Featured Articles

Does Selective Brain Damage Underpin Spirituality?

Does Selective Brain Damage Underpin Spirituality?

Feb 10 2010 | comment(s)

Although it is well established that all behaviors and experiences, spiritual or otherwise, must originate in the brain, information on the causative link between brain activity and spirituality is lacking. Neuroimaging studies have associated activity within a large network in the brain that connects the frontal, parietal, and temporal cortexes with spiritual experiences, but researchers have been unable to establish a causative relationship between such a network and spirituality.

In order to establish that relationship, researchers studied the personality trait self-transcendence (ST), which is thought to be a measure of spiritual feeling, thinking, and behaviors, in patients before and after surgery to remove a brain tumor.
Sound Regulated By Two Sets Of Synapses, Study Finds

Sound Regulated By Two Sets Of Synapses, Study Finds

Feb 10 2010 | comment(s)

Researchers have isolated an independent processing channel of synapses inside the brain's auditory cortex that deals specifically with shutting off sound processing at appropriate times. The discovery, detailed this week in Neuron, challenges a long-held assumption that the signaling of a sound's appearance and its subsequent disappearance are both handled by the same pathway.

The new finding could lead to new, distinctly targeted therapies such as improved hearing devices, said Michael Wehr, a professor of psychology and member of the University of Oregon Institute of Neuroscience.
Study Introduces New Process For Modeling Climate Change

Study Introduces New Process For Modeling Climate Change

Feb 10 2010 | comment(s)

An international team of climate scientists say they have developed a new approach to modeling the earth's climate that will improve the accuracy of future models utilized by the IPCC and provide the framework for thousands of individual scientific studies on climate impacts and adaptation, and changes in the way societies generate and use energy.

Previous scenarios used by the IPCC usually assumed that no one would try to reduce climate change. Today, policymakers and researchers are interested in exploring ways to limit changes. Understanding the impacts and interactions of activities such as increasing energy efficiency and conservation, developing new renewable fuels to replace fossil-based fuels, and regulating how land is used are crucial to better decision-making.
India shelves GM food crop plans

India shelves GM food crop plans

Feb 10 2010 | comment(s)

Will Heaven Will Heaven is a writer who specialises in politics and the internet. He also writes about Catholicism and religion. He can be emailed at will.heaven@telegraph.co.uk and is @WillHeaven on Twitter. India shelves GM food crop plans – while millions remain malnourished By Will Heaven World Last updated: February 9th, 2010 8 Comments Comment on this article India has dropped plans to release the country’s first genetically modified food crop, Dean Nelson reports, because of fears over “the long-term effects on human health”. This appalling decision was taken by the environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, who said the following:
The New Harmonic Oscillator

The New Harmonic Oscillator

Feb 10 2010 | comment(s)

A lot of my sophomore year in astronomy was spent solving harmonic oscillator problems.  A harmonic oscillator is something that moves with a periodic motion—say, a pendulum swinging or a mass on a spring sliding back and forth.  Students of physics and astrophysics learn to love (pronounced “loathe” in the first months) harmonic oscillators, because the equations that describe their motion also describes a bunch of other phenomena, including what happens when you deform a solid and the quantum theory of the atom.  If you’re able to solve a simple harmonic oscillator problem, you can solve a whole gamut of others.
Why is 1+1 equals 2?

Why is 1+1 equals 2?

Feb 10 2010 | comment(s)

It was a usual practise for me to ask my young and energetic audience, my students, about what they thought about a particular topic before I share my thoughts. Once the fact is revealed, both sides of the stage remain in satisfaction equillibrium which, seemed to me, set up the required chemistry for a successful knowledge transfer.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />







Why is 1+1 equals 2?

Why is 1+1 equals 2?

Feb 10 2010 | comment(s)

It was a usual practise for me to ask my young and energetic audience, my students, about what they thought about a particular topic before I share my thoughts. Once the fact is revealed, both sides of the stage remain in satisfaction equillibrium which, seemed to me, set up the required chemistry for a successful knowledge transfer.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Peter Sheridan Dodds, Theoretical Biology's Buzzkill

Peter Sheridan Dodds, Theoretical Biology's Buzzkill

Feb 09 2010 | comment(s)

There is an apocryphal story about a graduate mathematics student at the University of Virginia studying the properties of certain mathematical objects. In his fifth year some killjoy bastard elsewhere published a paper proving that there are no such mathematical objects. He dropped out of the program, and I never did hear where he is today. He's probably making my cappuccino right now.
Sustainable Water - A Lesson From India

Sustainable Water - A Lesson From India

Feb 09 2010 | comment(s)

Sustainable Water - A Lesson From India

Anupam Mishra travels across water-challenged India studying rainwater harvesting methods and learning from the people behind them. He presents his findings to NGOs, development agencies and environmental groups, pulling from centuries of indigenous wisdom that has found water for drinking and irrigation even in extremely arid landscapes through wells, filter ponds and other catchment systems.
...
"In [him] lives a spirit, of quiet service, that once existed freely in our politics and our activism, a spirit that has been completely excised from one sphere and remains gravely threatened in the other."
Ramachandra Guha, in The Hindu
Broken Hearts: Not Just Fodder For Songwriters

Broken Hearts: Not Just Fodder For Songwriters

Feb 09 2010 | comment(s)

If you feel like you have an achy breaky heart, you may not be imagining things. "Broken hearts" are indeed real, although in the medical community they go by the much less lyrical name of stress (tako-tsubo) cardiomyopathy.

