Secondo una ricerca condotta a Oxford, giocare a Tetris subito dopo un evento traumatico ridurrebbe brutti ricordi, flashback e sintomi da stress. Ma Pong, Pacman e tutti gli altri? Funzionano lo stesso?

L’immagine della vostra ex che se ne va con le valigie o un altro ricordo traumatico vi perseguitano e non riuscite a liberarvene? Provate a giocare a Tetris. Il suggerimento viene da un gruppo di ricercatori di Oxford secondo i quali cimentarsi con i tetramini (le figure del Tetris) dopo una brutta esperienza aiuterebbe a ridurre i flashback e i sintomi da disturbo post traumatico.
La notizia in realtà non è del tutto nuova: ciò che si è scoperto recentemente è che le proprietà "curative" sono proprie del Tetris, mentre altri videogiochi hanno l’effetto esattamente opposto.

(Video) giochi pericolosi

Gli scienziati hanno mostrato immagini traumatiche e violente a tre gruppi di volontari. Hanno poi invitato il primo gruppo a giocare a Tetris per 20 minuti, mentre il secondo si è cimentato con un quiz. Il terzo gruppo, utilizzato come gruppo di controllo, non ha fatto nulla. I risultati sono stati eclatanti: mentre i giocatori di Tetris hanno avuto molti meno flashback rispetto al gruppo di controllo, coloro che hanno giocato con il videoquiz ne hanno avuti molti di più. E l’effetto positivo del Tetris era ancora misurabile a ore di distanza dalla visione delle immagini. <> spiega Emily Holmes del dipartimento di Psichiatria dell’ Università di Oxford e responsabile dello studio. Ma come può un videogame avere effetti  paragonabili a quelli di uno piscofarmaco?

Le dimesioni contano

La mente umana ha due diverse dimensioni: una sensoriale, che raccoglie gli impulsi di vista, udito, tatto e gusto, l’altra concettuale, deputata a elaborare queste informazioni. Solitamente queste aree sono in equilibrio tra loro e lavorano insieme: per esempio quando ascoltiamo qualcuno che parla e comprendiamo ciò che dice.
Ma un trauma può sbilanciare questo meccanismo amplificando a dismisura percezioni e  sensazioni: allora l'incidente d’auto che abbiamo vissuto non ci appare più come una storia coerente, ma come un insieme di immagini sconnesse di lamiere contorte, airbag che esplodono e gomme che stridono. E queste scene possono tornarci ossessivamente davanti agli occhi anche per anni.

Neuroni occupati

Nelle sei ore immediatamente successive al trauma è però possibile intervenire sulla mente della vittima e interferire con la formazioni di questi ricordi .
Riconoscere le figure del Tetris e spostarle sulla griglia occupa il canale sensoriale del cervello: in questo modo le immagini e i suoni del gioco si sovrappongono a quelli dell'incdente e indeboliscono la formazione dei flashback. Ma secondo i ricercatori non basta distrarsi con un qualunque videogame: gli esperimenti hanno dimostrato che alcuni giochi possono avere effetto opposto anche se non è ancora chiaro come.
Ma quindi il Tetris farà parte della dotazione standard di ambulanze e squadre di soccorso? No, almeno non per adesso, visto che prima di una vera e propria sperimentazione clinica ci vorranno ancora diversi anni.

Fonte: Focus.it

A consortium of scientists is developing a new type of large fluid battery that will be able to store enough renewable energy to power 2,000 homes. One of the roadblocks to large-scale renewable energy adoption is that it is intermittent — if the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing power can’t be generated, so there is a tremendous need for systems that store excess power to be released as needed. These new batteries are based on redox flow technology — which converts chemical energy to electrical currents very quickly — and each one will be the size of a handball court.

The scientists have already developed a working 2 kilowatt battery and are hoping to scale the model up to 20 megawatt hours. “The process already works reliably,” notes Dr. Christian Dötsch, business unit manager for a participating institute, Energy Efficiency Technologies at UMSICHT. “The challenge lies in the upscale version, the enlargement of these plants.”

In principle the scientists believe they can build an 80 kW battery with their present technology, and they hope to get a 20 kW system up and running by the end of this year. They are working on new membranes and battery designs that have the potential to create batteries with megawatt capacities in about five years. Though they’ve got a long way to go to reach their desired capacity, this technology is a promising candidate for large-scale renewable power storage facilities.

Source: Inhabitat

... CONTINUA.

