Every brain has a soundtrack. Its tempo and tone will vary, depending on mood, frame of mind, and other features of the brain itself. When that soundtrack is recorded and played back — to an emergency responder, or a firefighter — it may sharpen their reflexes during a crisis, and calm their nerves afterward. Over the past decade, the influence of music on cognitive development, learning, and emotional well-being has emerged as a hot field of scientific study. To explore music’s potential relevance to emergency response, the Dept of Homeland Security’s Science & Technology Directorate (S&T) has begun a study into a form of neurotraining called ‘Brain Music’ that uses music created in advance from listeners’ own brain waves to help them deal with common ailments like insomnia, fatigue, and headaches stemming from stressful environments. The concept of Brain Music is to use the frequency, amplitude, and duration of musical sounds to move the brain from an anxious state to a more relaxed state. ‘Strain comes with an emergency response job, so we are interested in finding ways to help these workers remain at the top of their game when working and get quality rest when they go […]
California doctors and other health experts are on the lookout for cases of a new strain of swine flu, a potentially dangerous virus that has reignited fears of a pandemic flu outbreak after killing about 60 people in Mexico and sickening eight people in the United States. Hospitals and public health departments throughout California, where six of the American cases have been found, were told Friday to increase surveillance of the rare strain of flu that combines genetic material from humans, pigs and birds. State and federal health officials said there is little cause for alarm in the United States at this point – all of the U.S. cases have been mild, and the flu has been responsive to drugs. Everyone infected so far has fully recovered; one woman was hospitalized, but she had an underlying condition that complicated her case, state public health officials said. But the cases in Mexico have been startlingly severe, with more than 800 cases of pneumonia in the capital alone that are suspected to be related to the swine flu, according to the World Health Organization. Healthy adults hit Also worrisome is that most of the illness has been in […]
PRAGUE — A detailed simulation of a small region of a brain built molecule by molecule has been constructed and has recreated experimental results from real brains. The ‘Blue Brain’ has been put in a virtual body, and observing it gives the first indications of the molecular and neural basis of thought and memory. Scaling the simulation to the human brain is only a matter of money, says the project’s head. The work was presented at the European Future Technologies meeting in Prague. The Blue Brain project launched in 2005 as the most ambitious brain simulation effort ever undertaken. While many computer simulations have attempted to code in ‘brain-like’ computation or to mimic parts of the nervous systems and brains of a variety of animals, the Blue Brain project was conceived to reverse-engineer mammal brains from real laboratory data and to build up a computer model down to the level of the molecules that make them up. The first phase of the project is now complete; researchers have modeled the neocortical column – a unit of the mammalian brain known as the neocortex which is responsible for higher brain functions and thought. ‘The […]
WASHINGTON — For the first time in years, more Americans than not say the country is headed in the right direction, a sign that Barack Obama has used the first 100 days of his presidency to lift the public’s mood and inspire hopes for a brighter future. Intensely worried about their personal finances and medical expenses, Americans nonetheless appear realistic about the time Obama might need to turn things around, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll. It shows most Americans consider their new president to be a strong, ethical and empathetic leader who is working to change Washington. Nobody knows how long the honeymoon will last, but Obama has clearly transformed the yes-we-can spirit of his candidacy into a tool of governance. His ability to inspire confidence-Obama’s second book is titled ‘The Audacity of Hope’-has thus far buffered the president against the harsh political realities of two wars, a global economic meltdown and countless domestic challenges. ‘He presents a very positive outlook,’ said Cheryl Wetherington, 35, an independent voter who runs a chocolate shop in Gardner, Kan. ‘He’s very well-spoken and very vocal about what direction should be taken.’ But other AP-GfK findings could signal […]
GAZA – Hamas harshly criticized on Thursday a comment by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the US will not recognize Palestinian government unless the Islamic movement recognizes Israel. ‘We will not deal with or in any way fund a Palestinian government that includes Hamas unless and until Hamas has renounced violence, recognized Israel and abided by earlier agreements with Israel, Clinton told the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives on Wednesday. Clinton said that for now, the US would not discourage unity talks between the Hamas and its main rival Fatah. ‘We want to leave open the door that that can happen, she said, referring to the possibility Hamas may change its positions. ‘We’re not betting on it. On Thursday Hamas slammed these remarks as ‘failed blackmailing attempt to pressure Hamas in way that would satisfy the desires the Zionist Lobby that controls the decisions of the US administration. Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum said, ‘These statements is a sliding in wrong direction [toward the] policies of the previous US administration of [President George W] Bush and [Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice. ‘These statements totally contradict with Obama’s statements about freedom […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
