Pinpoint THIS

Neuroscientists Find Famous Optical Illusion Surprisingly Potent
Released: 6/28/2011 11:00 AM EDT
Source: University of Rochester
Newswise — Scientists have come up with new insight into the brain processes that cause the following optical illusion...

There follows a link  to a youtube video which clearly demonstrates this effect---after a certain kind of motion your brain continues to see that motion in things which are NOT actually moving. Aristotle noticed this "optical illusion."

Now a scientist at the University of Rochester has pinpointed an area of the brain where this illusion originates. According to the article scientists are carrying on research to determine if this illusion is beneficial.

What they neglected to look for was an area of the brain where the effect that '"any explanation whatsoever" makes a researcher feel he has found a sufficient explanation', originates.  

New distance record, new anomalous observations

New news item about a distant quasar observed, this time pushing back our ability to observe the early universe further than ever before -- with this quasar (named ULAS J1120+0641) we in effect can see the universe as it existed at an age which is 5% of its current age. We excerpt the Science Daily write up:

...The observations show that the mass of the black hole at the centre of the new quasar was about two billion times that of the Sun. This very high mass is hard to explain to early on after the Big Bang. Current theories for the growth of supermassive black holes show a slow build up in mass as the compact object pulls in matter from its surroundings. According to these models, the mass of the quasar's black hole is not expected to be higher than one-quarter of the value now determined for ULAS J1120+0641.

The team is now speculating that the existence of such a massive black hole so early on in the history of the Universe means that current models for the growth of these objects may need to be revised....

The Headline and the Content: part 1

With excerpts from the wonderful Big Ideas site, we start a new series, "The Headline and the Content ." In this series we continue our attempt to highlight modern scientific thinking, scientific thought, and the reality which is not always consonant with the goals of the former. Still considering naming this series, The Daily Giggle. Characteristic of our series is the fact the editor may change the formatting (spacing only) of the article highlighted. On with the flow:

The Headline:

HOW LAW WOULD WORK WITHOUT FREE WILL

The Content:

 ....How can courts prescribe sentences that, using scientific data, work to rehabilitate convicts rather than simply incarcerate them? Eagleman proposes 


informing criminals of how their brains work, 


using brain scans to show them which parts activate when they are thinking of committing a crime.


 In this way, he says, they can work to influence their own thought patterns away from bad behavior.

Statistics We Ponder

Of interest to some, a quote:

Scientists estimate about 90 percent of all life on earth still has not been discovered and many unknown treasures are believed to be in places like the Philippines.

Humans were recently thought NOT to have a magnetic sense...Who knew

Usually I just excerpt items but this article is intact. I got it from physorg.com, and they seem to be nice, and I am feeling giddy. And I am not going to say what if being aware beyond words includes a magnetic sense. I have no idea. 

For migratory birds and sea turtles, the ability to sense the Earth's magnetic field is crucial to navigating the long-distance voyages these animals undertake during migration. Humans, however, are widely assumed not to have an innate magnetic sense. Research published in Nature Communications this week by faculty at the University of Massachusetts Medical School shows that a protein expressed in the human retina can sense magnetic fields when implanted into Drosophila, reopening an area of sensory biology in humans for further exploration.

In many migratory animals, the light-sensitive chemical reactions involving the flavoprotein cryptochrome (CRY) are thought to play an important role in the ability to sense the Earth's magnetic field. In the case of Drosophila, previous studies from the Reppert laboratory have shown that the cryptochrome protein found in these flies can function as a light-dependent magnetic sensor.

To test whether the human cryptochrome 2 protein (hCRY2) has a similar magnetic sensory ability, Steven Reppert, MD, the Higgins Family Professor of Neuroscience and chair and professor of neurobiology, graduate student Lauren Foley, and Robert Gegear, PhD, a post doctoral fellow in the Reppert lab now an assistant professor of biology and biotechnology at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, created a transgenic Drosophila model lacking its native cryptochrome protein but expressing hCRY2 instead. Using a behavioral system Reppert's group previously developed, they showed that these transgenic flies were able to sense and respond to an electric-coil-generated magnetic field and do so in a light-dependent manner.

These findings demonstrate that hCRY2 has the molecular capability to function in a magnetic sensing system and may pave the way for further investigation into human magnetoreception. "Additional research on magneto sensitivity in humans at the behavioral level, with particular emphasis on the influence of magnetic field on visual function, rather than non-visual navigation, would be informative," wrote Reppert and his colleagues in the study.
This link is with the article and I include it because it is neat, not because I could find the article above there.
http://reppertlab.org/

Anti-mysteries

The Economist comments on the recent success in keeping antimatter contained for more than seconds. We excerpt a mere paragraph which nicely describes a basic problem regarding anti-matter:

Antimatter cannot be the perfect opposite of matter, otherwise neither would exist at all. If they truly were perfect opposites, equal amounts of the two would have been made in the Big Bang, and they would have annihilated each other long since, leaving only light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation to fill the universe. That galaxies, stars and planets—and physicists to ponder such things—exist therefore means there is a subtle asymmetry between matter and antimatter, and that nature somehow favours the former. Two such asymmetries have indeed been found. But neither is big enough to explain why so much matter has survived. Being able to look at entire anti-atoms might give some further clue.

Part and Black Holes (to the tune of "Night and Day")

Spaceref  has a nice summary of the science news that black holes are not only integral aspects of galaxies, but black holes have always been galactic features -- which some would says shows an organic aspect to galaxies, but not the article we excerpt here, which describes the relation of galaxy and black hole as "symbiotic", like they were not parts of one organism.:

Source: Yale University
Posted Wednesday, June 15, 2011

...[D]etecting the giant black holes thought to lurk at the centers ...[of distant] galaxies has proven ...difficult, [until now.]  [A] team of astronomers has discovered the earliest black holes ever detected, despite the fact that they are hidden from view by their host galaxies. They also measured the average growth rate of the black holes and discovered that they grow and evolve in tandem with their galaxies -- something that astronomers had observed locally but which they knew little about when it came to the early, distant universe.

