Sixth Sense: When Danger Approaches, Who Sees it First?

Benedict Carey writes:

Everyone has hunches — about friends’ motives, about the stock market, about when to fold a hand of poker and when to hold it. But United States troops are now at the center of a large effort to understand how it is that in a life-or-death situation, some people’s brains can sense danger and act on it well before others’ do.

Experience matters, of course: if you have seen something before, you are more likely to anticipate it the next time. And yet, recent research suggests that something else is at work, too.

Small differences in how the brain processes images, how well it reads emotions and how it manages surges in stress hormones help explain why some people sense imminent danger before most others do.

link: Brain Power - In Battle, Hunches Prove to Be Valuable Assets - Series - NYTimes.com

Iran: Mousavi's Lament

“How can it be that the leaders of our country do not cry out and shed tears about these tragedies,” Mr. Moussavi said, in comments to a teachers’ association that were posted on his Web site. “Can they not see it, feel it? These things are blackening our country, blackening all our hearts. If we remain silent, it will destroy us all and take us to hell.”

link: Google Reader (191)

Illustrations from an Iranian Children's Book

Farshid Mesghali (illus.), Iran, 1970s, The Blue-Eyed Boy (Mojabi, Pisarak-L Cism Abi),

link: A Journey Round My Skull: Iranian Kid's Books, part 2

Ahmadinejad: When It Rains. . . .

Iran's industry minister has been found guilty of fraud, dealing a fresh blow to his close ally Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president.

Ali Akbar Mehrabian was convicted by an Iranian court over claims by a researcher that he had stolen his idea for an "earthquake saferoom'' - a design for a fortified room in homes in case of disaster, local media reported on Monday.

An appeals court upheld that the design belonged to researcher Farzan Salimi and convicted Mehrabian of fraud but did not prescribe any punishment, according to Iranian newspapers.

The conviction is the latest embarrassment to Ahmadinejad, who has already been pressed to drop his choice of vice-president, had his intelligence minister fired on Sunday and had his culture minister quit on him on the same day.

The rift with his own conservative camp comes on top of the upheaval over Iran's disputed June 12 presidential election, which the opposition claims was rigged in Ahmadinejad's favour over challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi.

link: Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Iran president dealt fresh blow

Book Review: "Shelf Discovery"

Joy Press writes:

I never actually read "Flowers in the Attic" -- just the "dirty pages" clearly marked in the well-thumbed copy passed to every single girl at summer camp -- but Lizzie Skurnick did. In fact, she reread it, along with more than 60 other books she had devoured in her youth for a Jezebel column called Fine Lines, collected into this enjoyable book. As Skurnick points out in the intro to "Shelf Discovery," the 1960s-1980s were a transitional moment for young-adult lit, particularly for girls. Alongside the wholesome, winsome and plucky heroines of yore, an expanding range of female characters appeared in print: nerdy girls, Jewish girls, fat girls, slutty girls, girls with divorced parents, depressed girls and -- of course -- girls with ESP.

That last category might explain why I chose ESP and other supernatural subjects for my school science fair projects in grades 4, 5 and 6: too much time poring over Lois Duncan books like "A Gift of Magic" or "Stranger With My Face." Or perhaps it was the wonderful Meg Murry of "A Wrinkle in Time," the first of Madeleine L'Engle's protagonists to "flit across the boundaries of space and time,” as Skurnick puts it, "even more flummoxed by adolescence than they are by being whipsawed across the universe."

link: Are you there, God? It's me, childhood | Salon Arts & Entertainment

Gizmodo Presents: You Never Thought of This

You'll never guess what is revealed when you open this bra-shaped pudding packaging! Oh, wait, yes you will: boob pudding.

link: Niigata Bust Pudding Continues Japan's Trend of Being a Little Creepy - Japan - Gizmodo

Senate Finance Committee Health Care Proposal Deep-Sixes Public Option

Stephen C. Webster writes:

Six bipartisan members of the Senate Finance Committee have reached an agreement on healthcare reforms that eschews the president’s insistence on a low-cost, public option, a published report said Monday evening. The plan also drops the requirement for employers to provide their workers’ insurance.

Though significantly stripped down from prior versions, the group’s compromise would prevent any insurance company from denying coverage and would block higher premiums for patients with pre-existing conditions, the Associated Press reported.

The senators’ effort was cheered by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and drug company lobbying group PhRMA, the report noted.

link: Raw Story » Senators’ bipartisan health ‘compromise’ drops public option

Thierry Legault, Photographer: Space Station in Transit Against the Sun

Wired writes:

A photographer has captured a stunning photo of the space shuttle Endeavor docked with the International Space Station crossing the face of the sun.

You couldn’t just aim your digital camera at the sky and get results like this. Thierry Legault, who is known for his amazing astronomical imagery, uses specialized solar filters to capture the images.

link: Photo: Docked Space Shuttle and Station Cross the Sun | Wired Science | Wired.com

Five Year Old Allergic to All Food

KALEB, 5, cannot eat. He does not just have a peanut allergy or a milk allergy. He is allergic to all food.

The only things he can put in his mouth are water and a certain brand of lemonade.

