I know it's been a long time... Well, a lot has happened since I last blogged, but here's an interesting article that I wanted to share with you guys.
Every morning, when we wake up, we hardly remember our dreams, but some dreams do affect us to an extent leaving us either happy and gleaming or sad and disturbed. Dreams have baffled researchers as it is still unknown why we dream and their significance - yes, Sigmund Freud did give us his interpretations of dreams, but is there more?
Well, here's a new look at dreams - as tools to help us solve problems. But you may wonder how that is even possible, especially since most of our dreams are illogical and just make no sense at all. But sometimes, dreams can help you find answers or ways to tackle problems, says Deirdre Barrett, a researcher at Harvard who has studied and conducted several experiments on this for more than a decade.
Here's an excerpt from the article written by Rachel Rettner for LiveScience:
The slumbering mind might not seem like an apt tool for any critical thinking, but humans can actually solve problems while asleep, researchers say. Not only that, but one purpose for dreaming itself may be to help us find solutions to puzzles that plague us during waking hours.
Dreams are highly visual and often illogical in nature, which makes them ripe for the type of "out-of-the-box" thinking that some problem-solving requires, said Deirdre Barrett, a psychologist at Harvard University.
Barrett's theory on dreaming, which she discussed at the Association for Psychological Science meeting here last month, boils down to this: Dreaming is really just thinking, but in a slightly different state from when our eyes are open. [Why we dream is just one mystery of the mind.]
Check out this story of Connie Culp, the recipient of the first full face transplant. It is amazing to know what science is capable of doing right now...
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- - Shot in the face by her husband four-years-ago Connie Culp of Hopedale Ohio was left disfigured. For four years she had no nose. The bony structure that once supported her face was gone, as was most of her face. She could not breathe other than through a tracheotomy, could not smell, could not even drink or eat normally.
Several dozen reconstructive surgeries left her not much better off. Connie became afraid to go out in public where doctors say children would run away from her because of her appearance.
I came across this video a long long time ago, actually! I'm sure you guys must already know about this.
Apparently, a new picture from the rover on Mars shows a figure looking like a woman. To me, it just looks like a coincidence. A rock that was incidentally shaped like that... But who knows! Its an interesting video, nevertheless!
If you cannot see the above video, click here to watch it on Youtube.
Finally, I'm back with something important to share!
I am working on my master's thesis which is based on the study of online social networks as motivational environments for promoting sustainable activity. For this study, I require participants to use the facebook application I have created, and answer a couple of short surveys.
The study spans a period of 1-2 weeks only. And you are required to use the application as much as you can during this period. The study ends on March 31st, and I would have to have gathered as much user activity as possible and is very essential for my graduation!
Below is a short description of the study and the relevant links. I would really appreciate it if you could help me with the study by being an active participant. :) Please feel free to forward this to as many people as you wish. All that is required from the participants is that they should be a Facebook User, and interested in using a great new facebook application, for a period of 1-2 weeks. A short description of the study is provided below.
Extreme Displays of Sustainability
Extreme Displays of Sustainability (EDS) is an initiative to study online social networks as motivational environments for promoting sustainable activity.
This study aims to find out basic statistics about different users' current sustainability awareness and activity, and compare the statistics of the same parameters after the use of the web application.
The study will be conducted in three phases:
1. The first phase contains a short survey of the participants’ awareness and current activities relating to sustainability, and what outcomes they expect from using the EDS application.
2. The second phase is the actual user activity on the application.
3. The third phase contains a survey of the participants’ sustainable activities after using the application, so as to see if the application helped them improve their sustainability awareness, sustainable activities and abilities to motivate other people to perform sustainable activities; thereby fulfilling the requirements for the study.
The link to the first phase survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/eds-phase1
The link to the application: http://apps.facebook.com/extreme_displays/ (Please complete the survey before using the application!)
I appreciate your time and interest in the study.
Please feel free to send in comments!
In geography, we learnt that the Himalayas was a young mountain range, growing regularly...
