Consciousness found to collapse quantum wavefunction?

… a new experiment performed by parapsychology researcher Dr Dean Radin (with others) which could provoke debate with its publication in Physics Essays: “Consciousness and the double-slit interference pattern“. …

“A double-slit optical system was used to test the possible role of consciousness in the collapse of the quantum wave function.

The ratio of the interference pattern’s double-slit spectral power to its single-slit spectral power was predicted to decrease Double-slit interference pattern when attention was focused toward the double slit as compared to away from it.

Each test session consisted of 40 counterbalanced attention-toward and attention-away epochs, where each epoch lasted between 15 and 30 s.

Data contributed by 137 people in six experiments, involving a total of 250 test sessions, indicate that on average the spectral ratio decreased as predicted (z=-4:36, p=6·10-6).

Another 250 control sessions conducted without observers present tested hardware, software, and analytical procedures for potential artifacts; none were identified (z=0:43, p=0:67). Variables including temperature, vibration, and signal drift were also tested, and no spurious influences were identified.

By contrast, factors associated with consciousness, such as meditation experience, electrocortical markers of focused attention, and psychological factors including openness and absorption, significantly correlated in predicted ways with perturbations in the double-slit interference pattern.

The results appear to be consistent with a consciousness-related interpretation of the quantum measurement problem.”

via Daily Grail Frontpage | TDG – Science, Magick, Myth and History.

Procedure
During a test session, participants were instructed by the computer to direct their attention toward the doubleslit apparatus or to withdraw their attention and relax. To announce the attention-toward task, a computer-synthesized voice said, ‘‘Please influence the beam now’’; for attention away, it said, ‘‘You may now relax.’’

Participants were asked to direct their attention toward two tiny slits located inside a sealed black box (the double-slit optical system). It was explained that this task was purely in the ‘‘mind’s eye,’’ i.e., an act of
imagination. To many this instruction proved to be somewhat abstract, so to assist their imagination they were shown a 5 min animation of the double-slit experiment, where a particle detector was portrayed as
FIG. 1. From the left, the regulated power supply for the laser, the HeNe laser tube extending out of the optical apparatus, and the camera attached to the right side of the apparatus. The housing is a precisionmachined
aluminum box, painted matte black and optically sealed. FIG. 2. (Color online) (A) Interference-pattern intensity recorded by the 3000-pixel line camera, averaged over 10,000 camera frames. (B) Log of spatial spectral power with double-slit power peaking around wavenumber 45 (equivalent to a wavelength of about 69 pixels) and single-slit power at 1. The peak around wavenumber 90 is a harmonic of the double-slit frequency…. If the task was still unclear, it was suggested that they could try to mentally block one of the slits, or to ‘‘become one with’’ the optical system in a contemplative way, or to mentally push the laser beam to cause it to go through one of the two slits rather than both.

Once a test session was under way, the computer synthesized voice instructions directed the participants’ attention toward or away from the optical system in 15 s epochs. A single test session consisted of 40 such epochs
presented in a counterbalanced order. The counterbalancing scheme consisted of five randomly assigned groups, where a group followed either the assignment order ABBA BAAB or the order BAAB ABBA, where A
and B refer to attention toward and attention away. Test sessions began by collecting between 15 and 20 s of baseline data, followed by the 40 instructed epochs. Participants one at a time sat quietly about 2 m from the sealed optical apparatus (see Fig. 3). They were instructed not to touch or approach the device at any time. Test sessions were conducted inside a solid steel, double-walled, electromagnetically shielded chamber at
the Institute of Noetic Sciences (Series 81 Solid Cell chamber, ETS-Lindgren, Cedar Park, TX, USA). Electrical- line power in the chamber was conditioned through a high-performance electromagnetic interference filter
(ETS-Lindgren filter LRW-1050-S1), and to further reduce potential electromagnetic interference, the optical system and computer were powered by a battery-based uninterruptable power supply.

This testing chamber in its unadorned state is a rather imposing steel cube without windows, so to make it more welcoming the walls and ceiling were covered with a tan-colored muslin fabric, antistatic carpeting was installed on the floor, and comfortable furniture was placed inside the chamber. The computer presented a strip-chart display updated once a second with the spectral-ratio R values. Participants were invited to look at the graph to gain near real-time feedback about their performance, or to view an alternative meter-type display showing the same information.

