There's an old saying, "If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all," and now IKEA are seeking to bring that into 2018 by teaching kids to be nicer to each other… and to plants.
In a bizarre experiment, the Swedish homewares chain asked school students in the United Arab Emirates to bully one of their plants, while complimenting another.
"Plants have feelings, just like people," the company wrote alongside a YouTube video of the project.
"So, what happens when you feed one plant with compliments and another with negative remarks?" they asked.
The company claims that the social experiment was used "to raise awareness on the effects of bullying," and used the hashtag #SayNoToBullying in their media.
Running over the course of a month, the experiment concluded that the plant receiving insults failed to thrive, unlike the plant getting positive attention from students.
Naturally, the video has attracted a lot of criticism online, with many questioning the legitimacy of the astounding outcome, claiming that it was a deceptive, thinly-veiled ad for IKEA.
"There is no way this is sound science. I want this repeated with more plants. This is a hoax," wrote a YouTube commenter.
"Scam ad that's obviously been rigged by the ad agency," said another, adding: "This whole 'experiment' is based on non-existent science. Kudos for doing something for a good cause but this is entirely fake. "
Another viewer wanted to know, "What languages do the plants speak? "
Many argued that because plants lack a nervous system, they do not feel physical or emotional pain like animals and humans do.
Others weren't as sceptical, however, and congratulated IKEA on their positive project, even sharing their own experiences with plant-talk.
"It's true that if you talk to your plants and even sing to them, they grow better and are healthier. I know so coz I have done the same experiment on my own plants. The deterioration of a 'bullied' plant is the same as that of one that's attacked by pests," said a YouTuber.
"Great work IKEA UAE! Here's to more companies using their influence in positive ways! " responded another.
Another suggested that the "haters" should read the 1973 book The Secret Life of Plants, which proposed the idea that plants do react to sound, claiming that plants respond positively to classical music.
Hence, it could be said that while the insults would obviously not be understood linguistically, it's possible that their verbal delivery could have altered the plant in some way.
"Although they may seem passive, plants have their own complex sensory systems too, designed to respond to dangers or other changes in their environment," Alana Schetzer of the University of Melbourne wrote in an online paper.
"Plants may not have eyes, ears or a tongue, but their skin can perform many of the same functions," she continued, adding that plants have an awareness of their surroundings, and "can respond accordingly."
The "plants can hear us" theory was also tested in an episode of The Discovery Channel's Mythbusters.
A team of sceptics divided 60 pea plants into three greenhouses and left them to grow with identical sun exposure, soil and water.
For the duration of the 60-day project, two of the greenhouses were played recorded soundtracks, one of loving praise and one of cruel insults, while the third remained silent.
At the end of the experiment, it was determined by comparing plant masses from the three groups that there was no difference in plant quality between the nice greenhouse and the mean greenhouse.
In fact, both recorded yielding greater biomass and bigger pods than the third, silent greenhouse.
If the Mythbusters' theory is correct, talking to plants, no matter what you say, is beneficial.
Vitamin B6, which is found in tuna, bananas and chickpeas, may help people better recall their dreams. Taking a strong dose of such supplements for just five days improves people's abilities to remember their dreams by 64 per cent, a study found.
Although unclear exactly why this occurs, one theory is vitamin B6 helps to convert an amino acid to a chemical messenger that influences emotion and sleep.
Study author Dr Denholm Aspy, from the University of Adelaide, said: 'The average person spends around six years of their lives dreaming.
'It may be possible to use lucid dreaming for overcoming nightmares, treating phobias, creative problem solving, refining motor skills and even helping with rehabilitation from physical trauma.
'In order to have lucid dreams it is very important to first be able to recall dreams on a regular basis.'
Lucid dreaming occurs when people know they are dreaming while asleep.
'I couldn't wait to go to bed and dream!'
One study participant said: 'It seems as time went on my dreams were clearer and clearer and easier to remember.
'I also did not lose fragments as the day went on.'
Another added: 'My dreams were more real, I couldn't wait to go to bed and dream!'
Results further suggest vitamin B6 supplements do not affect dream vividness, bizareness or colour, as well as having no impact on people's sleep in general.
Dr Aspy adds further research is required to determine if dietary vitamin B6 has the same effects as supplements'.
How does vitamin B6 lead to clearer dreams?
Additional theories include that vitamin B6 leads to higher levels of chemical messenger that suppress the REM stage of sleep. REM is characterised by rapid-eye movements, faster heart rates and more dreaming.
