Swedish scientists create three arm illusion

Scientists working at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm have demonstrated how to fool the brain into thinking that the body has three arms.The scientists were able to make healthy volunteers believe that they had an extra appendage by stroking the subject’s right hand and a prosthetic rubber hand with two small brushes, synchronizing the strokes as perfectly as possible.

“What happens then is that a conflict arises in the brain concerning which of the right hands belongs to the participant’s body,” said Arvid Guterstam, one of the scientists behind the study in a statement.

Guterstam argued that the expectation was that that the brain would select only one of the hands as the body’s own, presumably the real arm.

“But what we found, surprisingly, is that the brain solves this conflict by accepting both right hands as part of the body image, and the subjects experience having an extra third arm.”

The team designed the experiment to test the classical question in psychology and neuroscience of how we experience our own bodies and their findings have been published in online scientific journal PLoS ONE.

In order to prove that the prosthetic arm was truly experienced as a third arm, the scientist ‘threatened’ either the prosthetic hand or the real hand with a kitchen knife, and measured the degree of sweating of the palm as a physiological response to this provocation.

The results demonstrated that the subjects had the same stress response when the prosthetic hand was threatened as when the real hand was, but only during the periods when they experienced the third arm illusion and not, for example when the prosthetic right arm was replaced with a left arm or a prosthetic foot.

The study involved 154 healthy volunteers and it is hoped the results may help to create new applications in prosthetics research. …

via Swedish scientists create three arm illusion – The Local.

UT researchers crack code to harmful brown tides

Whitney Holmes – A team involving University of Tennessee, Knoxville, researchers has conducted the first-ever genetic sequencing of a harmful algal bloom (HAB) species, cracking the genome of the micro-organism responsible for the Eastern Seaboard’s notorious brown tides.

Brown tides decimated the scallop industries of New York and New Jersey in the 1980s and 1990s and continue to plague the waters off North America and South Africa. The tides are not poisonous to humans, but the chronic blooms are toxic to marine life and block sunlight from reaching undersea vegetation, reducing the food available to fish and shellfish. Indeed, they have decimated sea grass beds and shellfisheries leading to billions of dollars in economic losses.

Steven Wilhelm, microbiology professor; Gary LeCleir, research associate in microbiology; Nathan VerBerkmoes, adjunct assistant professor of microbiology at UT Knoxville and Oak Ridge National Laboratory; and Manesh Shah, senior research associate at the School of Genome Science and Technology, in collaboration with other researchers were able to solve the mystery as to why HABs continue to bloom when there are so many other competing species in the water with them.

Their findings are published in the current online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers discovered that the algae’s unique genetic structure allows them to thrive in polluted ecosystems, providing clues to why certain species have experienced explosive growth in water around the globe in recent decades.

They found there are certain functions HABs can perform that other algae cannot. For instance, they are able to survive for long periods in no light. They are able to metabolize in organic matter and handle what would normally be toxic amounts of metals like copper. The HABs also have a larger number of selenoproteins, which use the trace element selenium to perform essential cell functions illustrating a concordance between the genome and the ecosystem where it’s blooming. The takeaway is that the organism thrives in human-impacted conditions.

“We now know that this organism is genetically predisposed to exploit certain characteristics of coastal ecosystems,” said the authors. “But we also know the characteristics are there because of activities of man. If we continue to increase, for example, organic matter in coastal waters, then it’s going to continue to favor brown tides since it’s genetically predisposed to thrive in these conditions.”

via UT researchers crack code to harmful brown tides.

Man Stops Car in Road, Tells Police He’s From 33 A.D.

Police in Solon, Ohio, responded to calls early Monday of a car stopped in the middle of Richmond Road.

Why did the driver, a 32-year-old man from Poland, Ohio, tell police he stopped in the middle of the road? Because “his heavenly father” told him to.

The man said “he was busy talking to God” and that God told him to go to a dance club in the area.

When asked if he knew where he was, the man told police he was in Columbus.

He then said he was having a tough time adjusting because he was actually from the year 33 A.D.

The man agreed to seek treatment at St. Vincent Medical Center.

via Man Stops Car in Road, Tells Police He’s From 33 A.D..

 

Perhaps he was from the vampire book 33 A.D.

“Jerusalem, 33 A.D. The vampires of the era have long sought to gain a foothold into Israel, but the faith of the local Jewish population has held them in check for centuries.  When one of their own betrays them to follow a young rabbi from Galilee, the elders of the vampire race send Theron, a nine hundred year old assassin, to kill them both.”

“Staying Alive” ringtone plays at funeral

A mourner must have felt his cheeks burning after his phone went off during a funeral.

