http://phys.org/news/2014-11-physicists-dark.html
EXCERPT: For years physicists have been looking for the universe's elusive dark matter, but so far no one has seen any trace of it. Maybe we are looking in the wrong place? [...] In a new research paper, he [Chris Kouvaris] and [Ian] Shoemaker study the possibility that dark matter can indeed interact substantially with atoms. They claim that depending on the properties of the dark matter particles, deep placed detectors can be blind because particles might have lost most of their energy before reaching the detector.
"In such a case, it would make more sense to look for dark matter signals on the surface of the Earth or in shallow sites", Kouvaris argues....
http://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/main/newsi...-said-done
EXCERPT: You’re at a slumber party with your friends. One friend asks “if a guy at school asked you out, but you weren’t really attracted to him, would you go?” You laugh and shake your head no: “Why would I, if he’s not my type?”
Or imagine you’re at school, sitting in the cafeteria. A guy who you think is attractive but who has some unsuitable personality traits comes up and asks you out. You say yes, even though what you really meant to say was no. “Why did I do that?” you wonder.
According to new research from the University of Toronto and Yale University, rejecting unsuitable romantic partners is easy in hypothetical situations, but not so when considering a face-to-face proposition.
“When actually faced with a potential date, we don't like to reject a person and make them feel bad, which is not necessarily something that people anticipate when they imagine making these choices,” says the study’s lead researcher, psychology PhD candidate Samantha Joel. “The fact that we underestimate how concerned we’ll feel about hurting the other person’s feelings may help to explain why people's dating decisions often don't match up with their stated dating preferences.”...
http://mindhacks.com/2014/11/16/an-earli...ory-death/
EXCERPT: For such an obscure corner of the medical literature, Cotard’s delusion is remarkably well known as the delusion that you’re dead. This was supposedly first described by Jules Cotard in 1880 but I seem to have found a description from 1576.
It’s worth noting that although Cotard’s delusion has come to represent ‘the delusion that you’re dead’, Jules Cotard’s original description was not actually that – it was a delusion of negation where the patient believed, as noted by Berrios and Luque, that she had “no brain, nerves, chest, or entrails, and was just skin and bone”, that “neither God or the devil existed”, and that she did not need food for “she was eternal and would live forever”.
In its modern use, Cotard’s delusion typically refer to the belief that you’re dead, you don’t exist, or that your body is rotting or absent. It is rare but can occur in severe psychosis....
When Bad Things Happen in Slow Motion
http://nautil.us/issue/19/illusions/when...low-motion
EXCERPT: [...] Retired fire chief Richard Gasaway refers to this apparent slowing down of time in tense situations as tachypsychia, which roughly translates as “fast mind.” “This phenomenon afflicts many first responders,” Gasaway claims, based on hundreds of interviews he has conducted for his research, blog, and speaking engagements on “situational awareness.” Bolstered also by what he judges to be personal experiences of tachypsychia, Gasaway has come to consider it as a sometime component of the overall stress response. For first responders, the phenomenon is dangerous, he says, because it can warp situational awareness and decision-making processes.
But is tachypsychia real, or an illusion? David Eagleman of the Baylor College of Medicine set out to answer this question with a test. [...]
[...] Researchers warn that the data in hand is too scant to conclude much about CFFs in humans for the time being, or even to say with certainty what the connection is between CFFs and subjective time perception. But the variability of CFFs among animals and those with mental diseases, together with our subjective experience of time, leave us with an interesting question to ponder: Are there people who, like the swordfish, live in another temporal dimension?
http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2014/...osexuality
EXCERPT: Dean Hamer finally feels vindicated. More than 20 years ago, in a study that triggered both scientific and cultural controversy, the molecular biologist offered the first direct evidence of a “gay gene,” by identifying a stretch on the X chromosome likely associated with homosexuality. But several subsequent studies called his finding into question. Now the largest independent replication effort so far, looking at 409 pairs of gay brothers, fingers the same region on the X. “When you first find something out of the entire genome, you’re always wondering if it was just by chance,” says Hamer, who asserts that new research “clarifies the matter absolutely.”
But not everyone finds the results convincing. And the kind of DNA analysis used, known as a genetic linkage study, has largely been superseded by other techniques. Due to the limitations of this approach, the new work also fails to provide what behavioral geneticists really crave: specific genes that might underlie homosexuality....
http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articl...-earth.htm
EXCERPT: A catastrophic landslide that occurred 21 million years ago may be the largest to have ever occurred on Earth's surface. Scientists have discovered the remains of the Markagunt gravity slide, which was the size of three Ohio counties.
Geologists have known about smaller portions of the Markagunt slide for years. Yet recent mapping techniques have finally shown its full extent. Now, researchers have announced that this landslide was far, far larger than previously expected.
The landslide itself occurred in an area between what is now Bryce Canyon National Park and the town of Beaver, Utah. It covered a staggering 1,300 square miles, and was probably far larger than the Heart Mountain slide....