This suppression may then cause a rebound effect that results in more intense dreams in the last few hours of sleep.
Some also believe vitamin B6 disrupts sleep and causes people to awaken more in the night.
This may allow more opportunities for dreams to be transferred from short to long-term memories.
How the research was carried out
The researchers analysed 100 people aged between 18 and 40 from across Australia.
At the beginning of the study, the participants claimed to rarely remember their dreams.
They took 240mg of vitamin B6 before bed for five consecutive days; this is the equivalent of 558 bananas.
The sweet fruit contains around 0.43mg of vitamin B6. Seventy-five grams of tuna and a three-quarter cup of chickpeas both contain 0.84mg.
The findings were published in the journal Perceptual and Motor Skills.
What is Vitamin B6? and what foods contain it?
Vitamin B6, which is also known as pyridoxine, allows the body to use and store energy from protein and carbohydrates in food.
It is also involved in the formation of blood cells that carry oxygen around the body. Food sources include:
Tuna
Bananas
Potatoes
Pork
Poultry
Fish
Whole grain cereals, such as brown rice
Eggs
Men need around 1.4mg a day and women approximately 1.2mg. People should be able to get all of the vitamin B6 they require from their diets. People should not take more than 10mg a day unless advised by their doctor.
Source: NHS Choices
Less than eight hours sleep is linked to anxiety and depression
This comes after research released last January suggested having less than eight hours sleep is linked to anxiety and depression.
Insomniacs are less able to overcome negative thoughts than those who get sufficient shut eye, a study found.
Being unable to nod off also reduces people's ability to disengage from negative emotions, the research adds.
Study author Professor Meredith Coles, from Binghamton University, said: 'We found that people in this study have some tendencies to have thoughts get stuck in their heads, and their elevated negative thinking makes it difficult for them to disengage with the negative stimuli that we exposed them to.
'We realized over time that this might be important - this repetitive negative thinking is relevant to several different disorders like anxiety, depression and many other things.'
Memories may be passed down through generations in DNA in a process that may be the underlying cause of phobias.
Memories can be passed down to later generations through genetic switches that allow offspring to inherit the experience of their ancestors, according to new research that may explain how phobias can develop.
Scientists have long assumed that memories and learned experiences built up during a lifetime must be passed on by teaching later generations or through personal experience.
However, a research has shown that it is possible for some information to be inherited biologically through chemical changes that occur in DNA.
Researchers at the Emory University School of Medicine, in Atlanta, found that mice can pass on learned information about traumatic or stressful experiences – in this case a fear of the smell of cherry blossom – to subsequent generations.
The results may help to explain why people suffer from seemingly irrational phobias – it may be based on the inherited experiences of their ancestors.
So a fear of spiders may in fact be an inherited defence mechanism laid down in a families genes by an ancestors' frightening encounter with an arachnid.
Dr Brian Dias, from the department of psychiatry at Emory University, said: "We have begun to explore an underappreciated influence on adult behaviour – ancestral experience before conception.
"From a translational perspective, our results allow us to appreciate how the experiences of a parent, before even conceiving offspring, markedly influence both structure and function in the nervous system of subsequent generations.
"Such a phenomenon may contribute to the etiology and potential intergenerational transmission of risk for neuropsychiatric disorders such as phobias, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder."
In the study, which is published in the journal of Nature Neuroscience, the researchers trained mice to fear the smell of cherry blossom using electric shocks before allowing them to breed.
The offspring produced showed fearful responses to the odour of cherry blossom compared to a neutral odour, despite never having encountered them before.
The following generation also showed the same behaviour. This effect continued even if the mice had been fathered through artificial insemination.
The researchers found the brains of the trained mice and their offspring showed structural changes in areas used to detect the odour.
The DNA of the animals also carried chemical changes, known as epigenetic methylation, on the gene responsible for detecting the odour.
This suggests that experiences are somehow transferred from the brain into the genome, allowing them to be passed on to later generations.
The researchers now hope to carry out further work to understand how the information comes to be stored on the DNA in the first place.
They also want to explore whether similar effects can be seen in the genes of humans.
Professor Marcus Pembrey, a paediatric geneticist at University College London, said the work provided "compelling evidence" for the biological transmission of memory.
He added: "It addresses constitutional fearfulness that is highly relevant to phobias, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorders, plus the controversial subject of transmission of the ‘memory’ of ancestral experience down the generations.
"It is high time public health researchers took human transgenerational responses seriously.
