The electroencephalogram (EEG) is widely used by physicians and scientists to study brain function and to diagnose neurological disorders. However, it has remained largely unknown whether the electrodes on the head give an exact view of what is happening inside the brain.
Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany, have now found a crucial link between the activity generated within the brain to that measured with EEG. These findings will provide a better understanding of the waveforms measured with EEG, and thus potentially allow for a better diagnosis and subsequent treatment of patients.
The electroencephalogram (EEG) has been widely used in research and medicine for more than 80 years. The ability to measure the electrical activity in the brain by means of electrodes on the head is a handy tool to study brain functions as it is noninvasive and easy to apply. The interpretation of the EEG signals remains, however, difficult.
Science & Technology
© Chandra X-ray Observatory
Compilation image of Kepler's Supernova Remnant, SN 1604
Compilation image of Kepler's Supernova Remnant, SN 1604
This breed of explosion has been long predicted, but never before seen. Like all supernovas, the blast is thought to have marked the end of a star's life. But in this case, that star may have started out with 200 times the mass of the sun.
The supernova in question, SN2007bi, was observed in 2007 in a nearby dwarf galaxy. Scientists knew at once it was something different because it was about 50 to 100 times brighter than a typical supernova.
"It was much brighter, and it was bright for a very long time," said researcher Paolo Mazzali of the Max-Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany. "We could observe this thing almost two years after it was discovered, where you normally don't see anything anymore."
After analyzing its signature, astronomers published a paper in the Dec. 3 issue of the journal Nature confirming that it matches theoretical predictions of a so-called pair-instability supernova.
A two-year-old Pentagon program that assigns social scientists to work with military units in Iraq and Afghanistan has come under sharp criticism from a panel of anthropologists who argue that the undertaking is dangerous, unethical and unscholarly.
The committee, which released the report on Thursday at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, the discipline's largest professional group, has been studying the program since its inception in 2007.
The panel concluded that the Pentagon program, called the "Human Terrain System," has two conflicting goals: counterinsurgency and research. Collecting data in the context of war, where coercion and offensive tactics are always potentially present, "can no longer be considered a legitimate professional exercise of anthropology," the report says.
The committee, which released the report on Thursday at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, the discipline's largest professional group, has been studying the program since its inception in 2007.
The panel concluded that the Pentagon program, called the "Human Terrain System," has two conflicting goals: counterinsurgency and research. Collecting data in the context of war, where coercion and offensive tactics are always potentially present, "can no longer be considered a legitimate professional exercise of anthropology," the report says.
© Gareth Fuller/PA
'We don’t have a leader who is able to grasp [the issue] and say what is really needed. Instead we are trying to continue business as usual,' says James Hansen.
'We don’t have a leader who is able to grasp [the issue] and say what is really needed. Instead we are trying to continue business as usual,' says James Hansen.
The scientist who convinced the world to take notice of the looming danger of global warming says it would be better for the planet and for future generations if next week's Copenhagen climate change summit ended in collapse.
In an interview with the Guardian, James Hansen, the world's pre-eminent climate scientist, said any agreement likely to emerge from the negotiations would be so deeply flawed that it would be better to start again from scratch.
"I would rather it not happen if people accept that as being the right track because it's a disaster track," said Hansen, who heads the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.
"The whole approach is so fundamentally wrong that it is better to reassess the situation. If it is going to be the Kyoto-type thing then [people] will spend years trying to determine exactly what that means." He was speaking as progress towards a deal in Copenhagen received a boost today, with India revealing a target to curb its carbon emissions. All four of the major emitters - the US, China, EU and India - have now tabled offers on emissions, although the equally vexed issue of funding for developing nations to deal with global warming remains deadlocked.
© Unknown
"Those who are advocating inaction... have manufactured this false controversy to distract the public and to distract policymakers, to try to thwart progress in Copenhagen": Professor Michael Mann, Pennsylvania State University
"Those who are advocating inaction... have manufactured this false controversy to distract the public and to distract policymakers, to try to thwart progress in Copenhagen": Professor Michael Mann, Pennsylvania State University
Mohammad Al-Sabban told BBC News that the issue will have a "huge impact" on next week's UN climate summit, with countries unwilling to cut emissions.
