Links to strange news today, Friday April 29, 2011

• Russia and Ukraine in bun fight over fairy tales
• US military looks to squid for camouflage tips
• Phoney doctors hand out sedatives then commit burglary
• Museum of swallowed objects
• Robbery suspect escapes while handcuffed to a chair
• Do animals really feel insulted by the use of the word “pet”?
• Fashion colours blamed on early human food gathering
• Atheists want to be army chaplains
• Whirlwind filmed in Glasgow carpark
• Leoprosy cases in southern USA linked to armadillos
• African rock art linked to giant extinct buffaloes
• Curse of the Pharaoh’s DNA.
• Can dogs smell cancer on your breath?
• How meditation might ward off the effects of ageing.
• Reclaiming the lost third of your life via lucid dreaming.
• Eternal sunshine of the snail’s mind: could this new research allow us to erase bad memories?
• Monkeys show advanced memory powers.
• Jeff Meldrum, professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University, says it’s possible there are 500 to 750 living sasquatch.
• UFOs: the secret to a long life.
• It’s showtime for antimatter hunters.
• Squids in spaaaaaaaace.
• Mind-controlled prosthetics could be available to paralysed people within a year.
• Bad news for the Dogon: no sign of Sirius C in exoplanet search of the Sirian system.
• Also of interest at Arxiv: gravity-field spacecraft propulsion and the maximum sufficient range of interstellar vessels.
• California may use vibrational energy of driving to generate power. And people thought SUVs were bad economics…
• Do animals have emotions?
• Image of the day: a stormy finale for space shuttle Endeavour.

>The Brain

>

…“brain time,” as Eagleman calls it, is intrinsically subjective. “Try this exercise,” he suggests in a recent essay. “Put this book down and go look in a mirror. Now move your eyes back and forth, so that you’re looking at your left eye, then at your right eye, then at your left eye again. When your eyes shift from one position to the other, they take time to move and land on the other location. But here’s the kicker: you never see your eyes move.” There’s no evidence of any gaps in your perception—no darkened stretches like bits of blank film—yet much of what you see has been edited out. Your brain has taken a complicated scene of eyes darting back and forth and recut it as a simple one: your eyes stare straight ahead. Where did the missing moments go?

The question raises a fundamental issue of consciousness: how much of what we perceive exists outside of us and how much is a product of our minds? Time is a dimension like any other, fixed and defined down to its tiniest increments: millennia to microseconds, aeons to quartz oscillations. Yet the data rarely matches our reality. The rapid eye movements in the mirror, known as saccades, aren’t the only things that get edited out. The jittery camera shake of everyday vision is similarly smoothed over, and our memories are often radically revised. What else are we missing? When Eagleman was a boy, his favorite joke had a turtle walking into a sheriff’s office. “I’ve just been attacked by three snails!” he shouts. “Tell me what happened,” the sheriff replies. The turtle shakes his head: “I don’t know, it all happened so fast.”

A few years ago, Eagleman thought back on his fall from the roof and decided that it posed an interesting research question. Why does time slow down when we fear for our lives? Does the brain shift gears for a few suspended seconds and perceive the world at half speed, or is some other mechanism at work?

via David Eagleman and Mysteries of the Brain : The New Yorker.

>Operation Deep Shoebox (Taxes 2010)

>It has been a long weekend. I’ve gone through mountains of receipts to do my personal and business taxes in basically one day.

In the process, I’ve tossed out over 10 years worth of paper records. I had things going so far back that the ink was faded to unreadable. I’m only keeping 3 years now.

That’s what the IRS web site says, “keep records for 3 years.” Great!

I’ve also enjoyed throwing away a mountain of paper related to my short sale of a house last year.

Anyway, next year will be really easy. 😉

>Review: RME Babyface USB Audio Interface

>What does it do?

If you have a computer, a microphone, a midi keyboard and perhaps a few other instruments, as well as some recording studio software such as ProTools or Cubase, this $750 small blue device will allow you to record and play back studio quality audio.

