Archive for the 'Fringe Science' Category

Mixed Feelings

Published
by
DrQuickbeam
on May 24, 2007
in Consciousness/Psych/Brain, Fringe Science, Futurism/Transhumanism, Health/Bio-Tech and Mindhacks
. 0 Comments

seefeel

For six weird weeks in the fall of 2004, Udo Wächter had an unerring sense of direction. Every morning after he got out of the shower, Wächter, a sysadmin at the University of Osnabrück in Germany, put on a wide beige belt lined with 13 vibrating pads — the same weight-and-gear modules that make a cell phone judder. On the outside of the belt were a power supply and a sensor that detected Earth’s magnetic field. Whichever buzzer was pointing north would go off. Constantly.

“It was slightly strange at first,” Wächter says, “though on the bike, it was great.” He started to become more aware of the peregrinations he had to make while trying to reach a destination. “I finally understood just how much roads actually wind,” he says. He learned to deal with the stares he got in the library, his belt humming like a distant chain saw. Deep into the experiment, Wächter says, “I suddenly realized that my perception had shifted. I had some kind of internal map of the city in my head. I could always find my way home. Eventually, I felt I couldn’t get lost, even in a completely new place.”

The effects of the “feelSpace belt” — as its inventor, Osnabrück cognitive scientist Peter König, dubbed the device — became even more profound over time. König says while he wore it he was “intuitively aware of the direction of my home or my office. I’d be waiting in line in the cafeteria and spontaneously think: I live over there.” On a visit to Hamburg, about 100 miles away, he noticed that he was conscious of the direction of his hometown. Wächter felt the vibration in his dreams, moving around his waist, just like when he was awake.

Direction isn’t something humans can detect innately. Some birds can, of course, and for them it’s no less important than taste or smell are for us. In fact, lots of animals have cool, “extra” senses. Sunfish see polarized light. Loggerhead turtles feel Earth’s magnetic field. Bonnethead sharks detect subtle changes (less than a nanovolt) in small electrical fields. And other critters have heightened versions of familiar senses — bats hear frequencies outside our auditory range, and some insects see ultraviolet light.

We humans get just the five. But why? Can our senses be modified? Expanded? Given the right prosthetics, could we feel electromagnetic fields or hear ultrasound? The answers to these questions, according to researchers at a handful of labs around the world, appear to be yes.

wired

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Acupuncture Found To Be Cost Effective Treatment For Lower Back Pain

Published
by
DrQuickbeam
on September 15, 2006
in Fringe Science and Health/Bio-Tech
. 1 Comment

Acupuncture is used by an estimated 2% of adults each year for a range of conditions, including back pain. But the evidence is largely inconclusive and the best way to manage low back pain remains unclear.

So, researchers identified 241 adults aged 18 to 65 with persistent non-specific low back pain. The people were provided by members of the British Acupuncture Council. Patients were randomly assigned to either usual NHS care or up to 10 acupuncture treatment sessions. All patients remained under GP care.

Pain levels were measured at intervals during the two-year study period. Satisfaction with treatment and use of pain medication were also recorded.

At 12 months, patients in the acupuncture group showed a small benefit in pain scores compared to patients receiving usual care. Stronger evidence was observed for an increased benefit at 24 months.

At three months, patients in the acupuncture group were significantly more likely to be ‘very satisfied’ with their treatment compared with usual care, and with their overall care, but showed no such difference in satisfaction with information received.

ScienceBlog

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Sixth Sense From an Implant

Published
by
DrQuickbeam
on June 7, 2006
in Consciousness/Psych/Brain, Fringe Science, Futurism/Transhumanism, Hacks and Health/Bio-Tech
. 0 Comments

What if, seconds before your laptop began stalling, you could feel the hard drive spin up under the load? Or you could tell if an electrical cord was live before you touched it? For the few people who have rare earth magnets implanted in their fingers, these are among the reported effects—a finger that feels electromagnetic fields along with the normal sense of touch.

It’s been described as a buzzing sensation, a tingling, an oscillation, movement, pure stimulation and, in the case of body-modification expert Shannon Larrett’s encounter with a too-powerful antitheft gateway at a retail store, “Like sticking your hand in an ultrasonic cleaner.”

