, Seed Magazine, posted online January 30, 2007.
Sense of place and environment
“Giving voice to place: three models for understanding American sacred space” by Belden C. Lane, Religion and American Culture, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Winter 2001) p. 53-81.
“A sense of place” by Douglas Burton-Christie,
The Way (London), Vol. 39, No. 1 (1999), 59-72.
“Common traits in perception: the senses” by Yi-Fu Tuan, in Topophilia: A study of environmental perception, attitudes, and values, Columbia University Press, New York (1990).
Other articles
“Jonathan Edwards on beauty, desire, and the sensory world” by Belden C. Lane, Theological Studies, Vol. 65 (2004) p. 44-72.
Brain studies
“One brain region focuses, another gets distracted: May shed light on attention disorders” by Lauran Neergaard, Associated Press as reported in the San Diego Union-Tribune, March 29, 2007.
“More than a feeling: Working in combination, human senses seem almost superheroic” by Scott LaFee, San Diego Union-Tribune, March 15, 2007.
“At split second intervals, brain has a sense of history” by Nikhil Swaminathan, Scientific American, February 4, 2007.
“Who's minding the mind?” by Benedict Carey, New York Times, July 31, 2007.
“You may not have rhythm, but your brain does”, by Nikhil Swaminathan,
Scientific American, June 19, 2007.
Conferences and Centers
The following links provide a partial list of annual conferences that may have future themes relating to the senses and spirituality.
www.metanexus.net
The Metanexus Institute holds an annual conference either in the U.S. or abroad. The theme of the 2008 conference to be held in Madrid is “Subject, Self, and Soul: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Personhood.”
www.goshen.edu/religionscience/
The annual Goshen Conference on Religion and Science is designed to provide maximum interaction with one of the principal thinkers in the dialog between religion and science. Location is Goshen College in Indiana.
www.iras.org
The Institute on Religion in an Age of Science hosts a summer conference on Star Island, Maine. The theme of the 2008 conference is "Emergence: Nature's Mode of Creativity - the Human Dimension."
www.zygoncenter.org
The Zygon Center for Religion and Science, located in the Chicago area, holds numerous programs including the “Epic of Creation,” the “Advanced Seminar in Religion and Science” and other conferences and workshops.
www.ianramseycentre.org
The Ian Ramsey Centre is involved in the Oxford Centre for Science of the Mind (OXCSOM), a multidisciplinary initiative at the University of Oxford, funded by the John Templeton Foundation, which is exploring the physiological basis of beliefs and how belief systems affect states of consciousness in the physical brain.
Web resources on the senses
www.monell.org
The Monell Center for the Chemical Senses in Philadelphia is a non-profit independent scientific institute dedicated to interdisciplinary basic research on the senses of taste, smell, and chemosensory irritation. Website features past issues of Monell's educational newsletter.
www.hhmi.org/senses/
Report from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute is a full color, scientifically detailed, 63-page downloadable text entitled “Seeing, Hearing, and Smelling the World: New Findings Help Scientists Make Sense of Our Senses”
www.films.com
The six-part series “Human Senses” (VHS or DVD) takes viewers around the globe in search of the biological roots of our senses of smell, vision, taste, touch, hearing, and balance (30 minutes each). Additional film titles include “The Anatomy of Crying,” “The Anatomy of Pain,” “The Anatomy of Pleasure,” and “Human Nature.”
www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/tv/humansenses/index.shtml
This interactive website features facts from the BBC television series on the senses, including smell, vision, taste, touch, hearing, balance, and sensory overload.