Apparently, India is sinking into the earth's mantle, and that is why the Himalayas is growing higher!
Here's an excerpt from an article from the Discovery News and a video about this.
Fun fact for you: scientists don't really know how the Himalayas formed. I mean yeah, they realize that the India tectonic plate is slamming into the Eurasia plate and has been for about 50 million years, but the mystery is why the mountain range is still growing. Usually when two continents collide it's like a car wreck -- there may be a bunch of mangled crust in the middle (mountains), but both vehicles stop moving.
Turns out, India appears to be sinking into the mantle. A new study based on computer models of the two plates shows that the formation and continued growth of the world's highest mountain range makes the most sense if a dense piece of India is down in the mantle, dragging the rest of the continent down with it.
That may not sound so weird but continents are buoyant; they're supposed to float, not sink. All the subduction you hear about all over the world is dense ocean crust sinking underneath continents. Except in the Himalayas. It's as though two cars collided, and one started to sink into the pavement.
This video gives you a rough outline of the old idea of how the Himalayas form. India's bending here, but it doesn't start heading it into the mantle on its own:
(This was so exciting that I didnt want to allow it to rot in the drafts, and just had to publish it!)
How many times have we come across videos that claim to show live footage of ghosts and spirits? And how many videos have we seen on Youtube that boast about telekinetic powers?!! Well, there are more weird videos out there, but did you know that there was a scientific principle behind all these "stupid" videos? Know it now, from Derren Brown and Kat Akingbade, in their Science of Scams series.
Derren and Kat show you how these scams are made, and what is the scientific principle behind all these. Now, when people say ghosts are not scientific, well, you know now, they are scientifically produced! ;) I dont want to give too much away, but take a look at the website. Between you and me, the website is a refreshing change from the other usual websites. The design is very impressive and intriguing. I shall post the videos as separate posts, as and when they are published, so you can watch them here.
I know its been quite a long since I posted an "actual" post. Its been just "Time Twitters" for quite some time! But it is one way you get to know what I've been doing all day! Well, at least some parts of my day! But I've come back to post quite a few posts! I think there will be an array of posts you would see on my blog in the next couple of days!
For this post, I have a very interesting stuff to share with you guys. I stumbled upon this article on BBC News, which is totally mind-blowing, or you could say "brain" blowing!
In 2005, the Blue Brain project was launched as a joint research initiative by EPFL and IBM. This project aims to "create a biologically accurate, functional model of the brain using IBM's Blue Gene supercomputer", as quoted from the project website.
The article on the BBC News site just merely says the current development stage of the project, and then when I went onto the project's website, I was quite amused! Amused is putting it mildly. I was hit with a rush of several emotions, actually - surprised, shocked, awed, inspired, anxious, apprehensive... Well, its a wonder what science is capable of, but then, as I thought more about it, this apprehension crept into me - someday, the fiction of robots ruling humans might actually come true! In a few years, we'll have a simulated brain that can think and act like a real human brain. Next, there would be robots that can think independently - oh well, it isn't next, it has already been done! Just that, they still haven't gone to the point of having Cyborgs!
I might sound crazy, but hey, think about it. We're all so dependent on machines already that life, now, without a single machine is just not possible! Hell, I don't think I can even live without a laptop now!!! Sometimes, even for social communication we end up using machines; my roommates and I sometimes communicate via email or chat or SMS while being just a room apart! Someday, we might end up not using our own brains, and we would rely on such "simulated" brains. Who knows! Anything can happen!
Take a look at thearticle and let me know what you think.
Imagine reading newspaper the Harry Potter Daily Prophet way - videos accompanying articles. Imagine looking at a person and being able to know all about the person - his or her interests, what they do etc. Imagine going to the Supermarket, and looking at a product, and knowing everything about it, including the carbon footprint value.
Sounds like magic, huh?? Well... Its soon going to be a reality!
