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