"I suspect we will not understand the rise in neuropsychiatric disorders or obesity, diabetes and metabolic disruptions generally without taking a multigenerational approach.”
Professor Wolf Reik, head of epigenetics at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, said, however, further work was needed before such results could be applied to humans.
He said: "These types of results are encouraging as they suggest that transgenerational inheritance exists and is mediated by epigenetics, but more careful mechanistic study of animal models is needed before extrapolating such findings to humans.”
It comes as another study in mice has shown that their ability to remember can be effected by the presence of immune system factors in their mother's milk Dr Miklos Toth, from Weill Cornell Medical College, found that chemokines carried in a mother's milk caused changes in the brains of their offspring, affecting their memory in later life.
Feeding knowledge directly into your brain, just like in sci-fi classic The Matrix, could soon take as much effort as falling asleep, scientists believe.
Researchers claim to have developed a simulator which can feed information directly into a person’s brain and teach them new skills in a shorter amount of time, comparing it to “life imitating art”.
They believe it could be the first steps in developing advanced software that will make Matrix-style instant learning a reality.
In the neo-noir sci-fi classic, protagonist Neo is able to learn kung fu in seconds after the martial art is ‘uploaded’ straight to his brain.
Researchers from HRL Laboratories, based in California, say they have found a way to amplify learning, only on a much smaller scale than seen in the Hollywood film.
They studied the electric signals in the brain of a trained pilot and then fed the data into novice subjects as they learned to pilot an aeroplane in a realistic flight simulator.
The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, found that subjects who received brain stimulation via electrode-embedded head caps improved their piloting abilities and learnt the task 33 per cent better than a placebo group.
“Our system is one of the first of its kind. It's a brain stimulation system,” explained Dr Matthew Phillips.
"It sounds kind of sci-fi, but there's large scientific basis for the development of our system.
"The specific task we were looking at was piloting an aircraft, which requires a synergy of both cognitive and motor performance.
"When you learn something, your brain physically changes. Connections are made and strengthened in a process called neuro-plasticity.
“It turns out that certain functions of the brain, like speech and memory, are located in very specific regions of the brain, about the size of your pinky.”
Dr Matthews believes that brain stimulation could eventually be implemented for tasks like learning to drive, exam preparation and language learning
“What our system does is it actually targets those changes to specific regions of the brain as you learn,” he added.
“The method itself is actually quite old. In fact, the ancient Egyptians 4000 years ago used electric fish to stimulate and reduce pain.
“Even Ben Franklin applied currents to his head, but the rigorous, scientific investigation of these methods started in the early 2000s and we're building on that research to target and personalise a stimulation in the most effective way possible.
“Your brain is going to be very different to my brain when we perform a task. What we found is … brain stimulation seems to be particularly effective at actually improving learning.”
A new kind of matter – dubbed a “time crystal” – has been created by two teams of scientists in a feat once considered theoretically impossible, and could lead to quantum computer breakthrough.
Normal crystals, anything from diamonds to snowflakes, have atoms arranged in a repeating three-dimensional lattice.
However the atoms in time crystals – the existence of which was first suggested in 2012 – repeat a pattern across the fourth dimension, time.
This essentially means they should oscillate forever without any external influence.
Before their apparent creation, some researchers had expressed doubt that time crystals could be made as perpetual motion contradicts the laws of physics.
But it is thought to be possible partly because of the strange way matter behaves at the quantum level.
A time crystal seems to be a closed system, so no energy is lost to the outside world. And it also appears to have properties similar to superconductors so electrons can move without any resistance.
This allows the observed motion to continue, theoretically at least, for all time.
The practical applications are thought to be far off, but it is believed the crystals’ unique properties could help make quantum computing a reality.
Prototype quantum computers exist, but need to be heavily shielded from the slightest interference from the outside world. The crystals could help protect the stored information, overcoming one of the greatest obstacles to the widespread use of computers many millions of times faster than the ones used today.
One of the teams, led by researchers at Maryland University, created the first time crystal from electrically charged atoms of the element ytterbium.
They used an electric field to levitate 10 of these atoms above a surface, then repeatedly hit them with a pulse from a laser.
The atoms began to flip in a regular pattern by themselves, but they did so in an odd way. Rather than moving at the same rate as the laser pulses, they flipped at half the pace.
The researchers compared this to hitting a piano key twice, but just getting one note, or squeezing a sponge regularly but seeing it rebound only once every second squeeze.
This, apparently, is the tell-tale sign of a time crystal. The purported breakthrough was revealed in October last year, but the scientific world has been waiting to see the full details in a peer-reviewed journal.