He said the UN summit should encourage a "full investigation" of the affair.
Other scientists say the e-mails from the University of East Anglia do not alter the picture of man-made warming.
It appears that hackers stole the material from the university's Climatic Research Unit (CRU), which maintains one of the key global temperature datasets.
© F. Haak
A new analysis of human bones unearthed in one deposit at a Neolithic site in Germany led researchers to conclude that people had been cut apart and eaten there, perhaps as part of a ritual sacrifice. Another deposit (right) contained human skullcaps typical of those found throughout the site.
A new analysis of human bones unearthed in one deposit at a Neolithic site in Germany led researchers to conclude that people had been cut apart and eaten there, perhaps as part of a ritual sacrifice. Another deposit (right) contained human skullcaps typical of those found throughout the site.
Cannibalism at the village, now called Herxheim, may have occurred during ceremonies in which people from near and far brought slaves, war prisoners or other dependents for ritual sacrifice, propose anthropologist Bruno Boulestin of the University of Bordeaux in France and his colleagues. A social and political crisis in central Europe at that time triggered various forms of violence, the researchers suspect.
"Human sacrifice at Herxheim is a hypothesis that's difficult to prove right now, but we have evidence that several hundred people were eaten over a brief period," Boulestin says. Skeletal markings indicate that human bodies were butchered in the same way as animals.
© Gary Varvel
I don't think most scientists appreciate what has hit them. This isn't only about the credibility of global warming. For years, global warming and its advocates have been the public face of hard science. Most people could not name three other subjects they would associate with the work of serious scientists. This was it. The public was told repeatedly that something called "the scientific community" had affirmed the science beneath this inquiry. A Nobel Prize was bestowed (on a politician).
© 20th Century Fox
The film "The Day After Tomorrow" was all good fiction when it came out in 2004, but now scientists are finding eerie truths to the possibilities of sudden temperature swings.
The film "The Day After Tomorrow" was all good fiction when it came out in 2004, but now scientists are finding eerie truths to the possibilities of sudden temperature swings.
Looking ahead to the future, there is no reason why such a freeze shouldn't happen again - and in ironic fashion it could be precipitated if ongoing changes in climate force the Greenland ice sheet to suddenly melt, scientists say.
Starting roughly 12,800 years ago, the Northern Hemisphere was gripped by a chill that lasted some 1,300 years. Known by scientists as the Younger Dryas and nicknamed the "Big Freeze," geological evidence suggests it was brought on when a vast pulse of fresh water - a greater volume than all of North America's Great Lakes combined - poured into the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.
This abrupt influx, caused when the glacial Lake Agassiz in North America burst its banks, diluted the circulation of warmer water in the North Atlantic, bringing this "conveyer belt" to a halt. Without this warming influence, evidence shows that temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere plummeted.
More than 500 years after Leonardo da Vinci painted The Last Supper, Leonardo3, a media company based out of Milan, has digitally reconstructed da Vinci's masterpiece.
The team assembled the image based on hundreds of high-definition photographs of the original mural. They also looked at contemporary copies of The Last Supper, such as the one by Giampietrino, a painter influenced by da Vinci.
© University of East Anglia
Phil Jones is stepping down as director of the the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, one of the world's leading climate research centers, after emails were released implicating him in academic misconduct.
Phil Jones is stepping down as director of the the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, one of the world's leading climate research centers, after emails were released implicating him in academic misconduct.
The University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit is one of the world's primary sources for climate data analysis and a close partner to the UN's International Panel on Climate Change. Its researchers have published much of the work that has helped the theory of anthropogenic causation to global warming to gain acceptance in much of research community.
Last week the CRU was the subject of a cyberattack. Hackers released a 160 MB archive of stolen information from the center, including a number of emails from the center's director, Professor Phil Jones.