My friend G, yes, the same one who wrote me that testimonial, sent me this amazing video. The video is a demonstration kinda thing of this research done by Pattie Maes from MIT. The research product is a wearable "system", that consists of a camera, project, mirror, mobile phone, and some marker caps. The system understands and processes gestures, giving a sixth sense feeling, in their words. Sounds exciting? Check out the video below!
It is 5:30pm. There's a deadline to meet at 6. Half an hour left. Work worth 3 hours to be done. Aargh. If only I could make time travel slow, or travel back in time, so that I have those 3 hours to complete the work; but then, I would meet myself at this very same instant - 5:30pm, wanting to go back to that starting time of that alternate dimensional me... Yeah, I know, its confusing. But guess what?
Dr. Ronald Mallet, a Physicist at the University of Connecticut, is building a Time Machine, that will let me do just that; i.e. travel in time. Einstein's Relativity Theory (E=mc2 is an outcome of this theory) laid the foundation of his research, and he built over it extrapollations and deductions, to end up with a way to alter the two quantities that matter most to scientists - space and time. This bending of space-time is the key to travel through time.
The time machine he is building, (or has he built it already? I'm not sure) uses ring laser to produce frame-dragging and close time-like curves, which are the very same means by which we can travel in time. In his own words,
"In Einstein's general theory of relativity, both matter and energy can create a gravitational field. This means that the energy of a light beam can produce a gravitational field. My current research considers both the weak and strong gravitational fields produced by a single continuously circulating unidirectional beam of light. In the weak gravitational field of a unidirectional ring laser, it is predicted that a spinning neutral particle, when placed in the ring, is dragged around by the resulting gravitational field."
"For the strong gravitational field of a circulating cylinder of light, I have found new exact solutions of the Einstein field equations for the exterior and interior gravitational fields of the light cylinder. The exterior gravitational field is shown to contain closed timelike lines. The presence of closed timelike lines indicates the possibility of time travel into the past. This creates the foundation for a time machine based on a circulating cylinder of light."
The series of videos below is the documentary that was shown on Discover Channel. Before that, here is a small demo on Einstein's Relativity Theory, that might help you understand what Dr. Mallet explains in the documentary. You might also want to check out this link, which is more like "Einstein's Relativity Theory for Dummies"!
EINSTEIN'S RELATIVITY THEORY - SIMULTANEITY
Don't worry, the following documentary is not some fantasy stuff; its all about relativity, quantum physics, and all the other concepts that some of us didn't care to learn that well in school! ;) Luckily for us, he uses very simple and easy to understand examples. Apart from the examples and explanation of his theories, the documentary also contains opinions of several noteworthy people like The Time Machine movie director Simon Wells (incidentally, he's the great grandson of H. G. Wells who wrote the book (pdf) that movie is based on) and also discusses the consequencies of disturbing time in the past, and also the possibilities of such disturbances, which I found was interesting, to say the least.
You can also check out the following videos from the original Youtube Playlist.
THE WORLD'S FIRST TIME MACHINE - PART 1 OF 5
THE WORLD'S FIRST TIME MACHINE - PART 2 OF 5
THE WORLD'S FIRST TIME MACHINE - PART 3 OF 5
THE WORLD'S FIRST TIME MACHINE - PART 4 OF 5
THE WORLD'S FIRST TIME MACHINE - PART 5 OF 5
What was fantasy till now, is going to be a reality soon! Or have we already warped into the future?! Think about it while I think which purple moment in history I'd like to go back to!
Drowned in the chaos of daily life, voices all around - some sweet and alluring, some steely and rebuking, some gloomy and doleful, some dull and insipid; visions all around - some inspiring, some provocative, some daunting, some haunting, some appalling, some contrite; scents all around - aromas, fragrances, stenches, odors; I emerge with my dreams and aspirations, to bring in poise into my life, with the help of the magic sprinkles - those same voices, visions and scents around me.
It is an invitation only website, where you can get BIG discounts on TOP luxury brands, which last for a short period! Click HERE for my invitation, if you would like to join the group!
Don't worry, its not spam or another social network or an auction site. Its just a shopping site, except for designer items!
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