Science & Technology

Why being left-handed matters for treatment of mental health problems

Cornell University
Science Daily
Mon, 18 Jun 2018 00:00 UTC

Treatment for the most common mental health problems could be ineffective or even detrimental to about 50 percent of the population, according to a radical new model of emotion in the brain.

Since the 1970s, hundreds of studies have suggested that each hemisphere of the brain is home to a specific type of emotion. Emotions linked to approaching and engaging with the world -- like happiness, pride and anger -- lives in the left side of the brain, while emotions associated with avoidance -- like disgust and fear -- are housed in the right.

But those studies were done almost exclusively on right-handed people. That simple fact has given us a skewed understanding of how emotion works in the brain, according to Daniel Casasanto, associate professor of human development and psychology at Cornell University.

That longstanding model is, in fact, reversed in left-handed people, whose emotions like alertness and determination are housed in the right side of their brains, Casasanto suggests in a new study. Even more radical: The location of a person's neural systems for emotion depends on whether they are left-handed, right-handed or somewhere in between, the research shows.

Scientist creates 'ideal human' using animal parts in attempt overcome 'evolutionary glitches' in the human body

Luke Holohan
RT
Wed, 20 Jun 2018 18:11 UTC

The enhanced human body created by Professor Alice Roberts and a team of designers

As walking, talking mammals, humans sit atop of the evolutionary ladder. But would life be better with emu legs, frog skin and a dog's heart? Anatomist Alice Roberts explains to RT her far-out quest for the 'perfect human body'.

The evolutionary journey from apes to the upwardly mobile and chatty homosapiens of today has been impressive but not entirely plain sailing. Cartilage in knee joints degrade with every passing decade, the heart's pulmonary arteries are open to attack from fatty plaque, while the plumbing within a human neck is a choking hazard waiting to happen.

All these design flaws are tackled in the latest project by University of Birmingham anatomist Alice Roberts in her "weird artistic" attempt to explore the evolution of the world's most complex creatures.

The result is a rather freakish looking 3D printed version of Roberts, complete with a chimp's spine, octopus refined retinas, pointed ears, and the legs of a speeding emu bird.

MIT researchers create a brain and gesture-controlled robot

RT
Wed, 20 Jun 2018 14:36 UTC

Learning from your mistakes takes a while, even if you're a machine. But new MIT robots can now understand their mistakes and correct them by reading the human mind and deciphering gestures.

Harnessing the power of thought, an MIT laboratory has developed brand-new technology that operates on a mixture of muscle and brain signals. It uses a Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) system to make controlling robots more intuitive. The system recognizes both hand gestures and brainwaves to 'feel' when you notice an erroneous action, and to allow a human to instantly correct it with the flick of a finger.

The research, supervised by CSAIL Director Daniela Rus, will be presented at the Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS) conference in Pittsburgh next week. A humanoid robot called Baxter, manufactured by Boston-based Rethink Robotics, was used to demonstrate the advantages of the new hybrid system.

Cancer trials of drugs tend to leave black men out due to biological factors

Ian Graber-Stiehl
New Scientist
Wed, 20 Jun 2018 13:06 UTC

Prostate cancer is 60 per cent more common in African Americans than in Caucasians, and black Americans are twice as likely to die from the disease when they get it. Yet black men are less likely to be included in clinical trials of drugs for the disease - and accidental biases against their biology seem to be partly to blame.

Speaking at a meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology in Chicago this month, Susan Halabi, of Duke University, says her team found that only 12 per cent of the participants in phase 3 clinical trials - the type of late stage trial that is most crucial for drug approval - are black men. This is despite black men making up around 15 per cent of the male population in the US.

Social and cultural factors have long been blamed for lower participation in clinical trials by black men, but researchers are beginning to understand that the way prostate cancer trials are conducted may also be biologically biased against black men.

When researchers establish clinical trials, they will decide upon exclusion criteria. These are usually health issues that could skew a trial's findings on any ill effects a novel drug may have. The idea is that, by testing a new treatment in the fittest possible individuals who have a particular condition, the trial has the best chance of detecting any positive effects. Results can then be generalised to the rest of the population.

The effects of sexy people on your intelligence

PsyBlog
Sun, 17 Jun 2018 00:00 UTC

The effect of hot people on your cognitive abilities, revealed by research.

People become cognitively impaired in the presence of an attractive member of the opposite sex, research finds.

The drop in intelligence is particularly strong for men.

The more attractive the woman, the more men's test scores plummeted, psychologists found.

It may be because men are so concerned about making a good impression that they have few mental resources left over for anything else.

The study involved people talking to members of the opposite sex before completing cognitive tests.

Comment: And for this information we needed a scientifically conducted study??

Anthropogenic global warming is a premeditated crime against science

Dr. Tim Ball
Watts Up With That?
Mon, 18 Jun 2018 20:11 UTC

I dedicate this column to the memory and work of Vincent Gray, one of the earliest and most effective critics of the deliberate deception that human CO2 is causing global warming. He knew what was wrong because he was an expert reviewer of the Science Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He was among the first to identify the failure to validate any climate models. Here is how he explained the problem in his 2002 The Greenhouse Delusion.