A recent article in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology described stress (tako-tsubo) cardiomyopathy as "a rapidly reversible form of acute heart failure reported to be triggered by stressful events and associated with a distinctive left ventricular (LV) contraction pattern." Oooh, romantic. Shakespeare couldn't have written it better.
As Others See Us

As Others See Us

Feb 09 2010 | comment(s)

As Others See Us

O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us!".
(I wish that some Power would give us the little gift of seeing ourselves as other see us.)
Robert_Burns
Let's be honest, both poles of the American political spectrum fear the same thing about each other; that if the other gets control a lot of oppressive weird stuff will happen.
Hank Campbell

The Physics Of Love

The Physics Of Love

Feb 09 2010 | comment(s)

Jim Croce, whose major was psychology in Villanova University, perhaps, had a minor in physics, I don't know, when he graduated in 1965. His song "Time in a Bottle" conjures physics of love, right?

So, if there is chemistry of love, then there is definitely physics of love, its sister science. See if you "find" physics in the lyrics of Time in a Bottle.

If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I'd like to do
Is to save every day
Till Eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you

If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
I'd save every day like a treasure and then

Women More Willing To Take Birth Control Advice From 'The OC' Than The Media

Women More Willing To Take Birth Control Advice From 'The OC' Than The Media

Feb 09 2010 | comment(s)

The authors of a new study published in Human Communication Research say that the media is losing some its ability to sway viewers on important social issues. Specifically, the study shows that the 'OC', a crummy drama series about teens and their turbulent lives in southern California, may be more effective in persuading young women to use birth control than a news-format program on the same issue.

The results show the power that narratives like TV shows can have in influencing people, said Emily Moyer-Gusé, co-author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University.
New Evidence Casts Doubt On Bird-From-Dinosaur Theory

New Evidence Casts Doubt On Bird-From-Dinosaur Theory

Feb 09 2010 | comment(s)

A new commentary just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences claims that more evidence is mounting that birds did not evolve from ground-dwelling theropod dinosaurs and challenging decades of accepted theories about the evolution of flight.

The weight of the evidence is now suggesting that not only did birds not descend from dinosaurs, but that some species now believed to be dinosaurs may have descended from birds, according John Ruben, a professor of zoology at Oregon State University who authored the PNAS commentary.
Global Warming Tipping Points May Arrive Without Warning!

Global Warming Tipping Points May Arrive Without Warning!

Feb 09 2010 | comment(s)

A new study conducted by researchers from UC Davis and the John Innes Center in Norwich, England, suggests that it is harder than previously thought to predict when sudden shifts in Earth's natural systems will occur. The finding is troubling for scientists who are trying to identify the tipping points that could push climate change into an irreparable global disaster. The study was published recently in Ecology Letters.
Most Smokers Quit 'Cold Turkey', Researchers Say

Most Smokers Quit 'Cold Turkey', Researchers Say

Feb 09 2010 | comment(s)

Despite the over-promotion of nicotine replacement therapies by drug companies and anti-tobacco activists, the most successful method used by ex-smokers is unassisted cessation, according to a new policy forum in PLoS Medicine. In the article, researchers from the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney, Australia take a critical look at most tobacco control campaigns, which emphasize that serious attempts at quitting smoking must be pharmacologically or professionally mediated.
Earlier Springs May Throw Nature Out Of Step

Earlier Springs May Throw Nature Out Of Step

Feb 09 2010 | comment(s)

A collaborative study involving scientists from 12 UK research institutions, universities and conservation organizations suggests that the trend towards earlier UK springs and summers has been accelerating. The study, published recently in Global Change Biology, is the most comprehensive and rigorous assessment so far of long-term changes in the seasonal timing (phenology) of biological events across marine, freshwater and terrestrial environments in the UK, the authors say.
Bullet-Shaped Virus Could Help Treat Cancer

Bullet-Shaped Virus Could Help Treat Cancer

Feb 09 2010 | comment(s)

Vesicular stomatitis virus, or VSV, has shown the potential to serve as an anti-cancer agent, exercising high selectivity in killing cancer cells while sparing healthy cells, and as a potent vaccine against HIV. But in order for the necessary genetic modifications to occur, scientists must have an accurate picture of the virus's structure.

While three-dimensional structural information of VSV's characteristic bullet shape and its assembly process has been sought for decades, efforts have been hampered by technological and methodological limitations.