New Darwin Centre at the Natural History Museum
More shots of what is on at the new Darwin Centre opening in September here
Fry Your Brain – electroshock therapy
The Chinese government has banned electroshock therapy as a treatment for Internet addiction after one psychiatrist administered electric currents to nearly 3,000 teenagers. When did we realize that you could shock someone to make them less crazy?
In the 1930s. The idea originated with the theory that an inverse relationship existed between schizophrenia and epilepsy, since schizophrenics rarely had epilepsy and epileptics were rarely schizophrenic. This observation led a Hungarian neurologist named Ladislas Meduna to experiment with chemically induced seizure as a treatment for psychotic patients. (Doctors had been using convulsive therapy to cure madness as early as the 16th century, when Swiss physician Paracelsus gave a patient camphor to induce seizures. But Meduna was unaware of the precedent.)
The approach was effective, but the drugs took a while to kick in and were considered dangerous. A few years later, a psychiatrist named Ugo Cerletti managed to achieve the same effects using only an electric current. He first tested electroshock therapy on a human in 1938 on a vagrant he found in a Rome train station. Before treatment, the patient spoke only gibberish. After a series of high-voltage bursts, according to Cerletti, he began talking.
New element named ‘copernicium’
Discovered 13 years ago, and officially added to the periodic table just weeks ago, element 112 finally has a name. It will be called “copernicium”, with the symbol Cp, in honour of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus.
Copernicus deduced that the planets revolved around the Sun, and finally refuted the belief that the Earth was the centre of the Universe. The team of scientists who discovered the element chose the name to honour the man who “changed our world view”.
Scientists from the Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Germany, led by Professor Sigurd Hofmann, discovered copernicium in fusion experiments in 1996.
“After IUPAC officially recognised our discovery, we agreed on proposing the name (because) we would like to honour an outstanding scientist,” said Professor Hofmann.
Copernicus was born 1473 in Torun, Poland. His finding that the planets circle the sun underpins much of modern science. It was pivotal for the discovery of gravity, and led to the conclusion that the stars are incredibly far away and that the Universe is inconceivably large.
Under IUPAC rules, the team were not allowed to name the element after a living person. But when asked if, rules aside, he would have liked to have “hofmanium” added to the periodic table, Professor Hofmann told BBC News: “No, I think copernicium sounds much better.”
BBC3 Bullsh!t – Mediums
Rather amusing. Thanks Chrisie
Friday Fun: Matchbox Trick with James Randi
This is a 2 minute teaser of an interview conducted with magician, sceptic and author James Randi (randi.org) on 20th April 2008 exclusively for The Skeptic Magazine (UK). The video features Randi discussing and demonstrating a magic trick from one of Martin Gardner’s books, which somehow fooled scientists on initial observation.
The full 52 minute interview will be released to coincide with the circulation of the relaunch issue of The Skeptic, in late July or early August 2009.
Enjoy.
Light painting
Painting with light in photo format isn’t all that new – there’s examples of Dali and Picasso messing with it. But recently its taken off with rather wonderful results that are really pushing the boundaries.
More over at Abduzeedo
Why information is its own reward – same neurones signal thirst for water, knowledge
Discovering a previously elusive fact or soaking up a finely crafted argument can be as pleasurable as eating a fine meal when hungry or dousing a thirst with drink. This isn’t just a fanciful analogy – a new study suggests that the same neurons that process the primitive physical rewards of food and water also signal the more abstract mental rewards of information.
Humans generally don’t like being held in suspense when a big prize is on the horizon. If we get wind of a raise or a new job, we like to get advance information about what’s in store. It turns out that monkeys feel the same way and like us, they find that information about a reward is rewarding in itself.
Ethan Bromberg-Martin and Okihide Hikosaka trained two thirsty rhesus monkeys to choose between two targets on a screen with a flick of their eyes; in return, they randomly received either a large drink or a small one after a few seconds. Their choice of target didn’t affect which drink they received, but it did affect whether they got prior information about the size of their reward. One target brought up another symbol that told them how much water they would get, while the other brought up a random symbol.
Full report over at: Not exactly rocket science
From Australopithecus to Homo sapiens in 5 minutes (Mute sound first!)
PLEASE – do yourself a favour and turn the sound OFF – NOW. I’m almost willing to throw the towel in admit that creationists are right when I hear it. However the video is just brilliant (if you ignore the silly text as well). I’ve posted this in response to the last comments around the Dawkins video where he’s “pointing at some blue lines” and related comments – well there’s a reason why there are the lines. Here’s 500 generations every SECOND backed up by actual fossil evidence – shoved in to a computer and animated together. It’s fantastic to watch.
From Australopithecus to Homo sapiens in 5 minutes.
We’re nicking all this from the Atheist Media blog of recent so thanks to them for this as it’s a great example of the solid proof we have of evolution as a solid theory. Having lived with a palaeontologist for the last 3 months it’s refreshing to not hear him scream “do you want me to show you all 9000 bits of evidence in a row to show you there are no gaps at all?” every time I try and wind him up with a bit of creationist “theory”. Apparently this is quite recent that we’ve filled in all the holes but was always assumed (it’s actually more than 9000 if you count every frame it’s more like 112000 generations).
Arctic sea full of huge blobs of floating ‘goo’
Huge blobs of mysterious “goo” are floating in the Arctic sea off the coast of Alaska, according to local reports. Hunters from the Alaskan coastal town of Wainwright first noticed the dark, shiny substance floating for miles in the icy Arctic waters of the Chukchi sea.
The odorous substance, which has been described variously as “goey”, “gunky” and “hairy” has been also been found of the coast of Barrow, 72 miles north east of Wainwright. Samples of the huge “gobs of gunk” were taken on Friday by officials from the North Slope Borough, who flew out to Wainwright with the US Coast Guard to investigate. Jelly fish and a dead goose were found tangled up in stands of the substance.
The “goo”, which is believed to be formed of organic matter, is reportedly floating in strands of up to 15-miles long. The US Coast Guard told the Anchorage Daily Newsthat the strange find is not an oil product or a hazardous substance of any kind. ”It’s definitely, by the smell and make-up of it, some sort of naturally occurring organic or otherwise marine organism,” said Petty Officer 1st Class Terry Hasenauer.
Adult brain can rewire within seconds
Our brains can rewire themselves in just seconds to compensate for a break in incoming data, suggesting they are even more flexible than previously thought.
We already knew that the brain is constantly adapting throughout our lives, for example by generating new neurons well into adulthood. But just how quickly can it adapt – and does it always involve creating new circuits?
To investigate these questions, Daniel Dilks and his colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology took advantage of the blind spots that occur naturally in our eyes where the optic nerve exits the retina. The brain normally combines images captured by both eyes to fill in the resulting gaps in vision, but Dilks prevented this in 48 volunteers by patching one eye.
