We Feel Your Pain: Extreme Empaths
“HORROR films are simply a disconcerting watch for the majority of us, but for Jane Barrett they are literally torturous. She writhes in agony whenever the actors on the screen feel pain. ‘When I see violence in films I have an extreme reaction,’ she says. “I simply have to close my eyes. I start to feel nauseous and have to breathe deeply.”‘
She is just one of many people who suffer from a range of disorders that give rise to ‘extreme empathy’. Some of these people, like Barrett, empathise so strongly with others that they experience the same physical feelings – whether it’s the tickle of a feather or the cut of a knife. Others, who suffer from a disorder known as echopraxia, just can’t help immediately imitating the actions of others, even in inappropriate situations.
Far from being mere curiosities, understanding these conditions could have many pay-offs for neuroscience, such as illuminating conditions like phantom pain. They may even help answer the age-old question of whether empathy really is linked to compassion.”
Read more at New Scientist (thanks, Tiram)
Derek Paravicini: Extraordinary Savant
Lesley Stahl catches up with Derek Paravicini, an extraordinary savant with an incredible musical talent.
Woman Aims To Become World’s Fattest
“An obese mother in the US is trying to put on weight in order to become the world’s fattest woman.
Donna Simpson, from New Jersey, weighs 273kg but told the Daily Mail newspaper she had her heart set on reaching her goal weight of 1000lb (450kg) in two years.
The 42-year-old already holds the title of the world’s fattest mother after giving birth to her daughter in 2007 when she weighed 241kg.
“I’d love to be 1000lb … it might be hard though, running after my daughter keeps my weight down,” Ms Simpson told the Daily Mail.
Ms Simpson, who needs a mobility scooter to go shopping, eats huge amounts of junk food each week and tries to move as little as possible so she doesn’t burn off as many calories.”
Read more at 9 News
World’s First Genderless Person Officially Recognised
“A British expat who claims to have no gender is thought to have become the first person to be officially recognised as neither male or female.
Norrie May-Welby, 48, was born a man but had a sex change operation in 1990, at the age of 28.
After becoming unhappy as a woman, May-Welby decided to become a “neuter”. The 48-year-old is now officially recognised as a person of no specific gender.
May-Welby emigrated to Australia at the age of seven after being born in Paisley, Renfrewshire.
Officials there altered the Briton’s birth certificate to include the new no-gender classification after doctors were apparently unable to determine the sex of the expat’s body.”
Read more at The Telegraph (thanks, Tiram)
Early 20th Century ‘Spirit’ Photographs
“These photographs of ’spirits’ are taken from an album of photographs unearthed in a Lancashire second-hand and antiquarian bookshop by one of the Museum’s curators. They were taken by a controversial medium called William Hope (1863-1933). Born in 1863 in Crewe, Hope started his working life as a carpenter. In about 1905 he became interested in spirit photography after capturing the supposed image of a ghost while photographing a friend. He went on to found the Crewe Circle – a group of six spirit photographers led by Hope. When Archbishop Thomas Colley joined the group they began to publicise their work. Following World War I support for the Crewe Circle grew as the grieving relatives of those lost to the war sought a means of contacting their loved ones. By 1922 Hope had moved to London where he became a professional medium. The work of the Crew Circle was investigated on various occasions. The most famous of these took place in 1922, when the Society for Psychical Research sent Harry Price to investigate the group. Price collected evidence that Hope was substituting glass plates bearing ghostly images in order to produce his spirit photographs. Later the same year Price published his findings, exposing Hope as a fraudster. However, many of Hope’s most ardent supporters spoke out on his behalf, the most famous being Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Hope continued to practice, despite his exposure. He died in London on 7 March 1933.”
Read more at Moolf (thanks, SuZi)
Einstein’s Theory Of Relativity On Display
“JERUSALEM — There are pasted-on half pages, numerous cross-outs and insertions in meticulous penmanship and an open acknowledgment that some of the mathematics was beyond even him. Albert Einstein personally rewrote the laws of physics in a sparsely furnished central Berlin apartment nearly a century ago and the resulting manuscript, profoundly human and surprisingly moving to examine, has been put on display here for the first time.
Each of the 46 pages, labored over between November 1915 and their publication in May 1916, has its own case, each lighted dimly in a room that has been darkened to protect the paper. There on Page 1 is the now familiar title in German: “The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity.”
The display of the work, which forced a redefinition of gravity, predicted the existence of black holes and illuminated how galaxies are formed, is at the center of the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Out of concern for the life of the documents, it will be up only for the next three weeks.”
Read more at the NY Times
Da Vinci’s Huge Horse Statue Proven Feasible
“‘Il Cavallo,’ the huge equine statue Leonardo Da Vinci never got to make, wasn’t plagued by technical problems as was widely believed, a new multidisciplinary research has revealed.
On the contrary, Da Vinci’s plan for the largest equestrian statue in the world was a perfectly feasible project which, if completed, would have probably been his greatest legacy, more than ”The Last Supper” or any other work.
Commissioned in 1482 by Lodovico Sforza, duke of Milan, in honor of his father Francesco, the massive bronze horse took Leonardo 17 years of research, but was never completed.
Indeed, when the full-scale clay model was finally ready to be cast in a single operation in 1499, all the needed bronze was used to make cannons for an imminent war against the King of France.
The molds were lost and the clay model was reduced to rubble by the invading French soldiers.
Although Leonardo never stopped mourning the ‘horse-that-never-was,’ engineers have always believed the daring plan to make the largest single-pouring cast ever would have failed because of technical problems.”
Read more at Discovery News (thanks, ReliegiousMarie)
Real-Life Flat Earthers Still Continue To Believe
“Daniel Shenton should be the most irrational man in the world. As the new president of the Flat Earth Society, you’d imagine he would also think that evolution is a scam and global warming a myth. He should argue that smoking does not cause cancer and HIV does not lead to Aids.
Yes, that Flat Earth Society, a group that has become a living metaphor for backward thinking and a refusal to face scientific facts. Yes, it is still going, and no, this isn’t an early April fool.
In fact, Shenton turns out to have resolutely mainstream views on most issues. The 33-year-old American, originally from Virginia but now living and working in London, is happy with the work of Charles Darwin. He thinks the evidence for man-made global warming is strong, and he dismisses suggestions that his own government was involved with the 9/11 terrorist attacks.”
Read more at The Guardian
Wonders of the Solar System with Brian Cox
Coming in March is a new series about the solar system from wonderful Professor Brian Cox. I’ll be watching.
Thanks Anthony
How Your Brain Tells Time
“In the middle of your brain, there’s a personal assistant the size of a grain of rice. It’s a group of about 20,000 brain cells that keeps your body’s daily schedule.
Partly in response to light signals from the retina, this group of neurons sends signals to other parts of the brain and the rest of the body to help control things like sleep, metabolism, immune system activity, body temperature and hormone production on a schedule slightly longer than 24 hours.
Daniel Forger, a mathematics professor at the University of Michigan who uses math to study biological processes, wants to understand this brain region, called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) in excruciating detail. He is building a mathematical model of the entire structure that he thinks will shed important light on our circadian rhythm, and perhaps lead to treatments for disorders like depression and insomnia, and even diseases influenced by the internal clock like heart disease, Alzheimer’s and cancer.”
Read more at Forbes.com