Professor Andrew Potter, of Texas University at Austin, who was part of the Maryland-led team, said: “This opens the door to a whole new world of non-equilibrium phases.
“We’ve taken these theoretical ideas that we’ve been poking around for the last couple of years and actually built it in the laboratory.
“Hopefully, this is just the first example of these, with many more to come.”
However, in a commentary published by Nature, one leading expert in the field suggested more research was needed to prove without doubt that time crystals truly exist.
Professor Chetan Nayak, of University of California, Santa Barbara, wrote that based on our current knowledge it had been natural to see if it was possible to “spontaneously break the time-translational symmetry of the laws of physics”.
But he said it was possible that the unusual flipping motion seen in the purported time crystals might not last forever.
“Both groups present evidence of a time crystal,” Professor Nayak said, “but their combined results point to the need for experiments that truly show that the oscillations remain in phase over extended times and are not washed out by the inevitable fluctuations.”
Northwestern University neuroscience professor Adam Safron has made the first comprehensive model of what orgasms do to brain activity. Sexual stimulation literally re-routes brain activity, creating a trance.
In a nutshell, sexual stimulation focuses our neurons in such a way that we are sent into a trance, blocking out everything else and concentrating solely, intensely on the sensation alone.
We lose our usual self-awareness and consciousness of other noises, feelings, and smells around us.
No other natural stimulation could recreate this level of concentration.
'Sex is a source of pleasurable sensations and emotional connection, but beyond that, it's actually an altered state of consciousness,' Dr Safron explains.
To examine this unique trance, Dr Safron reviewed related studies and literature over many years to come up with a model in which rhythmic sexual activity likely influences brain rhythms.
His model showed stimulating particular nerves in a particular way at a particular speed over and over again focuses our neurons.
They begin to synchronize their activity. This focusing process is called neural entrainment.
Eventually, if stimulation continues long enough, this synchronization can spread throughout the brain making us more focused than ever.
This may be crucial for allowing for a sufficient intensity of experience to trigger the mechanisms of climax.
Dr Safron's previous research has focused on the neural bases of sexual preferences.
He said orgasm is related to this work because it is one of the most powerful rewards available, and therefore, may have an important role in shaping preferences.
'Before this paper, we knew what lit up in the brain when people had orgasms, and we knew a lot about the hormonal and neurochemical factors in non-human animals, but we didn't really know why sex and orgasm feel the way they do,' Dr Safron said.
'This paper provides a level of mechanistic detail that was previously lacking.'
WHY RHYTHM IS SO IMPORTANT
To Dr Safron's surprise, he found parallels between sexual climax, seizures, music and dance.
All four flood the brain's sensory channels with rhythmic inputs.
'Synchronization is important for signal propagation in the brain, because neurons are more likely to fire if they are stimulated multiple times within a narrow window of time,' Dr Safron said.
'Otherwise, the signals decay as part of a general resetting mechanism, rather than sum together.
'This then caused me to hypothesize that rhythmic entrainment is the primary mechanism by which orgasmic thresholds are surpassed.'
'The idea that sexual experiences can be like trance states is in some ways ancient. Turns out this idea is supported by modern understandings of neuroscience,' Dr Safron said.
'In theory, this could change the way people view their sexuality.
The Army has given a team of University of California researchers a $4 million grant to study the foundations of "synthetic telepathy." But unlike old-school mind-melds, this seemingly psychic communication would be computer-mediated. The University of California, Irvine explains:
The brain-computer interface would use a noninvasive brain imaging technology like electroencephalography to let people communicate thoughts to each other. For example, a soldier would "think" a message to be transmitted and a computer-based speech recognition system would decode the EEG signals. The decoded thoughts, in essence translated brain waves, are transmitted using a system that points in the direction of the intended target.
All across the military, there’s interest in translating thoughts into computer code, and vice versa. Darpa-funded researchers have taught monkeys how to control robotic limbs with their thoughts. Defense contractor Northrop Grumman is building binoculars that tap the unconscious mind. Honeywell has built a system that monitors pre-conscious nueral firings, to help pick out targets in satellite imagery. The JASONs, the Pentagon’s premiere scientific advisory board, has warned of the dangers of enemies implanted with brain-computer interfaces. And the Defense Intelligence Agency just released a report, saying the military needs to spend more on neuroscience – up to and including "mak[ing] the enemy obey our commands."
Dream telepathy suggests that human beings have the ability to communicate telepathically with another person while they are dreaming.