Get the PDF here.

This is a mind-blowing result and I look forward to it being replicated. If this is repeatable, it will change the world. If not, it will go down in history as another example of a paranormal researcher missing a confounding factor in an experimental design. In either case, it is a good reminder to get back to my daily meditation. The first thing I would do is repeat the experiment and for the first half, have people obey the computer, but for the second half have them do the option they are not told to do by the computer. The reason is, the computer itself (amount of output on the screen from different instructions, etc.) may be influencing the result.

Tuna carry Fukushima radiation to California

Tuna probably aren’t the only migratory species carrying radiation from the Fukushima disaster

The levels might not be high enough to harm you if you tucked into a tuna sandwich, but some tuna are still carrying radioactive caesium from the leak at the Fukushima Daiichi plant last March. Researchers hope that similarly low levels of radiation in turtles, sea birds and sharks will allow the migration patterns of little-studied species to be tracked.

Daniel Madigan, a marine biologist at Stanford University in California, was already studying how Pacific bluefin tuna (Thunnus orientalis) migrate across the Pacific Ocean when the Japanese tsunami put a new twist on his experiment.

The leak at the Fukushima Daiichi reactor released caesium isotopes into the Pacific, and fish can pick up the radioactive material from the water they swim in and from the food they eat.

Juvenile tuna can take between one and four months to swim the 9000 kilometres from Japan to California. The researchers measured caesium isotopes in young tuna caught off the coast of San Diego, and found detectable levels of caesium-134 in 15 fish. The isotope could not be detected in fish that were caught before 2011.

Because caesium-134 has a half-life of two years, Madigan expects that researchers will be able to find it in the long-lived fish for some time to come. Tuna migration patterns are well known, he says, but the radiation may be useful in tracking other species such as salmon sharks (Lamna ditropis). If these sharks behave as researchers suspect they do, the migratory males would carry Fukushima radiation, but the stationary females would not.

via Tuna carry Fukushima radiation to California – life – 28 May 2012 – New Scientist.

Mystery of the one-in-a-million ‘Frankenstein fish’

An angler has claimed to have caught a one-in-a-million “Frankenstein fish” which appears to be up of three different species.

Mark Sawyer, 53, said he was fishing for carp when he hooked the odd-looking specimen, which he initially thought was a common brown goldfish.

But on closer inspection he found it appeared to have the head of a roach, the body and tail of a brown goldfish and the rear fin of a bream.

Mr Sawyer, who works as the tackle editor for trade magazine the Angling Times, photographed it before throwing it back into Magpie Lake in Cambridge.

He said: “I have shown the picture to a number of marine boffins who say it is definitely the result of mixed parentage.

“I have caught thousands and thousands of fish but have never seen anything like it before. It is a proper oddity.

“The head resembles more of a roach, its lips aren’t quite right. It has the body of a normal goldfish, its anal fin resembles a bream and the tail is of a fan-tailed goldfish.”

Dr Paul Garner, a fisheries ecologist, described the fish as truly one-off and said: “I have never seen one in the UK before. It must be at least a one-in-a-million fish and the odds of actually catching it are even greater than that.

“Fan-tailed goldfish aren’t indigenous to this country and they are not stocked in our fisheries or lakes.

“This means that the parent of this fish would have had to have been released into a fishery, probably by somebody who had it in their garden pond as a pet.

“At some point that fish has mated with a common carp and this hybrid fish in the result.

“The head in more carp but the back end and extended fins and tail belong to fan-tailed goldfish.

“Goldfish and carp and from the same family of fish and it would not be uncommon for them to come together.

“What is very unusual, however, is for a fisherman to catch one of their offspring.”

He added one of its parents is likely to have been a fan-tailed goldfish that had been kept in a garden pond and released into a waterway.

“Fan-tailed goldfish aren’t indigenous to this country and they are not stocked in our fisheries or lakes,” he said.

via Mystery of the one-in-a-million ‘Frankenstein fish’ – Telegraph.

 

Stray dog becomes a sensation in China after following cyclists for more than 1600 kilometres over 20 days

When a group of Chinese cyclists threw a stray dog a bone, little did they know that they were at the start of an epic journey that makes Lassie Come Home look like a walk in the park.