He is fed for 20 hours a day through a machine that pumps nutrients directly into his stomach.

Unless doctors can find a cure, he will never have his first beer, or a birthday cake, the Advertiser reports.

He can not even share pencils with friends in case he accidentally ingests a bit of food left there.

His mother, Melissa Bussenschutt, said doctors have "no idea" exactly what is wrong with him except that food makes him violently ill and fills his stomach with ulcers.

"Little did we know he was in so much pain," she said.

link: Medical mystery of Kaleb Bussenschutt who cannot eat | News.com.au Top stories | News.com.au

Raul Castro's Agrarian Message

Nick Miroff writes:

Former Cuban President Fidel Castro was famous for his marathon speeches and unflinching stamina, delivering grand, looping disquisitions that could last for hours in the broiling sun.

But on Sunday, the national holiday marking the beginning of the Cuban Revolution, Castro’s successor and younger brother Raul was brief and direct in his state-of-the-union-style address — in keeping with his reputation as a practical man with little patience for the island’s plodding bureaucracy.

His message was also a sobering one.

The younger Castro, 78, told a crowd of several thousand in this eastern Cuban city that the country had to pull itself out of its ongoing financial straits by working harder, saving more, and going “back to the land” with his agricultural reform efforts.

Rather than shouting political slogans, Castro said, Cubans need to grow more food.

"It is not a question of yelling ‘Homeland or death! Down with imperialism! The blockade hurts us!'" he said, referring to long-standing U.S. trade sanctions against the island. "The land is there waiting for our efforts.”

link: Castro urges Cubans "back to the land" | GlobalPost

O Arizona: Biosphere

With dreams of colonizing Mars, John P. Allen, who made his millions in oil, funded the building of Biosphere 2 in the middle of the Arizona desert. (Planet earth is Biosphere 1.) The 3.15-acre sealed glass house is a dazzling attempt to completely recreate the conditions and environment of Earth including a rain forest, desert, marsh, and an mini-ocean.

link: Biosphere 2 | Atlas Obscura

Nanodiamonds Support Impact Theory

Geology.com writes:

Researchers believe that they have found physical evidence of a cosmic impact that might have caused the extinction of an estimated 35 mammal and 19 bird genera about 12,900 years ago. Their findings are inconsistent with the popular theory that overhunting by Clovis people led to these extinctions.

The researchers have found hexagonal nanodiamonds within a dark layer of sediment on Santa Rosa Island off the coast of Southern California. These are not ordinary diamonds. Instead, they are lonsdaleite, a shock-synthesized mineral with a hexagonal crystalline structure. It forms under extreme temperatures and pressures, similar to those produced by a cosmic impact.

Lonsdaleite diamonds, are typically found in meteorites, impact craters and impact ejecta. Their presence in the dark sediment layer suggests that materials in the layer might be ejecta produced by a large impact event.

link: Impact Nanodiamonds and Soot Explain Clovis-Age Extinctions?

Taliban Instruction Manual

The Taliban in Afghanistan has issued a book laying down a code of conduct for its fighters.

Al Jazeera has obtained a copy of the book, which further indicates that Mullah Omar, the movement's leader, wants to centralise its operations.

The book, with 13 chapters and 67 articles, lays out what one of the most secretive organisations in the world today, can and cannot do.

It talks of limiting suicide attacks, avoiding civilian casualties and winning the battle for the hearts and minds of the local civilian population.

James Bays, our correspondent in Afghanistan, said every fighter is being issued the pocket book entitled "The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Rules for Mujahideen".

The book sheds considerable light on the structure, organisation and aims of the group, he said.

link: Al Jazeera English - CENTRAL/S. ASIA - Taliban issues new code of conduct

Cheaper than Traditional Therapy, but There's No Couch

Accidental Mysteries writes:

OK. I ADMIT IT! I AM IN LOVE WITH CANDY CHANG. I LOVE HER THINKING, HER CREATIVITY AND HER ART. You can love her too, and we'll have this gargantuan intellectual love fest with her. If you have never heard of Candy, let me introduce you.

Candy is a designer and artist who currently lives in Helsinki, where she develops strategic visions for Nokia. She has a background in architecture, graphic design and urban planning and combines these disciplines to make city information and communication tools more accessible and engaging. For such a young woman, her resume of accomplishments is impressive, to say the least.

Like this particular street art project Candy calls Sidewalk Psychiatry. Realizing that people walking along a city street are often engaged and immersed in their own thoughts about work issues, relationships, or last nights dinner, Candy set out with non-permanent chalk to prod people to focus on what may be bothering them. Her intent was that perhaps one of these questions would help someone find an answer, or seek professional help.

link: accidental mysteries: Sidewalk Psychiatry

RIP Merce Cunningham

Merce Cunningham, the American choreographer who was among a handful of 20th-century figures to make dance a major art and a major form of theater, died Sunday night. He was 90 and lived in Manhattan.

Mr. Cunningham ranks with Isadora Duncan, Serge Diaghilev, Martha Graham and George Balanchine in making people rethink the essence of dance and choreography, posing a series of “But” and “What if?” questions over a career of nearly seven decades.

link: Merce Cunningham Dies - ArtsBeat Blog - NYTimes.com