How do you install it?

Plug it in to USB (one of the two dual plugs should be enough), plug in the adapter, plug your microphone into the breakout connector, plug your powered studio speakers into the proper breakout connectors, install the drivers from the CD, reboot your computer.  Under Windows Control Panel | Sound settings, set “Analog (3+4) ” as your Default playback device. Click that and select properties and under Advanced I have “2 channel, 24 bit, 96000 Hz (Studio Quality)” selected. Click test to be sure you can hear audio. Set up TotalMix (see below). Set up your recording software to use the unit. (see below).

Why am I getting no sound?

There are many different things to check: 1. Turn up the input and output levels on the RME Babyface unit with the “Select” and rotary wheel.

Of course, the Babyface is a whole lot more than a DAC. It’s one of the most fully featured compact interfaces that has ever been made. Fully balanced on both input and output? Check. Phantom powered pres? Of course. Hi-Z DI? Yep. Toslink I/O for both digital audio and ADAT, and support for up to an absurd 192khz sample rate? You bet. Dual headphone amps, each with a dedicated DAC, up to 8 configurable sub-mixes with simultaneous main and cue mix outputs, onboard DSP effects processing, 11 segment LED metering and fully recallable settings on nearly every parameter? Why not. Oh, and did I mention that the whole thing runs bus-powered via standard USB 2.0 protocol? Only the Germans could possibly attire this with the epithet “baby” (I’m part Austrian, I get to make these jokes). I have my gripes, especially with the ease of use and UI design, which I’ll get to shortly. But it’s taxing the full extent of my willpower to refrain from just launching into a superlative-laden diatribe about the sickness of this unit.

via In Dev Review: RME Babyface USB Audio Interface.

>War for Libyan oil planned long ago?

>

“Susan Lindauer, a journalist and author specializing on American interventions, has never believed the allied forces intervened in Libya out of humanitarian reasons. It is a war for oil which was prepared long ago, Lindauer argues – anyone who cared about the Libyan people would stop immediately.”

 

>Doctor jailed for removing organs while using lemon juice antiseptic – The Local

>

1. A doctor who used lemon juice to disinfect his patients’ operation wounds and removed healthy organs was sentenced to four years in a minimum security facility followed by a four-year ban on practising medicine, a Mönchengladbach court said Monday.In one of the more notorious medical scandals in recent years, the court pronounced the 54-year-old owner and head doctor of a private clinic guilty guilty on two counts of negligent homicide and 21 counts of bodily harm.

Arnold Pier, who confessed to his crimes after one-and-a-half years at trial, “removed organs that should not have been removed,” head Judge Lothar Beckers said.

He surgically removed appendixes, a gallbladder and a kidney without medical cause or permission from patients, the court said. In another case a woman died because he broke off treatment, while another was subjected to unnecessary chemotherapy.

Another incident involved a man who had accidentally sawed his thumbs off. Instead of immediately sending the patient to a specialist, Pier simply sewed his thumbs back on, an action an expert described for the court as “waiting on a wonder.”

The thumbs rotted and had to be amputated.

“How he imagined he could simply sew the thumbs back on is hard to grasp,” Beckers said.

A total of four patients did not survive his treatment, which the court said was akin to “flying blind.”

In 2006 Pier purchased the bankrupt Antonius Klinik in Wegberg for €25,000 with the intention of restructuring operations there. But Pier did not know his limits and overestimated his abilities, the court said, assuring victims and their families that chances he would ever practice medicine again were slim.

via Doctor jailed for removing organs while using lemon juice antiseptic – The Local.

>Doctor jailed for removing organs while using lemon juice antiseptic – The Local

>

1. A doctor who used lemon juice to disinfect his patients’ operation wounds and removed healthy organs was sentenced to four years in a minimum security facility followed by a four-year ban on practising medicine, a Mönchengladbach court said Monday.In one of the more notorious medical scandals in recent years, the court pronounced the 54-year-old owner and head doctor of a private clinic guilty guilty on two counts of negligent homicide and 21 counts of bodily harm.

