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Human Brain Made for Counting

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 01:28:01 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Aug. 18, 2008 -- Answer this without counting: Are there more X's here XXXXXX, or here XXXXX? That's a problem facing people whose languages don't include words for more than one or two. Yet researchers say children who speak those languages are still able to compare quantities.

"We argue that humans possess an innate system for enumeration that doesn't rely on words," says Brian Butterworth of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London.

In an attempt to prove it, Butterworth compared the numerical skills of children from two indigenous Australian groups whose languages don't contain many number words with similar children who speak English.

All the groups performed equally well, his research team reports in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Tags: numbers, language, brain, neuroscience, science

Can you trust your mind?

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 08:13:06 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: "These findings have significant implications for the authenticity of reports of recovered memory experiences."
"Overall, this study clearly demonstrates that false suggestions about childhood events can profoundly change people’s attitudes and behavior."

This is an amazing (if i recall it is not the first one) study.
Raising many questions regarding the validity of my self-experience and knowledge.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

False Memories Affect Behavior

research shows that the human memory can be remarkably fragile and even inventive.

In fact, people can easily create false memories of their past and a new study shows that such memories can have long-term effects on our behavior.

In a series of experiments, the researchers falsely suggested that participants had become ill after eating egg salad as a child. Afterwards, the researchers offered different kinds of sandwiches to the participants, including ones with an egg salad filling.

Four months later, the participants were asked to be in a separate study in which they evaluated egg salad as well as other foods. They were then given the same kinds of sandwiches that had been offered to them four months earlier.

Interestingly, participants who were told they had become ill as a child after eating egg salad showed a distinct change in attitudes and behavior towards this food after the experiment.

gave the food lower evaluations

they also avoided egg salad

Tags: psychology, memory, false

sleeping tiger and man, is this picture real?

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 01:37:27 GMT

clipped by: silvanaraihane
clipper's remarks: is this doctored, or a real picture! maybe a 'dead' tiger??

Clip Source: www.providings.com

Massive New Object Discovered at Edge of the Solar System

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:35:16 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

The Oort Cloud is a spherical cloud of comets believed to lie roughly 50,000 AU, or nearly a light-year from the Sun, which places the cloud at nearly a quarter of the distance to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun. The Kuiper belt and scattered disc, the other two known reservoirs of trans-Neptunian objects, are less than one thousandth the Oort cloud's distance. The outer extent of the Oort cloud defines the boundary of our Solar System.

Objects in the Oort cloud are largely composed of ices such as water, ammonia and methane. Astronomers believe that the matter comprising the Oort cloud formed closer to the Sun, and was scattered far out into space by the gravitational effects of the giant planets early in the Solar System's evolution.

Tags: astronomy, solar system

Do we create the world just by looking at it?

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 07:59:59 GMT

clipped by: einbar
clipper's remarks: very intersting article...

Clip Source: www.bryanchristiedesign.com

Clip Source: www.seedmagazine.com

A team of physicists in Vienna has devised experiments that may answer one of the enduring riddles of science: Do we create the world just by looking at it?

Do we create what we observe through the act of our observations?

Late last year Brukner and Kofler showed that it does not matter how many particles are around, or how large an object is, quantum mechanics always holds true. The reason we see our world as we do is because of what we use to observe it. The human body is a just barely adequate measuring device. Quantum mechanics does not always wash itself out, but to observe its effects for larger and larger objects we would need more and more accurate measurement devices. We just do not have the sensitivity to observe the quantum effects around us. In essence we do create the classical world we perceive, and as Brukner said, "There could be other classical worlds completely
different from ours."

Exuberance of light - amazing

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:13:40 GMT

clipped by: einbar
clipper's remarks: "These are refraction patterns or 'caustics' formed by a light beam passing through a shaped and textured plastic form. The pattern is captured directly on to 35mm film by removing the camera lens and putting the transparent object in its place. The processed film is digitally scanned for uploading. Please note these are not computer generated images but a true analogue of the way light is refracted by the objects I create" Reciprocity's amazing photostream.

Clip Source: www.flickr.com

Exuberance

Clip Source: www.flickr.com

At the End of the Rainbow

Clip Source: www.flickr.com

Living Light

Clip Source: www.flickr.com

Alien Sunrise

Clip Source: www.flickr.com

Wings of Light

Clip Source: www.flickr.com

Darth Vader Peace Offering

Clip Source: www.flickr.com

Living Light

Clip Source: www.flickr.com

World’s Most Spectacular Skylines

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 07:04:50 GMT

clipped by: hitchhiker08
clipper's remarks: 'Spectacular' is right - each city/location has its own mesmerizing charm!

Clip Source: matadornights.com

The World’s Most Spectacular Skylines

Something about the outline of a city against its clear, crisp sky stops us in our tracks and commands our attention.

Below are staggeringly beautiful images where city meets sky all across the globe.

Miami, Florida, USA

Bangkok, Thailand

Vancouver, British Columbia

Republic Plaza, Singapore

Sydney, Australia

Shanghai, China

London, England

South Perth, Australia

Cologne, Germany

Graz, Austria

Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Hong Kong

Detroit, Michigan

Berlin, Germany

Venice, Italy

New York, New York, USA

Warsaw, Poland

San Francisco, California, USA

Tags: skyline, horizon, architecture, photography, landscape, buildings

India's Goldfinger : Abhinav Bindra

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 02:12:15 GMT

clipped by: syncopath
clipper's remarks: No individual gold has mattered so much to so many people in the history of Olympics... !!!

i don't really understand the distant relation between India & the Olympics??

Clip Source: olympics.timesofindia.indiatimes.com

No individual gold has mattered so much to so many people in the history of Olympics. It was a medal for Abhinav; it was redemption for India. Never again will anyone be able to point a smug, sardonic finger and say: "No Indian is good enough to win an individual Olympic gold."

this is the first time that an Indian has won an individual gold since modern Olympics started in 1896.

"How does it feel Mr Bindra?" "Hard to describe it... it's the thrill of my life," he said, still looking calm as a monk.

Will this not change his life? "My life will go on. I hope it changes the face of Olympic sports in the country," he said.

This is the fifth individual Olympic medal for India. Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav won the first, a bronze in wrestling at the Helsinki Games in 1952. After a long gap, Leander Paes won the tennis bronze in Atlanta Games in 1996. Then, Karnam Malleswari won a weightlifting bronze in 2000 in Sydney

Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore raised the bar, winning a silver in Athens in 2004.

A New State Of Mind

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:25:05 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: But that view of the neurotransmitter was vastly oversimplified. What wasn’t yet clear was that dopamine is also a profoundly important source of information. It doesn’t merely let us take pleasure in the world; it allows us to understand the world.

Clip Source: www.seedmagazine.com

Montague discovered the powers of dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain. His research on the singular chemical has drawn tantalizing connections between the peculiar habits of our neurons and the peculiar habits of real people, so that the various levels of psychological description — the macro and the micro, the behavioral and the cellular — no longer seem so distinct.

What began as an investigation into a single neurotransmitter has morphed into an exploration of the social brain

“We are profoundly social animals,” he says. “You can’t really understand the brain until you understand how these social behaviors happen, or what happens when they go haywire.”

even as Montague attempts to answer these incredibly complex questions, his work remains rooted in the molecular details of dopamine.

The importance of dopamine was discovered by accident

Tags: neuroscience, dopamine, brain