13. Frank Fournier - Omaira Sanchez

Pe 3 noiembrie 1985, a erupt vulcanul Nevado del Ruiz din Armero, Columbia, iar Omaira Sanchez a stat trei zile in apa, cu picioarele prinse intre betoane si alte resturi rezultate in urma dezastrului. Imaginea a fost facuta cu putin timp inainte ca ea sa moara.
 
14. Evgheni Khaldei - Steagul sovietic pe Reichstag

Imaginea, realizata initial pe 30 aprilie 1945, semnifica infrangerea Germaniei in cel de-al doilea razboi mondial. Cum imaginea initiala fusese facuta noaptea, la 22:40, Khaldei a refacut-o pe 2 mai 1945.

15. Lawrence H. Beitler - Thomas Shipp si Abram Smith, atarnand in spanzuratoare

Pe 7 august 1930, Thomas Shipp si Abram Smith au fost linsati si spanzurati de un copac, iar imaginea cu ei a fost vanduta in sute de copii si a inspirat un poem politic, "Strange Fruit".

LIKE IT OR NOT, OUR TIME AS A COUNTRY (United States of America) HAS RUN OUT!

This fellow is spelling out all the things which have taken place and explaining how they all fit together to destroy our FOOD SOURCE and who is behind it.

 Source: Richard Clarke

Everything that I discussed in this video and evidence is posted here:

ZM Global Radio is a weekly radio show presented by various active coordinators of The Zeitgeist Movement in a rotational fashion. These broadcasts discuss the developments and aims of The Zeitgeist Movement.

Friends,

This wednesday May 4th 2011 at 4pm EDT Cliff Faber, coordinator of the Canadian Chapter, will host The Zeitgeist Movement's Global Radio show.

He will talk about the upcoming Zeitgeist media Festival and will look at chapters and their continued goal of reaching the masses through continued awareness campaigns. A couple guests will be on hand to talk about some very effective campaign strategies that they are using for spreading the message of a Resource Based Economy to the global public.

www.blogtalkradio.com/zmglobal/2011/05/04/may-4th-11--the-zm-global-radio-host-cliff-faber

Time: Wed. May 4th at 4pm EDT

ZM

www.thezeitgeistmovement.com

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Lo scinco delle nevi può determinare il sesso della propria prole in base alle condizioni climatiche. Secondo i ricercatori si tratta di una sofisticata strategia evolutiva. Ma a cosa serve? E può funzionare anche nell’uomo?

Vuoi dei figli maschi? Trasferisciti al freddo, ma solo se sei uno scinco delle nevi (Niveoscincus ocellatus). Questo rettile australiano oviviparo è infatti in grado di influenzare il sesso della propria prole in base a fattori ambientali come la temperatura e l’altitudine.

Ido Pen e i suoi colleghi dell’Università di Gronigen (Paesi Bassi) hanno studiato due colonie di scinchi che abitano in Tasmania (Australia) rispettivamente sul livello del mare e a 900 metri di altitudine e hanno scoperto che questi animali, pur appartenendo alla stessa specie, adottano strategie riproduttive diverse: negli scinchi della pianura il fattore principale che determina il sesso dei nascituri è la temperatura esterna, mentre in quelli che abitano in quota gli elementi determinanti sono di origine genetica. Ma a cosa serve poter decidere il sesso dei propri figli?

Femmine calienti...

Secondo Pen poter determinare il sesso della prole in base al clima è un vantaggio. Il caldo influisce sulla crescita dei piccoli e quindi è un elemento importante nel successo riproduttivo degli scinchi. <>, spiega Pen. E così nelle stagioni calde nascono più femmine, mentre in quelle fresche nascono più maschi. E la situazione globale è di equilibrio.

... e maschi freddolosi

Per gli scinchi di montagna le cose invece sono più complesse: l’instabilità del clima che alterna estati estremamente calde e secche ad altre fredde e piovose rende pericolosa la determinazione del sesso dei nascituri in base alla temperatura: nelle annate fredde si avrebbero solo maschi, in quelle calde solo femmine. Non è certo una situazione ottimale e così i rettili si affidano alla genetica, che permette di mantere un giusto rapporto tra i sessi.

Matematicamente sicuro

Per stabilire quale dei due sistemi evolutivi avrebbe prevalso nelle due comunità i ricercatori si sono basati sulle osservazioni sperimentali e su un modello matematico: << Nella riprouzione di questi rettili agiscono due forze opposte: la determinazione climatica del sesso dei nascituri, che sembra favorire la prolificazione, e le variazioni di temperatura da un anno all’altro che minacciano la continuità della specie>>, spiega Pen.