Arnold Pier, who confessed to his crimes after one-and-a-half years at trial, “removed organs that should not have been removed,” head Judge Lothar Beckers said.

He surgically removed appendixes, a gallbladder and a kidney without medical cause or permission from patients, the court said. In another case a woman died because he broke off treatment, while another was subjected to unnecessary chemotherapy.

Another incident involved a man who had accidentally sawed his thumbs off. Instead of immediately sending the patient to a specialist, Pier simply sewed his thumbs back on, an action an expert described for the court as “waiting on a wonder.”

The thumbs rotted and had to be amputated.

“How he imagined he could simply sew the thumbs back on is hard to grasp,” Beckers said.

A total of four patients did not survive his treatment, which the court said was akin to “flying blind.”

In 2006 Pier purchased the bankrupt Antonius Klinik in Wegberg for €25,000 with the intention of restructuring operations there. But Pier did not know his limits and overestimated his abilities, the court said, assuring victims and their families that chances he would ever practice medicine again were slim.

via Doctor jailed for removing organs while using lemon juice antiseptic – The Local.

>Human wiring, h

>Scientists solve mystery of disappearing sunspots

>

Laura Zuckerman – A trio of top solar scientists said on Wednesday they had solved the mystery behind the disappearance of sunspots, a phenomenon that has stumped astrophysicists worldwide for more than two centuries.

The research, which will be published on Thursday in the journal Nature, shows that unusually weak magnetic fields on the sun paired with reduced solar activity cause sunspots to disappear.

Sunspots appear to the human eye as dark spots on the sun, some as wide as 49,000 miles, according to NASA. They are caused by intense magnetic activity, or storms, on the sun’s surface, which is plasma. Sunspots often emit particles into space which are known as solar flares.

Sunspots went missing from 2008 to 2010 in a rare occurrence that first was reported in 1810.

Although it is well documented that the sun goes through regular 11-year cycles of high and low solar activity, sunspots are not prone to disappear for an extended period, the researchers said.

“Understanding sunspots is important because solar activities influence space weather, which affects technology in space and on the earth,” Montana State University solar physicist Piet Martens, who conducted the study with two other scientists, said in a statement. …

Scientists said the ability to better forecast extreme lows in solar activity, like the disappearance of sunspots, could help protect communication systems by altering the orbits of satellites or shutting down sensitive systems.

via NewsDaily: Scientists solve mystery of disappearing sunspots.

>Scientists solve mystery of disappearing sunspots

>

Laura Zuckerman – A trio of top solar scientists said on Wednesday they had solved the mystery behind the disappearance of sunspots, a phenomenon that has stumped astrophysicists worldwide for more than two centuries.

The research, which will be published on Thursday in the journal Nature, shows that unusually weak magnetic fields on the sun paired with reduced solar activity cause sunspots to disappear.

Sunspots appear to the human eye as dark spots on the sun, some as wide as 49,000 miles, according to NASA. They are caused by intense magnetic activity, or storms, on the sun’s surface, which is plasma. Sunspots often emit particles into space which are known as solar flares.

Sunspots went missing from 2008 to 2010 in a rare occurrence that first was reported in 1810.

Although it is well documented that the sun goes through regular 11-year cycles of high and low solar activity, sunspots are not prone to disappear for an extended period, the researchers said.

“Understanding sunspots is important because solar activities influence space weather, which affects technology in space and on the earth,” Montana State University solar physicist Piet Martens, who conducted the study with two other scientists, said in a statement. …

Scientists said the ability to better forecast extreme lows in solar activity, like the disappearance of sunspots, could help protect communication systems by altering the orbits of satellites or shutting down sensitive systems.

via NewsDaily: Scientists solve mystery of disappearing sunspots.