But when the ringtone that echoed round the church was Staying Alive by the Bee Gees, it is fair to say he wished the earth could have swallowed him up.

Now Reverend Martin Morgan from St Margaret’s Church in Rottingdean has urged parishioners to make sure earthly communications are switched off while their thoughts turn to heavenly matters.

He said: “I don’t want to be one of those people who says ‘no phones’ ‘no cameras’, ‘no confetti’ but it could have been very awkward when that phone went off.

“It took a while before people realised what the song was and then fortunately most people found it quite funny. The culprit looked very embarrassed. I think they probably looked in the other direction and tried to pretend it wasn’t them. That’s what people usually do.”

via Rottingdean rev’s warning after “Staying Alive” funeral blunder (From The Argus).

 

Should have answered. It could have been a call from beyond the grave.

You’ll be sorry if you force a smile while you’re at work

Left: Real smile, Right: Fake smile.

Putting on a bright face at work could leave you feeling miserable.

Workers who fake a smile to keep their customers and colleagues happy could be making themselves depressed.

A new study says that fake smiling on the job actually worsens a person’s mood and could even cut work productivity.

However, workers who are genuinely happy and smile as a result of positive thoughts like a upcoming holiday or a memorable family occasion improve their mood, withdraw less and are more efficient at work.

The research contradicts the policies of many firms whose customer-facing staff are instructed to appear cheery at all times.

They include employees of public transport firms, shops, banks, call centre workers and others who have face-to-face contact with members of the public as part of their job.

Lead researcher Brent Scott, an assistant professor of management at Michigan State University in the U.S. said: ‘Employers may think that simply getting their employees to smile is good for the organisation, but that’s not necessarily the case.

‘Smiling for the sake of smiling can lead to emotional exhaustion and withdrawal and that’s bad for the organisation.’

For the study, which appears in the current issue of the Academy of Management Journal, Prof Scott and colleague Christopher Barnes studied a group of bus drivers over two weeks.

They examined the effects of surface acting, or fake smiling, and deep acting, or cultivating positive emotions by recalling pleasant memories or thinking about their current situation in a more favourable way.

The study is one of the first of its kind to examine emotional displays over a period of time while also delving into gender differences.

The results were more defined for women bus drivers, the study found.
Prof Scott said: ‘Women were harmed more by surface acting, meaning their mood worsened even more than the men and they withdrew more from work.

Read more: dailymail

This contradicts something I heard long ago, that your emotions will follow your body if you smile.

Wormlike “Walking Cactus” Fossil Found

Fossils of an ancient, spiny creature dubbed a “walking cactus” have been found in China, a new study says.

The 2.4-inch-long (6-centimeter-long) Diania cactiformis had a worm-like body and ten pairs of armored and likely jointed legs. It would have lived about 500 million years ago during a period of rapid evolution called the Cambrian explosion.

(See “Giant Shrimplike Predator Was a Weakling After All.”)

Study leader Jianni Liu discovered the animal during a 2006 excavation in southwestern China’s Yunnan Province.

“I was really surprised. I said, What’s that strange guy with the soft body with very strong legs?” said Liu, an earth scientist at Northwest University in Xi’an, China.

“When I [went] back and observed it under the microscope, [I realized] it’s not only funny, it’s very important.”

“Walking Cactus” a Clue to Arthropod Evolution?

That’s because the newfound animal does not resemble other lobopodians, a primitive group of creatures that flourished in the Cambrian seas.

Although the walking cactus is part of this group, it has robust appendages like those of modern arthropods—joint-limbed animals such as spiders and crustaceans.

The walking cactus’s unusual limbs strengthen the theory that modern arthropods evolved from lobopodians, the study authors say.

Liu, who found about 30 fossil specimens of the walking cactus, also has some hypotheses for how the creature hunted.

For instance, she suspects D. cactiformis may have sucked up tiny creatures in the mud with its proboscis or used its bristly legs to capture larger prey.

via Wormlike “Walking Cactus” Fossil Found.

Evidence Neanderthals used feathers for decoration

Researchers studying a large deposit of Neanderthal bones in Italy have discovered the remains of birds along with the bones, and evidence the feathers were probably used for ornamentation. The findings add evidence that the now extinct Neanderthals could have been as cultured as our own ancestors.

Paleoanthropologist Marco Peresani from the University of Ferrara in Italy and colleagues were studying Neanderthal remains in the Fumane Cave near Verona in northern Italy when they discovered the bones of birds in layers that were on the surface around 44,000 years ago.

The 660 bird bones included wing bones showing evidence of scraping, peeling and cutting by stone tools at the points at which the large flight feathers would have been attached. The feathers would have been of no culinary value and many of the bird species are poor food sources in any case. Feathered arrows had not yet been invented, and so the feathers would have had no practical value either, which suggests they were most likely removed for use as ornamentation or decoration.