Body-mod artists Jesse Jarrell and Steve Haworth’s original idea was to implant a magnet to carry metal gadgets. It turns out that doesn’t work: If you try to carry something magnetic on your implant regularly, the pinched skin between the magnets dies and your body rejects the implant. But they came up with a new application when a mutual friend suffered an accident that left a shard of iron in his finger. He worked with audio equipment, and found that he could tell which speakers were magnetized from the sensation that passed through his finger at close range.

That gave Jarrell and Haworth a new direction: Could they obtain that effect deliberately, extending the sense of touch into a sense of magnetism?

wired

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Is This Life?

Published
by
billycuts
on January 25, 2006
in Fringe Science, Futurism/Transhumanism, Genetics, Health/Bio-Tech, Nature of Reality and Technology
. 0 Comments

HORDES OF GREEN, SUB-MICROSCOPIC BALLOONS FLOAT in a watery mixture in Jack Szostak’s laboratory at Harvard Medical School. They come in a variety of shapes: spheres, blimps, worms. And as Szostak examines magnified images of them, he can’t help but notice a striking resemblance to bacterial ecosystems, pulsing with that fetid, yet undeniable quality that has eluded definition for generations – life.

But these orbs aren’t alive.

The uncanny resemblance reflects the fact that these ersatz sacs may passably mimic the wrappings of primitive life: cell membranes. But infusing in them the real “stuff” of life requires more work. Lately, Szostak, a professor of genetics, has been putting simple RNA enzymes inside, showing that they can conduct their characteristic activities. Thus some of life’s chemistry is compatible with artificial membranes, he says, something that required a careful tweaking of the membrane chemistry. He has also made the sacs grow spontaneously, and even divide – with help.1 “It’s a simplified model of the situation we’d really like to have,” says Szostak: a growing, dividing, living organism of totally synthetic origins.

But even at present, he says, “These simple membrane systems do pretty fascinating things.”

The Scientist

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Rupert Sheldrake Parries Skepticism

Published
by
DrQuickbeam
on November 1, 2005
in Fringe Science and Fundamentalism
. 0 Comments

The ‘Skeptic’ column by Michael Shermer in the November 2005 issue of Scientific American focused on the research of ‘maverick biologist’ Rupert Sheldrake.

Shermer flamed Sheldrake’s Morphic Resonance Field Theory with a five-pronged attack on the credibility of the data published and the research methods used by Sheldrake and those who’ve replicated his experiments on “the sense of being looked at”.

This week Sheldrake responded to Shermer’s article by pointing out flaws in Shermer’s “partisan” argument and suggesting other studies and meta-analyses of these studies which weigh both Sheldrake’s position and his skeptic’s positions.

It’s an interesting debate between Sheldrakes grandiose theory and Shermer’s fundamentalist skepticism.

China’s Version of Evolution vs Creationism : Feng Shui – science or superstition?

Published
by
DrQuickbeam
on September 16, 2005
in Fringe Science
. 0 Comments

BEIJING – A university in eastern China has stirred up a storm of controversy about feng shui, with academics around the country sounding off on whether the ancient Chinese study of geomancy is a science or mere superstition.

Feng shui, or “wind and water”, is the process of maximising the flow of energy to achieve harmony between people, structures and nature, for instance in making a decision about the siting of a building or placing of furniture in a room.

It is taken very seriously in Hong Kong, Taiwan and among overseas Chinese, but was branded a superstition on the mainland when the Communists swept to power in 1949.

In recent years it has staged a comeback in China, but a new feng shui course offered by an institute affiliated to Nanjing University has prompted calls from some academics to have it shut down, Xinhua reported on its English Web site, www.chinaview.cn.

“Feng shui is no science. It only fills the wallets of some charlatans,” Chen Zhihua, an architect and professor at prestigious Tsinghua University, was quoted as saying.

NZHerald

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On the Problem of Growing Interest in Cloudbusting A Personal View

Published
by
DrQuickbeam
on April 9, 2005
in Fringe Science
. 0 Comments

James DeMeo has been studying the works of the late Dr. Wilhelm Reich
since the early 1970s, to include the techniques and devices for
cloudbusting. He undertook the first systematic research investigating
the cloudbuster within a mainstream academic institution, the University of Kansas at Lawrence, producing a report with positive conclusions. He has led cloudbusting expeditions for drought abatement in various parts of the United States, with overseas desert-greening operations in Israel, Namibia and Eritrea, Africa, with over 25 published articles on the subject, indicating widespread beneficial rains as an outcome.


article

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