The cyclists, on a 1000-mile (1600-kilometre) expedition from Chengdu to Lhasa, came across the small white mongrel in the mountains around Yajiang, a Tibetan area of Sichuan, five days after starting out.

One of the riders, 22-year-old Xiao Yong, tossed the dog a chicken drumstick. To his surprise, it began to follow them – and stayed the course for 20 days to become a sensation in China.

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The dog – since named Xiao Sa, or Little Sa – climbed 12 mountains higher than 13,000ft, and stuck with the group during heavy storms. Indeed, as cyclist after cyclist dropped out, exhausted by the steep mountains and the thin air of the Tibetan plateau, the dog kept him and his colleagues going, said Mr Xiao.

“There was one day when we climbed the 14,700ft-tall peak of Anjiala mountain,” he said.

“We did more than 40 miles uphill and at the end I had to get off my bike and push. The dog ran ahead of me and stopped at a crossroads.

“She waited for a while, but got bored because I took so long, so ran back, put her paws on my calves, and started licking me.”

He said the dog had enough energy to run with the cyclists for at least 30 to 40 miles a day, although he would occasionally carry it in a box on the back of his bike. At night, Xiao Sa slept on the cyclists’ raincoats – and would share in their rations, being fed custard tarts, boiled eggs and sausages.

There were some fierce encounters with other dogs along the way. “Once, a large dog started chasing us along a series of dark tunnels and his barking drew a whole pack of others,” said Mr Xiao.

“I put Xiao Sa on my bike and started peddling desperately.

“One of my bags was ripped, but otherwise we got away.” …

via Stray dog becomes a sensation in China after following cyclists for more than 1600 kilometres over 20 days.

This reminds me of the story not long ago that our species may have won against Neanderthal Man due to our ability to form hunting relationships with wild dogs.

Man’s relationship with his best friend has lasted 32,000 years, with cave-dwelling hunter-gatherers using dogs to carry supplies so that they could save their energy for hunting.

The bond between man and dog arose at around the time Neanderthals began to surrender their dominance over Europe, which had lasted for the previous 250,000 years.

Now experts have suggested the domestication of dogs, and the benefit it gave to their masters, could have played a key rule in the demise of the Neanderthals and supremacy of humans.

Excavations of early human dwellings suggest the animals were revered by our ancestors, with their teeth adorning jewellery and their images occasionally painted on walls, the Daily Mail reported.

Dogs, which at the time would have been at least the size of German Shepherds, could have helped humans by transporting meat and other supplies from one place to another, removing an energy burden from their masters which would have given them an advantage when hunting. … – link

 

Driverless cars follow each other on freeway

The trailing vehicles are able to speed up, slow down and turn in sequence with the leader, allowing drivers of the cars to ”spend their time doing other things while driving, like work on their laptops, read a book or sit back and enjoy a relaxed lunch”, Volvo says.

The follow-the-leader project is part of a three-year trial to see whether the technology has any benefits on crowded, rush-hour roads, where drivers are typically stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

”People think that autonomous driving is science fiction, but the fact is that the technology is already here,” Volvo-based Safe Road Trains for the Environment project manager Linda Wahlstrom says.

The project also aims to improve traffic safety, cut fuel use and – because it controls speed – cut down on the risk of increasing congestion.

The project, started in 2009 and expected to be completed this year, has already covered more than 10,000 kilometres of trials.

While this phase of the trial has focused on how the technology works on real roads rather than just the test track, the next phase is expected to look at the project’s fuel-saving benefits.

via Driverless cars follow each other on freeway.

Dying man finds support on World of Warcraft

In the game of World of Warcraft, Patrice Anseline is a level 85 Blood Elf Death Knight called Sackmagraph, of the Dath’Remar Horde’s Hydra guild.

In reality, he is a Victorian father-of-three who is facing the painful truth that he may soon die from prostate cancer, which has reached the lining of the brain and is inoperable.

Mr Anseline, 51, lives a dual life: doctors’ exams and precious family time during the day, fighting dragons and trolls for hours at night — often falling asleep with the mouse in his hand.

He recently revealed to his friends in the World of Warcraft community that doctors have told him he does not have much longer to live.