The researchers found the first bird bones in September 2009 and this spurred them to re-examine all the bones found in that layer. Among the 22 species of birds they found were bearded lammergeiers, red-footed falcons, Eurasian black vultures, golden eagles, common wood pigeons, and Alpine choughs. The feather colors included black, blue-gray, gray and orange-slate gray.

Dr Peresani said bird feathers have been widely used by humans and have served a variety of purposes including making ornamental and ceremonial objects, and in games, but they have not previously been found associated with Neanderthals. Other researchers have found shells in association with Neanderthal bones and suggested they may have worn them as jewelry. …

via Evidence Neanderthals used feathers for decoration.

Redesign of National Donor-Liver Network Could Boost Transplants By Several Hundred Per Year, Pitt Researchers Report

A redesign of the nation’s donor-liver distribution network developed by University of Pittsburgh researchers could result in several hundred more people each year receiving the transplants they need.The team reports in the journal INFORMS Management Science that donor livers currently are doled out to 11 national regions that evolved with little regard for geography and demographics, an arrangement that prevents many livers from getting to prospective recipients in time. The Pitt researchers instead trimmed the network down to six regions that better account for urban and rural population differences, geographic distance, and the anticipated supply of and demand for donor livers. They calculated that their rearrangement could result in up to 14 percent more transplants each year, a sizable increase considering that more than 6,000 transplants were performed in 2009 alone.

… “We’re simply redesigning the hierarchy by geographic and demographic information to increase the likelihood that recipients will be found closer to the liver’s point of origin,” Schaefer said. “Under the current system, a liver harvested in New Jersey is more likely to go to a patient in Beckley, West Virginia, than one in New York City. Plus, it is well known that there are big geographic disparities in procurement and that there are some places where it is better to be on an organ waiting list than others.” …

via Redesign of National Donor-Liver Network Could Boost Transplants By Several Hundred Per Year, Pitt Researchers Report | University of Pittsburgh News.

T. rex more hyena than lion: Tyrannosaurus rex was opportunistic feeder, not top predator, paleontologists say

The ferocious Tyrannosaurus rex has been depicted as the top dog of the Cretaceous, ruthlessly stalking herds of duck-billed dinosaurs and claiming the role of apex predator, much as the lion reigns supreme in the African veld.

But a new census of all dinosaur skeletons unearthed over a large area of eastern Montana shows that Tyrannosaurus was too numerous to have subsisted solely on the dinosaurs it tracked and killed with its scythe-like teeth.

Instead, argue paleontologists John “Jack” Horner from the Museum of the Rockies and Mark B. Goodwin from the University of California, Berkeley, T. rex was probably an opportunistic predator, like the hyena in Africa today, subsisting on both carrion and fresh-killed prey and exploiting a variety of animals, not just large grazers.

“In our census, T. rex came out very high, equivalent in numbers to Edmontosaurus, which many people had thought was its primary prey,” said Horner, curator of paleontology at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Mont., and Regents Professor at Montana State University. “This says that T. rex is not a cheetah, it’s not a lion. It’s more like a hyena.” …

via T. rex more hyena than lion: Tyrannosaurus rex was opportunistic feeder, not top predator, paleontologists say.

As numerous as their closest modern day ancestors no doubt:  chickens.

Scientists steer car with the power of thought

You need to keep your thoughts from wandering, if you drive using the new technology from the AutoNOMOS innovation labs of Freie Universität Berlin. The computer scientists have developed a system making it possible to steer a car with your thoughts. Using new commercially available sensors to measure brain waves — sensors for recording electroencephalograms (EEG) — the scientists were able to distinguish the bioelectrical wave patterns for control commands such as “left,” “right,” “accelerate” or “brake” in a test subject.

They then succeeded in developing an interface to connect the sensors to their otherwise purely computer-controlled vehicle, so that it can now be “controlled” via thoughts. Driving by thought control was tested on the site of the former Tempelhof Airport.

The scientists from Freie Universität first used the sensors for measuring brain waves in such a way that a person can move a virtual cube in different directions with the power of his or her thoughts. The test subject thinks of four situations that are associated with driving, for example, “turn left” or “accelerate.” In this way the person trained the computer to interpret bioelectrical wave patterns emitted from his or her brain and to link them to a command that could later be used to control the car. The computer scientists connected the measuring device with the steering, accelerator, and brakes of a computer-controlled vehicle, which made it possible for the subject to influence the movement of the car just using his or her thoughts. …

via Scientists steer car with the power of thought.

Future driving exams will include tests of your meditation skills.