This isn’t a new concept, scientific interest in telepathy dates back to the fathers of the psychoanalytic movement. Freud, for example, looked at the implications of telepathy on psychoanalytic thought. He also considered dream telepathy, or the telepathic influence of thought on dreaming, on multiple occasions. Carl Jung believed in the telepathic hypothesis without question, and even developed a theoretical system to explain “paranormal” events of this nature.
It seems that all great minds encourage the study of various types of non-physical phenomena.
“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.” – Nikola Tesla
According to Stanley Krippner, Ph.D. and professor of psychology at Saybrook University in California:
A wealth of anecdotal and clinical material exist which supports the possibility of telepathic effects occurring in dreams (Krippner, 1974). However, an experimental approach to the topic did not become possible until psycho physiological laboratory technology became available. It was discovered that sleeping research participants awakened from periods of rapid eye movement (REM) activity were frequently able to recall dream episodes. As a result, it was possible to request a “telepathic receiver” to attempt dreaming about a target stimulus that was being focused on in a distant location from a “telepathic sender.”
Experiments and Results
In the mid 1960’s, Montague Ullman, MD, began a number of experiments at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York to test the hypothesis that people could be primed to dream about randomly selected material. In other words, they could choose what they wanted to dream about before going to sleep, and this could include anything, from artwork to movies to photographs and more. Shortly after these experiments began, Ullman was joined by Stanley Krippner (quoted above), who has a very impressive background in the scientific study of dreams, psychology, and parapsychology.
The experiments they conducted lasted a span of more than 10 years, and “yielded statistically significant results.”
During the experiments, there was usually a “telepathic sender” and a “telepathic receiver.” They met in the laboratory for a short period of time before being placed in completely separate rooms just before going to sleep. The telepathic sender had an envelope waiting for them in the room in which they’d sleep. It would contain something like a picture or a drawing. The receivers were then purposely awakened shortly after Rapid Eye Movement sleep (REM) began so the researchers could take a dream report.
A Very Significant Session
One very memorable and significant session of dream telepathy experimentation took place where the selected art print was “School of Dance” by Edgar Degas, which depicts a several young women in a dance class. According to Krippner, the receivers’ dream reports included such phrases as “I was in a class made up of maybe half a dozen people, it felt like a school,” and “There was one little girl that was trying to dance with me.” These results are fascinating, and the idea that one can influence another’s dream opens up a lot of doors. Although we might not understand the process behind the transfer of information, and we can’t see this transfer take place from mind to mind, we have proof of it occurring. This is quite common when we examine scientific studies that have evaluated parapsychological phenomena – we know what is happening, but not how.
Another significant session conducted by Krippner and Ullman took place on March 15th, 1970. In this session, a large group of people at a Holy Modal Rounders rock concert was selected to send something telepathically. A local media artist by the name of Jean Millay took responsibility to ready the telepathic senders for “target preparation.” She did this with help from the Lidd Light Company, a group of artists who were responsible for the light show at the concert. Millay gave the audience a brief verbal set of directions before the image was flashed on the large screen that the telepathic senders were looking at. Six slide projectors were used to project a colour film about eagles and their nesting habits, as well as information about various birds from around the world (including birds from mythology, like the phoenix). This all happened at the same time Holy Modal Rounders were playing their song, “If you want to be a bird.”
There were five volunteer telepathic receivers for this experiment, and they were all located within a one hundred mile radius from the telepathic senders. All of the receivers were aware of the concert location and were told to record their images at midnight, because that was when the material would be sent to them.
According to Krippner:
One “telepathic receiver,” Helen Andrews, had the impression of “something mythological, like a griffin or a phoenix.” The second, third and fourth research participants reported images of “a snake,” “grapes,” and “an embryo in flames.” The fifth participant was Richie Havens, the celebrated American singer and recording artist, who reported closing his eyes at midnight and visualizing “a number of seagulls flying over water.” Both Mr. Havens’ and Ms. Andrews’ reports represented direct correspondences with the target material.
More remarkable results were seen when the rock group “Grateful Dead” also volunteered to participate in a dream telepathy session over a span of six nights. These results were actually published by the American Psychological Association.
These are usually the instructions given to subjects who participate in these experiments:
1. You are about to participate in an ESP experiment.
2. In a few seconds you will see a picture.
3. Try using your ESP to “send” this picture to the receiver.
4. The receiver will try to dream about this picture. Try to “send” it to them.
5. Then, receivers will be made aware of the sender’s location.
Possible Explanations?