“I told them … I’ve got some bad news,” he said. “A few people stopped playing and they just said to me, ‘What, are you serious’.

“They used the word Eminance, that’s my other nickname on World of Warcraft, and they said, ‘Eminance, we are going to pray for you at church’.”

Mr Anseline, who lives with his family in Moe, said he and other players with cancer were using the game as a support group.

“At the end of the day World of Warcraft is a game. But the difference between it and other games is it is a game that includes social interaction,” he said.

He created a thread in a World of Warcraft forum about his illness and several others affected by cancer came forward.

Cyndilou, a level 71 Undead Rogue, posted on the thread: “I am battling breast cancer. Going on my third year of treatments, but I am doing great now … My husband bought us WoW to give me something to take my mind off my pains, and it worked much better than we ever expected.”

Another player, a level 85 Blood Elf named Caibhe, wrote: “In 2003 I was diagnosed with kidney cancer … I’ve been in remission for around eight years now and to me having cancer isn’t like any other disease. I have made friends and shared laughs.

“To me it’s a brotherhood that you enter on a journey at first alone and scared but come out with friends and a better life.” …

via Dying man finds support on World of Warcraft.

Thanks to greed that makes money more important than a safe healthy environment, many more of us will need to take our minds off of dying from cancer, so this is good to know.  I’ll more likely spend my last days researching cures as John Kanzius did.

Kanzius RF Therapy is an experimental cancer treatment that employs a combination of either gold or carbon nanoparticles and radio waves to heat and destroy cancer cells without damaging healthy cells.^[3][7][8]

The specific absorption rate for radio waves by living tissue in the proposed wavelengths and intensity levels is very low. Metals absorb this energy much more efficiently than tissue through dielectric heating; Richard Smalley has suggested that carbon nanotubes could be used to similar purpose.^[9] If nanoparticles were to be preferentially bound to cancer sites, cancer cells could be destroyed or induced into apoptosis while leaving healthy tissue relatively unharmed.^[10] This preferential targeting represents a major technical challenge. According to a presentation by Dr. Steven Curley, the types of cancer potentially treatable using Kanzius RF therapy include essentially all forms of cancer.^[11]

Kanzius built a prototype Kanzius RF device in his home, and formed Therm Med., LLC to test and market his inventions.^[12][13] The device was successfully tested at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in 2005.^[4] As of 2007-04-23, preliminary research using the device at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center^[3][14][15] and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center^[12] has shown early promise. If federal approval is granted, testing on human patients may follow.^[6][10][16] An article published in late 2010 illustrates that radiofrequency fields induce intracellular hyperthermia and necrosis in pancreatic tumors without injury to the human pancreatic tissue grafts tested.^[17]

 

Cannibalism is legal in Japan, so cook serves own genitals at banquet In Tokyo

… Mao Sugiyama, a self-described “asexual” from Tokyo, cooked up, seasoned and served his own genitalia to five diners at a swanky banquet in Japan last month, Calorie Lab reported.

In most cases, “asexual” is a word used to describe a person who is non-sexual. Sugiyama, however, embraces it as a way to show that he does not affiliate with either gender.

Sugiyama sparked a firestorm of interest on April 8 with one tweet:

“[Please retweet] I am offering my male genitals (full penis, testes, scrotum) as a meal for 100,000 yen …Will prepare and cook as the buyer requests, at his chosen location.”

Just days after Sugiyama’s 22nd birthday, the artist underwent elective genital-removal surgery, divvied up the severed penis shaft, testicles, and scrotal skin between five people, and garnished it with button mushrooms and Italian parsley.

On April 13, five of six diners who signed up for the $250-a-plate feast, sat down to dinner. The sixth person was a no-show.

The next day, an organizer posted a blog — subsequently deleted — containing pictures of the event. Images showed dozens of people who attended the event just to catch a glimpse of the rare treat.

The extra diners were served crocodile-based dishes while Sugiyama cooked up the exclusive meal.

The story went viral in Japan. Some showed even more interest, while others complained. But Calorie Lab called Japanese authorities, who deemed the banquet legal because there is no law against cannibalism in the country. …

via Mao Sugiyama Cooks, Serves Own Genitals At Banquet In Tokyo (GRAPHIC PHOTOS).

Radiation poisoning is causing people to go crazy in Tokyo, it seems.