"The whole point is, that a computer-based mathematical model of any process or system is useless unless it has been validated. Validation of such a model involves the testing of each equation and the study of each parameter, to discover its statistically based accuracy using a range of numerically based probability distributions, standard deviations, correlation coefficients, and confidence limits. The final stage is a thorough test of the model's ability to predict the result of changes in the model parameters over the entire desired range."

As a response to my comment that no model has ever been validated, they changed the title in Climate Models - Evaluation" no less than fifty times. There is not even a procedure in any IPCC publication describing what might need to be done in order to validate a model."

"Instead of validation, and the traditional use of mathematical statistics, the models are "evaluated" purely from the opinion of those who devised them."

Comment: See also: An engineer debunks claims of man-made CO2 causing arctic and antarctic melting

Mars will be closer to Earth than it has in 15 years - Here's how to spot it

Joe Pinkstone
Daily Mail
Mon, 18 Jun 2018 15:20 UTC

As mankind is gearing up to land on Mars, the red planet is orbiting closer to Earth than it has done in more than a decade. Known as perihelic opposition, it means Mars will appear larger than normal in the night sky

Mars is set to balloon in size in the night sky next month, as the red planet orbits closer to Earth than it has done in over a decade.

Throughout the month of July, the orbit of Mars and Earth will align in a rare phenomenon known as perihelic opposition.

This occurs when Mars reaches its closest point to the sun at the same time as Earth's orbit brings it directly between the two.

As a result of the phenomenon, Mars will be closer to Earth than it has been for 15 years, making it appear almost three times larger than normal in the night sky.

Perihelic opposition, which will also make the red planet appear brighter, can be seen with the naked eye.

Stargazers all over the world will be able to see the red planet, although those in the southern hemisphere will get the best view.

Comment: See also:

Also check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: The Electric Universe - An interview with Wallace Thornhill

New paper on the 'hard problem of consciousness'

Chris Mahon
Outer Places
Mon, 18 Jun 2018 13:41 UTC

Ready to have your mind blown?

A new paper published in The Journal of Consciousness Studies claims that consciousness isn't a unique property of humans-rather, the entire universe is conscious, and humans are all manifestations of its multiple personalities.

The proposition, based on research into dissociative identity disorder in humans, is meant to solve a perennial problem in philosophy: the "hard problem" of finding where consciousness comes from and understanding its true nature.

The hard problem of consciousness can be summed up like this:

Humans are made up of a bunch of matter (atoms) that organizes itself into biological systems (sensory organs, the brain, etc.), but if humans are just assemblies of various systems, why are we able to reflect on those systems and have individual, subjective experiences?

Why aren't we unthinking automatons?

Elites work with Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan on complete smart city (VIDEO)

Aaron & Melissa Dykes
Activist Post
Fri, 15 Jun 2018 00:00 UTC

Outside of their obvious geopolitical influence and machinations, the Bilderberg Group is firmly entrenched in the push by global tech elites toward Artificial Intelligence, quantum computing and smart technology.

Aaron and Melissa Dykes cover Bilderberg's designs for the complete smart city digital grid of the future and where freedom is headed under such centralized management of every human movement and activity.

Giant viruses invent genes found no where else on Earth

Mindy Weisberger
Live Science
Wed, 13 Jun 2018 06:17 UTC

Giant viruses may invent genes and proteins found nowhere else on Earth, new research suggests.

As their name implies, giant viruses are big - as big as bacteria, and more than twice the size of typical viruses, scientists have previously reported. Giant viruses have more complex genomes than some simple microbial organisms, and many of their genes code for proteins found only in giant viruses, according to past studies.

These so-called orphan genes puzzled scientists, but a new study may suggest where they come from. In three new species of Pandoraviruses - a family of giant viruses described in 2013 - these genes originated in the viruses themselves. The giant viruses were like factories, churning out novel genes and proteins - though the origin and purpose of this prolific gene creation is still a mystery, the study authors wrote.

Even before the discovery of giant viruses, viruses occupied a questionable position on the tree of life: They contain much of the cellular material found in living organisms, including DNA or RNA, but they lack cell structure and cannot replicate outside a host - two key criteria for defining life.

This article is irrelevant. Hunter Biden was scheduled to be executed through hanging on Friday Oct. 15 at GITMO. Wake Up SOTT.net! [Link]

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Science & Technology

Why being left-handed matters for treatment of mental health problems

Scientist creates 'ideal human' using animal parts in attempt overcome 'evolutionary glitches' in the human body

MIT researchers create a brain and gesture-controlled robot

Cancer trials of drugs tend to leave black men out due to biological factors

The effects of sexy people on your intelligence

Anthropogenic global warming is a premeditated crime against science

Mars will be closer to Earth than it has in 15 years - Here's how to spot it

New paper on the 'hard problem of consciousness'

Elites work with Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan on complete smart city (VIDEO)

Giant viruses invent genes found no where else on Earth

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