Quantum physics has shed light on the vast interconnectedness of everything in the universe. One possible explanation is quantum entanglement. For example, consider two electrons that are created together. If you send one to the other side of the universe, the other will respond instantly, regardless of their distance from each other. This is one way of interpreting how everything is really connected in some way. Einstein called it “spooky actions at a distance.”
The truth of the matter is that we have no way to explain how this works. The researchers involved were only able to observe and record what was taking place, which again, is very common for parapsychological phenomenon.
At the same time, these experiments involve dreams, a completely different and altered state of “reality” that we really don’t know much about. It’s a world separate (or at least we think is separate) from the world in which we are “awake” (although, of course, the world we perceive when we are awake could very well be just a dream).
Parasychological Phenomena Have Been Proven and Documented All Over The World
Parapsychological (PSI) phenomena have been studied, documented, observed, and proven (over and over again) by a number of renowned scientists in laboratories all over the world. The Department of Defense has had a huge interest in this subject (and has studied it) for a number of years, yet the scientific study of it is concealed from the public and left out of universities and mainstream science, which is not fair, and not right. It isn’t as though this information is inaccessible to us, some of this documentation and these publications are available in the public domain.
Books we recommend on this topic:
Dream Yoga: Become Conscious in the World of Dreams by Samael Aun Weor
A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming: Mastering the Art of Oneironautics
The Art of Dreaming by Carlos Castaneda
Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self by Robert Waggoner
Journeys Out of the Body: The Classic Work on Out-of-Body Experience by Robert A. Monroe
You can find some of the book on the right bar of our site.
Telepathy is the stuff of science fiction. But what if the dystopian futurists were on to something? What if our brains could directly interact with each other, bypassing the need for language? The idea isn’t quite so far fetched, according to a recent University of Washington study in which researchers successfully replicated a direct brain-to-brain communication between two people.
Participants in this study played a question-and-answer game over the internet in which signals were transmitted from one brain to the other. This study is the first to show that two brains can be directly connected to enable someone to guess what is on another person’s mind.
“This is the most complex brain-to-brain experiment, I think, that’s been done to date in humans,” said lead author Andrea Stocco, an assistant professor of psychology and a researcher at UW’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences.
“It uses conscious experiences through signals that are experienced visually, and it requires two people to collaborate,” Stocco said.
“The first participant, or “respondent,” wears a cap connected to an electroencephalography (EEG) machine that records electrical brain activity. The respondent is shown an object (for example, a dog) on a computer screen, and the second participant, or “inquirer,” sees a list of possible objects and associated questions. With the click of a mouse, the inquirer sends a question and the respondent answers “yes” or “no” by focusing on one of two flashing LED lights attached to the monitor, which flash at different frequencies.
A “no” or “yes” answer both send a signal to the inquirer via the Internet and activate a magnetic coil positioned behind the inquirer’s head. But only a “yes” answer generates a response intense enough to stimulate the visual cortex and cause the inquirer to see a flash of light known as a “phosphene.” The phosphene — which might look like a blob, waves or a thin line — is created through a brief disruption in the visual field and tells the inquirer the answer is yes. Through answers to these simple yes or no questions, the inquirer identifies the correct item.”
72% of the time, participants guessed the correct object.
“They have to interpret something they’re seeing with their brains,” said co-author Chantel Prat, a faculty member at the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences and a UW associate professor of psychology. “It’s not something they’ve ever seen before.”
Andrea Stocco and Chantel Prat received a $1 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation. This gave them the opportunity to broaden their studies on decoding even more complex brain interactions. Currently, they are exploring the possibility of “brain tutoring.” In essence, brain tutoring is simply transferring knowledge from a teacher to a pupil. This could also be used to transfer signals from a healthy brain to ones that are developmentally impaired, or ones that have been affected by strokes or accidents.
Another aspect of their experiments is brain-state transmissions. What this means is sending signals from an alert subject, to a sleepy one, or from a focused pupil to one who suffers from A.D.H.D.
“Imagine having someone with ADHD and a neurotypical student,” Prat said. “When the non-ADHD student is paying attention, the ADHD student’s brain gets put into a state of greater attention automatically.”
Both Stocco and Prat are excited to discover what possibilities lie uncovered in the human brain.
“Evolution has spent a colossal amount of time to find ways for us and other animals to take information out of our brains and communicate it to other animals in the forms of behavior, speech and so on,” Stocco said. “But it requires a translation. We can only communicate part of whatever our brain processes.