Bufale e falsi miti

I biologi si interessano da decenni ai meccanismi che nei rettili portano allo sviluppo di individui di sesso diverso. Nei mammiferi il sesso del nascituro è definito dalla combinazione dei cromosomi sessuali X e Y che sono molto diversi tra loro mentre nei rettili sono praticamente identici. <>
Ma nell’uomo? É possibile determinare consciamente il sesso dei propri figli? Secondo la scienza no, anche se qualche ricerca afferma il contrario. Ed esiste comunque una ricca letteratura popolare che vede il giorno del concepimento, le fasi lunari o l’alimentazione dei genitori come elementi in grado di influire sul il sesso del bambino. Per chi ci crede...

Fonte: Focus.it

As part of the quest to form perfectly smooth single-molecule layers of materials for advanced energy, electronic, and medical devices, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have discovered that the molecules in thin films remain frozen at a temperature where the bulk material is molten. Thin molecular films have a range of applications extending from organic solar cells to biosensors, and understanding the fundamental aspects of these films could lead to improved devices.

The study, which appears in the April 1, 2011, edition of Physical Review Letters, is the first to directly observe "surface freezing" at the buried interface between bulk liquids and solid surfaces.

"In most materials, you expect that the surface will start to disorder and eventually melt at a temperature where the bulk remains solid," said Brookhaven physicist Ben Ocko, who collaborated on the research with scientists from the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), in France, and Bar-Ilan University, in Israel. "This is because the molecules on the outside are less confined than those packed in the deeper layers and much more able to move around. But surface freezing contradicts this basic idea. In surface freezing, the interfacial layers freeze before the bulk."

In the early 1990s, two independent teams (one at Brookhaven) made the first observation of surface freezing at the vapor interface of bulk alkanes, organic molecules similar to those in candle wax that contain only carbon and hydrogen atoms. Surface freezing has since been observed in a range of simple chain molecules and at various interfaces between them.

"The mechanics of surface freezing are still a mystery," said Bar Ilan scientist Moshe Deutsch. "It's puzzling why alkanes and their derivatives show this unusual effect, while virtually all other materials exhibit the opposite, surface melting, effect."

In the most recent study, the researchers discovered that surface freezing also occurs at the interface between a liquid and a solid surface. In a temperature-controlled environment at Brookhaven's National Synchrotron Light Source and the ESRF, the group made contact between a piece of highly polished sapphire and a puddle of liquid alkanol — a long-chain alcohol. The researchers shot a beam of high-intensity x-rays through the interface and by measuring how the x-rays reflected off the sample, the group revealed that the alkanol molecules at the sapphire surface behave very differently from those in the bulk liquid.

According to ESRF scientist Diego Pontoni, "Surprisingly, the alkanol molecules form a perfect frozen monolayer at the sapphire interface at temperatures where the bulk is still liquid." At sufficiently high temperatures, about 30 degrees Celsius above the melting temperature of the bulk alkanol, the monolayer also melts.

The temperature range over which this frozen monolayer exists is about 10 times greater than what's observed at the liquid-vapor interfaces of similar materials. According to Alexei Tkachenko, a theoretical physicist who works at Brookhaven's Center for Functional Nanomaterials , "The temperature range of the surface-frozen layer and its temperature-dependent thickness can be described by a very simple model that we developed. What is remarkable is that the surface layer does not freeze abruptly as in the case of ice, or any other crystal. Rather, a smooth transition occurs over a temperature range of several degrees."

Said Ocko, "These films are better ordered and smoother than all other organic monolayer films created to date."

Moshe Deutsch added, "The results of this study and the theoretical framework which it provides may lead to new ideas on how to make defect-free, single molecule-thick films."

Source: physorg

Provided by Brookhaven National Laboratory

... CONTINUA.

10. Alfred Eisenstaedt - ziua victoriei in Times Square

Realizata pe 14 august 1945, fotografia a aparut o saptamana mai tarziu in revista "Life", iar femeia din imagine, identificata intre timp, a murit anul trecut.

11. Malcolm Browne - Thich Quang Duc, care si-a dat foc, in Saigon

Pe 11 iunie 1963, Thich Quang Duc si-a dat foc in semn de protest impotriva persecutiei la care erau supusi budistii de catre administratia din Vietnamul de sud. Autojertfirea sa a atras atentia asupra regimului lui Ngo Dinh Diem.

12. Frank Powolny - Betty Grable, pin-up girl

In 1943, Betty Grable a pozat ca pin-up girl, iar postere cu aceasta imagine au fost la loc de cinste in dulapurile militarilor americani, in timpul celui de-al doilea razboi mondial.

VA URMA...