"This finding tells us there is a symbiotic relationship between black holes and their galaxies that has existed since the dawn of time," said Kevin Schawinski, a Yale astronomer who contributed to the discovery.

The team used a technique called "stacking" in order to detect the incredibly weak signals emitted by the galaxies' central black holes, the farthest of which are 13 billion light-years from Earth. Because of their great distance, astronomers see these black holes as they existed less than one billion years after the Big Bang. (The universe is currently estimated to be about 13.7 billion years old.)

The astronomers focused on more than 250 galaxies, which had previously been detected by the Hubble Space Telescope and which they thought were good candidates for harboring black holes at their centers. They then piled multiple images taken by the orbiting Chandra X-Ray Observatory on top of each other, essentially multiplying the weak X-ray signals created by the black holes as they devoured nearby gas and dust....

Heliopause (heliosheath) a sea of magnetic bubbles perhaps

WHAT a sea of magnetic bubbles would be I really cannot picture, but the old conceptions of this area of the solar system (the boundary between the sun's effect and the rest of the universe,) are being revised, on the basis of data sent back from the Voyager spacecrafts. Computer simulations of what would produce the observed effects suggest "the edge of the solar system (the heliosheath) is not smooth, but filled with a turbulent sea of magnetic bubbles." This is discussed briefly at a Nasa notice which also pointed out  "the picture of this previously unexplored region...[is] critical for understanding how cosmic rays are created and reach near-Earth space... Galactic cosmic rays are of concern for human space travel, in particular during the quiet periods called the solar minimum."

Some supernovae "don’t seem to be powered by known processes"

From Harvard we have an interesting summary of the uses of supernovae, heavily excerpted from the Harvard Gazette.

...a new kind of supernova is at work in recent observations of bright but short-lasting stellar explosions that don’t appear to fit known categories.

Hagai Perets began working on the problem after coming across a description of a 2002 supernova,.... [which] didn’t seem to fit into known categories. Instead of forgetting about it, he dove into past literature, looking for similar supernovas with unexplained characteristics. He found two, from 1885 and 1939.

He eventually tracked down the spectrum of the 1939 supernova on an old photographic glass plate he obtained from the Carnegie Observatories. Spectrums are important because the light coming from stars varies depending on the elements present. By examining spectrums, astronomers can tell what a star is made of and compare that with the composition of others.

... Perets said these stellar death throes are different from known supernovas in several ways. Like ordinary supernovas, they can briefly become the brightest objects in the sky, but they are more short-lived, waxing and waning in a matter of days rather than weeks, as with more typical supernova. They also eject far less material in their explosions and don’t seem to be powered by known processes.

“It’s a very good puzzle,” Perets said. “This is very strange.”

Supernovas are among the most spectacular events in the universe, marking one way that stars end their lives. They can briefly become so bright that they outshine their entire home galaxies. They’re important for another reason as well. Because stars are fueled by nuclear fusion, in which smaller, lighter elements fuse to form heavier elements, they become factories in which heavier elements such as carbon, oxygen, and iron are created. The explosions that destroy stars create even heavier elements and scatter them over large distances to places, including Earth, where they eventually can be used by living things.

Perets said that these new supernovas may result from the explosion of a kind of star called a white dwarf and that such a blast may involve only the star’s upper layers. Because white dwarf stars are smaller and less dense than larger ones, these new explosions may prove to be a source for intermediate elements.

“Maybe it produces a large fraction of the calcium in the universe,” Perets said. “Probably other intermediate elements are produced in higher quantities.”...

Perets said more may be found now that astronomers know how to look for them, producing additional information that may help solve the mystery.

“We’re going to know more about these in the next few years,” Perets said. “It’s going to be a puzzle for theoreticians.”....

The Faint Young Sun Paradox

Following is the text of an article summary in the 02 June 2011 issue of Nature magazine. I just took out the footnotes.

The Sun was fainter when the Earth was young, but the climate was generally at least as warm as today; this is known as the ‘faint young Sun paradox’. Rosing et al claim that the paradox can be resolved by making the early Earth’s clouds and surface less reflective. We show that, even with the strongest plausible assumptions, reducing cloud and surface albedos falls short by a factor of two of resolving the paradox. A temperate Archean climate cannot be reconciled with the low level of CO2 suggested by Rosing et al a stronger greenhouse effect is needed.

"To Life"

Nature, the unparalleled science magazine, reports in their June 2, 2011 issue, about the discovery of multicellular life at subterranean depths which until recently were held to be too hostile for any life, and until last week, too hostile for any but the simplest life forms. The discovery is nematodes from the depths of a gold mine, and they are, says Nature, "the first multicellular organisms to be discovered in such a subterranean setting."

No doubt the details will inspire most to buy or subscribe to this periodical, so I will just quote one paragraph from an editorial in the same issue, which I find a touching tribute to the scientific imagination of the last century:

Zoologists of a certain age will remember with affection Animals Without Backbones, a classic 1938 elementary textbook by Ralph Buchsbaum that quotes a (sadly uncredited) researcher on the ubiquity of nematodes, or roundworms. Were all the matter on Earth, it says, to be made transparent apart from nematodes — the grass, the trees, the people, the animals, even the ground beneath our feet — the shapes of all these things would still be discernible, if ghostly, from their burden of worms.