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To investigate the neural basis of spirituality, Cosimo Urgesi, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Udine, and his colleagues turned to people with brain tumours to assess the feeling before and after surgery. Three to seven days after the removal of tumours from the posterior part of the brain, in the parietal cortex, patients reported feeling a greater sense of self-transcendence. This was not the case for patients with tumours removed from the frontal regions of the brain.

“Self-transcendence used to be considered just by philosophers and crank new age people,” says co-author Salvatore Aglioti, a cognitive neuroscientist at the Sapienza University of Rome. “This is the first really close-up study on spirituality. We’re dealing with a complex phenomenon that’s close to the essence of being human.”

The authors pinpointed two parts of the brain that, when damaged, led to increases in spirituality: the left inferior parietal lobe and the right angular gyrus. These areas at the back of the brain are involved in how we perceive our bodies in spatial relation to the external world. The authors of the study in the journal Neuron1, say that their findings support the connection between mystic experiences and feeling detached from the body.

“The most surprising part was the rapidity of the change,” says Urgesi. “This discovery shows that some complex personality traits are more malleable than previously thought.”

Reasoning Project

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With thanks to BBSpot

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The research has implications for many chemical reactions, including those inside stars or when carbon dioxide stored deep in the earth encounters water, says study coauthor Anne De Wit of the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium.

De Wit and her colleagues wondered what would happen to fluid flows if the reacting liquids were left alone and not stirred. The researchers watched a very simple reaction — the neutralization that occurs between hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide, a common chemical base — in the absence of stirring.

The researchers carefully injected the denser sodium hydroxide into a container and then added the hydrochloric acid. The sodium hydroxide stayed on the bottom and the hydrochloric acid sat on top. Where the two reactive chemicals met, the reaction’s products — table salt and water — began to form. As the salty solution formed, it crept upward and hit the lower-density acid, creating tendrils that started to mix the solution. But the same didn’t happen below the reaction line. This difference in how the reaction product interacted with each of its chemical parents drove the mixing the team observed.

These asymmetrical patterns, the researchers say, distinguish mixing during a chemical reaction from what happens when two nonreactive liquids meet, which may look more like diffusion or other kinds of mixing.

“These kinds of beautiful patterns can be observed with very well-known reactions,” says study coauthor Christophe Almarcha, also of the Université Libre de Bruxelles. “This is quite fascinating for someone who’s done this reaction hundreds of times.”

The researchers also describe reaction-driven mixing mathematically by creating a model that predicted a pattern that looked like the real thing. The model can be tweaked to predict patterns for other chemical reactions, which would vary widely, Almarcha says.

“Our little model system says ‘pay attention,’” De Wit says. “If there are reactions, then new things will happen.” For instance, if stored carbon leaches into an aquifer and starts reacting with water, “those reactions will trigger flows, which will enhance the mixture,” she says.

Image and Video: C. Almarcha/Université Libre de Bruxelles

Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/01/self-stirring-liquids/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wiredscience+%28Blog+-+Wired+Science%29#ixzz0fbKMWnPY

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Here is how.

Take two consecutive Fibonacci numbers, for example 5 and 8. And you’re done converting. No kidding – there are 8 kilometers in 5 miles. To convert back just read the result from the other end – there are 5 miles in 8 km!

Another example. Let’s take the consecutive Fibonacci numbers 21 and 34. What this tells us is that there are approximately 34 km in 21 miles and vice versa. (The exact answer is 33.79 km.)

If you need to convert a number that is not a Fibonacci number, just express the original number as a sum of Fibonacci numbers and do the conversion for each Fibonacci number separately.

For example, how many kilometers are there in 100 miles? Number 100 can be expressed as a sum of Fibonacci numbers 89 + 8 + 3. Now, the Fibonacci number following 89 is 144, the Fibonacci number following 8 is 13 and the Fibonacci number following 3 is 5. Therefore the answer is 144 + 13 + 5 = 162 kilometers in 100 miles. This is less than 1% off from the precise answer, which is 160.93 km.

Another example, how many miles are there in 400 km? Well, 400 is 377 + 21 + 2. Since we are going the opposite way now from miles to km, we need the preceding Fibonacci numbers. They are 233, 13 and 1. Therefore there are 233 + 13 + 1 = 247 miles in 400 km. (The correct answer is 248.55 miles.)

Just remember that if you need to convert from km to miles, you need to find the preceding Fibonacci number. But if you need to convert from miles to km, you need the subsequent Fibonacci number.

If the distance you’re converting can be expressed as a single Fibonacci number, then for numbers greater than 21 the error is always around 0.5%. However, if the distance needs to be composed as a sum of n Fibonacci numbers, then the error will be around sqrt(n)·0.5%.

Here’s why it works.

Fibonacci numbers have a property that the ratio of two consecutive numbers tends to the Golden ratio as numbers get bigger and bigger. The Golden ratio is a number and it happens to be approximately 1.618.

Coincidentally, there are 1.609 kilometers in a mile, which is within 0.5% of the Golden ratio.

Now that we know these two key facts, we can figure out how to do the conversion. If we take two consecutive Fibonacci numbers, F_n+1 and F_n, we know that their ratio F_n+1/F_n is 1.618. Since the ratio is approximately the same as kilometers per mile, we can write F_n+1/F_n = [mile]/[km]. It follows that F_n·[mile] = F_n+1·[km], which translates to English as “n-th Fibonacci number in miles is the same as (n+1)-th Fibonacci number in kilometers”.

That’s all there is to it. A pure coincidence that the Golden ratio is almost the same as kilometers in a mile.

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In this Web 2.0 world, the cameras are always rolling and the net is always ready to advertise our absurdity. So in the spirit of open information — we’ve compiled our Top 13 Moments Caught on Google Maps!

Prepare to be exposed.

1. 
2. Drug Deal From Every Angle
   
3. 
4. Best Sign on Google Maps
   
5. 
6. Street Fight
   
7. Marriage Proposal 2.0
   
8. 
9. Google Maps Catches Chicago Kid About To Shoot Someone
   
10. 
11. Multiple Public Urinations
    
12. 
13. Is Your Neighborhood Safe?
    

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