On May 1, 2011 Pres. Barack Obama appeared on national television with the spontaneous announcement that Osama bin Laden, the purported organizer of the tragic events of September 11th 2001, was killed by military forces in Pakistan.

Within moments, a media blitz ran across virtually all television networks in what could only be described as a grotesque celebratory display, reflective of a level of emotional immaturity that borders on cultural psychosis. Depictions of people running through the streets of New York and Washington chanting jingoistic American slogans, waving their flags like the members of some cult, praising the death of another human being, reveals yet another layer of this sickness we call modern society.

It is not the scope of this response to address the political usage of such an event or to illuminate the staged orchestration of how public perception was to be controlled by the mainstream media and the United States Government. Rather the point of this article is to express the gross irrationality apparent and how our culture becomes so easily fixed and emotionally charged with respect to surface symbology, rather than true root problems, solutions or rational considerations of circumstance.

The first and most obvious point is that the death of Osama bin Laden means nothing when it comes to the problem of international terrorism. His death simply serves as a catharsis for a culture that has a neurotic fixation on revenge and retribution. The very fact that the Government which, from a psychological standpoint, has always served as a paternal figure for it citizens, reinforces the idea that murdering people is a solution to anything should be enough for most of us to take pause and consider the quality of the values coming out of the zeitgeist itself.

However, beyond the emotional distortions and tragic, vindictive pattern of rewarding the continuation of human division and violence comes a more practical consideration regarding what the problem really is and the importance of that problem with respect to priority.

The death of any human being is of an immeasurable consequence in society. It is never just the death of the individual. It is the death of relationships, companionship, support and the integrity of familial and communal environments. The unnecessary deaths of 3000 people on September 11, 2001 is no more or no less important than the deaths of those during the World Wars, via cancer and disease, accidents or anything else.

As a society, it is safe to say that we seek a world that strategically limits all such unnecessary consequences through social approaches that allow for the greatest safety our ingenuity can create. It is in this context that the neurotic obsession with the events of September 11th, 2001 become gravely insulting and detrimental to progress. An environment has now been created where outrageous amounts of money, resources and energy is spent seeking and destroying very small subcultures of human beings that pose ideological differences and act on those differences through violence.

Yet, in the United States alone each year, roughly 30,000 people die from automobile accidents, the majority of which could be stopped by very simple structural changes. That's ten 9/11's each year... yet no one seems to pine over this epidemic. Likewise, over 1 million Americans die from heart disease and cancer annually - causes of which are now easily linked to environmental influences in the majority. Yet, regardless of the over 330 9/11's occurring each year in this context, the governmental budget allocations for research on these illnesses is only a small fraction of the money spent on “anti-terrorism” operations.

Such a list could go on and on with regard to the perversion of priority when it comes to what it means to truly save and protect human life and I hope many out there can recognize the severe imbalance we have at hand with respect to our values.

So, coming back to the point of revenge and retribution, I will conclude this response with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., likely the most brilliant intuitive mind when it came to conflict and the power of non-violence. On September 15, 1963 a Birmingham Alabama church was bombed, killing four little girls attending Sunday school.

In a public address, Dr. King stated:

“What murdered these four girls? Look around. You will see that many people that you never thought about participated in this evil act. So tonight all of us must leave here with a new determination to struggle. God has a job for us to do. Maybe our mission is to save the soul of America. We can't save the soul of this nation throwing bricks. We can't save the soul of this nation getting our ammunitions and going out shooting physical weapons. We must know that we have something much more powerful. Just take up the ammunition of love.”

- Dr. Martin Luther King, 1963 -

~Peter Joseph

www.thezeitgeistmovement.com

... CONTINUA.

7. Nick Ut - Phan Thi Kim Phuc, fuga din calea bombei cu napalm

Pe 8 iunie 1972, America bombarda cu napalm Trang Bang, o provincie din sud-estul Vietnamului, iar populatia fugea ingrozita incercand sa scape cu viata. Realizatorul imaginii, Nick Ut, a castigat mai multe premii pentru fotografie, inclusiv un Pulitzer.

8. John Filo - demonstranti la Kent State University

Pe 4 mai 1970, membri ai garzii nationale din Ohio au tras in multimea de demonstranti de la Kent State University - au ucis patru si au ranit grav noua. Acest eveniment dramatic a dus la un val de proteste in mai multe universitati din toata America.

9. William Anders - Pamantul fotografiat in timpul misiunii Apollo 8

Realizata in 1968 de astronautul William Andres, fotografia este considerata una dintre cele mai de impact imagini cu Terra luate vreodata si a aparut pe o emisie de timbre din 1969.

VA URMA...