“What we are doing is kind of reversing the process a step at a time by opening up this box and taking signals from the brain and with minimal translation, putting them back in another person’s brain,” he said.
The idea that people can interfere with others' thoughts and implant things in their minds was made famous by the 2010 film 'Inception'. But the concept is not completely science fiction, according to a group of researchers at Brown University.
The scientists have discovered a way to implant associations in people's brains, without the subjects being aware of it happening.
Working with colleagues in Japan, scientists at Brown University have been studying how a functional magnetic resonance machine (FMRI) can 'induce' knowledge in someone through their visual cortex by sending signals that change their brain activity pattern.
This process is called Decoded Neurofeedback, or 'DecNef'.
In a recent breakthrough, the group used a new technique to surreptitiously train a small group of volunteers to associate vertical stripes with the colour red and horizontal stripes with the colour green.
With volunteers in the scanner, the patterns of activity in two areas of the brain were first measured when the subjects saw different combinations of coloured backgrounds (red, green and grey) behind two different stripe orientations (vertical and horizontal)
The people taking part thought they were seeing the color red when looking at black and white stripes, and had no idea this was happening.
The association was induced by specifically targeting two early visual areas of the brain.
Named 'V1' and 'V2', the areas are the first parts of the cortex to process basic visual information coming from the eyes.
But scientists had not previously seen associative learning happening in these areas.
After three days of training, participants were trained into seeing red when they saw vertical stripes.
'This is the first clear study that shows that V1 and V2 are capable of creating associative learning,' said Professor Takeo Watanabe, corresponding author of the paper published in the journal Current Biology.
The idea for neurofeedback technique grew out of research from the 1960s showing that a person could regulate his heart rate or temperature just by thinking about it.
Because our brains regulate temperature and heart rate, Professor Watanabe wanted to see if we could regulate other aspects of brain activity.
'Participants were not aware of the purpose of the experiment or what kind of activation they learned to induce,' Professor Watanabe said.
After the experiment, the researchers asked the subjects what they were thinking about when they got high scores.
'I imagined a zebra,' said one participant, reported Stat News.
'I imagined a gymnastics match in which I performed well,' 'I imagined a situation where I behaved violently,' others reported.
The participants were not hallucinating the color red, Professor Watanabe said. Instead their experiences were more similar to synesthesia, a condition in which people perceive coloors when they look at printed numbers and letters.
Associative learning and memory, the idea that 'this goes with that', is pervasive in the brain.
But it was a novel finding of basic brain science to show that it can occur in early visual areas, Professor Watanabe said.
Professor Watanabe said he is eager to find out if scientists can use the study's technique of training subjects with (unwitting) MRI-based feedback to create associations in other parts of the brain for educational or therapeutic reasons.
'Our brain functions are mostly based on associative processing, so association is extremely important,' Professor Watanabe said. 'Now we know that this technology can be applied to induce associative learning.'
It sounds like something out of the supernatural, but new scientific evidence suggests that us mortal humans actually have sense comparable to the feeling of a “force field” around us that can help us avoid harm.
A recent study published in the journal Cognition looked at a phenomenon that allows us to “feel” things in our “peripersonal space,” the area immediately surrounding our body.
As New Scientistreports, you can relate to this sensation if you imagine yourself seeing something suddenly appear in your peripheral vision; you’re able to gauge whether it’s going to hit you and you instinctively move to avoid it.
For the first time, scientists managed to effectively trick people into sensing a strong form of this phenomenon. They employed the tried-and-trusted fake rubber hand experiment. In the classic interpretation of this experiment, the participants' hands are hidden from their view but they are able to see a fake rubber hand in front of them. The researchers then brush the participant’s real hand and the rubber hand simultaneously. Within moments, they typically report that they can feel the brush on the rubber hand as if it was their own.
In this new interpretation of the experiment, the participants had their real hidden hand stroked by a brush, but the brush on the fake hand was stroked above the rubber hand, making no physical contact. The majority of participants reported a sensation of “magnetic force” or “force field” between the brush and the rubber hand. However, this effect wore off when the brush strokes were around 30 to 40 centimeters (12 to 16 inches) away from the rubber hand, around the distance of what scientists define as the peripersonal space.
The researchers say this highlights the sensation of a "force field" that many report feeling in everyday life and hope it can be used in neuroscience experiments in the future. In the meantime, the beauty of this experiment is that you can try it at home. Just please use your new powers for the forces of good.
A biological research team at Bielefeld University has made a groundbreaking discovery showing that plants can draw an alternative source of energy from other plants. This finding could also have a major impact on the future of bioenergy eventually providing the evidence to show that people draw energy from others in much the same way.
Members of Professor Dr. Olaf Kruse’s biological research team have confirmed for the first time that a plant, the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, not only engages in photosynthesis, but also has an alternative source of energy: it can draw it from other plants. The research findings were released this week in the online journal Nature Communications published by the renowned journal Nature.
Flowers need water and light to grow and people are no different. Our physical bodies are like sponges, soaking up the environment. "This is exactly why there are certain people who feel uncomfortable in specific group settings where there is a mix of energy and emotions," said psychologist and energy healer Dr. Olivia Bader-Lee.
Plants engage in the photosynthesis of carbon dioxide, water, and light. In a series of experiments, Professor Dr. Olaf Kruse and his team cultivated the microscopically small green alga species Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and observed that when faced with a shortage of energy, these single-cell plants can draw energy from neighbouring vegetable cellulose instead. The alga secretes enzymes (so-called cellulose enzymes) that ‘digest’ the cellulose, breaking it down into smaller sugar components. These are then transported into the cells and transformed into a source of energy: the alga can continue to grow. ‘This is the first time that such a behaviour has been confirmed in a vegetable organism’, says Professor Kruse. ‘That algae can digest cellulose contradicts every previous textbook. To a certain extent, what we are seeing is plants eating plants’. Currently, the scientists are studying whether this mechanism can also be found in other types of alga. Preliminary findings indicate that this is the case.
"When energy studies become more advanced in the coming years, we will eventually see this translated to human beings as well," stated Bader-Lee. "The human organism is very much like a plant, it draws needed energy to feed emotional states and this can essentially energize cells or cause increases in cortisol and catabolize cells depending on the emotional trigger."
Bader-Lee suggests that the field of bioenergy is now ever evolving and that studies on the plant and animal world will soon translate and demonstrate what energy metaphysicians have known all along -- that humans can heal each other simply through energy transfer just as plants do. "Human can absorb and heal through other humans, animals, and any part of nature. That's why being around nature is often uplifting and energizing for so many people," she concluded.
You may have been told you have mesmerizing or hypnotic eyes.
Now a psychologist has found that staring into someone’s eyes for 10 minutes can cause you to hallucinate.
In an experiment, people claimed to have experienced an altered state of consciousness, including seeing distorted faces and even monsters.
Giovanni Caputo of the University of Urbino in Italy conducted the experiment in a dimly-lit room where 20 volunteers were asked to stare into each other’s eyes continuously for 10 minutes, the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest reported.
They were not told the purpose of the experiment, other than it was a ‘meditative experience with eyes open’.
The volunteers sat in pairs three feet (one metre) away from each other in the room, which was low lit to dampen their colour perception while allowing the participants to easily see their partner’s facial features.
Another control group of 20 were asked to sit in an identically lit room and stare at a blank wall for the same amount of time.
After 10 minutes, all the participants were asked to complete questionnaires about their experience of the experiment.
One asked them what they saw in their partner’s face, and the other about feelings of dissociation, or detachment from their surroundings.
The volunteers in the eye-staring group reported feeling different to before, including losing their connection with reality.
They also said that sounds seemed quieter or louder than expected, time seemed to drag and they felt spaced out.
A total of 90% of the eye-staring group said they saw deformed facial features, with three quarters of the group claiming to have seen monsters.
Half said they saw some of their own facial features in their partner's face and 15 per cent said they saw a relative's face.
The study found that dissociative symptoms and 'face dysmorphia' were correlated, but strange-face apparitions such as monsters and dissociation were not.
‘These results indicate that dissociative symptoms and hallucinatory phenomena during interpersonal-gazing under low illumination can involve different processes,’ Dr Caputo writes in the paper, published in the journal Psychiatry Research
Dr Caputo believes there is something about staring into another person’s eyes that has a profound effect on people’s perception and mental states.
He writes that 'strange-face apparitions' may occur during the rebound to ‘reality’ from the exercise, which he describes as a ‘dissociative state induced by sensory deprivation’.
The results seem to support the psychologist’s previous study which involved 50 volunteers staring at themselves in a mirror for 10 minutes, Science Alert reported.
The 2010 experiment found that people started seeing ‘strange face illusions’ after just one minute and all of them experienced a feeling of ‘otherness’.
Some saw their own facial feature change or those of other people, ancestors or animals as well as monsters, Scientific American reported.
