60s Science---From everyday collection to environmental protection, think Green!

阿泰UID: 209473

12月26日 Brain Activity Altered during Religious Experience

链接：http://www.sciam.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=brain-activity-altered-during-relig-08-12-24


文本：In America there’s a feeling of Christmas. But that’s not the only winter holiday going on. Jews are lighting Hanukkah candles, Muslims recently feasted on Eid al-Adha, and pagans celebrated the solstice. So it’s a good time for researchers to consider spirituality—from a scientific point of view.

One experience central to major religions around the world is that of transcendence, the idea of almost losing a sense of self to the feeling that there’s something bigger out there. Now scientists at the University of Missouri say they’ve located that experience in our brains. All the people studied, from Buddhist monks in meditation to Francescan nuns in prayer, experience this transcendence. And they all have decreased activity in the right parietal lobe of the brain. That area has to do with senses such as orienting yourself in the space around you. The study was published in Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science.

Interestingly, people with injuries to the right parietal lobe report increased levels of spiritual experiences. The researchers are quick to say that this connection doesn’t minimize the role of religion, and that religious or spiritual experiences might decrease activity in that region and thus increase that special feeling of transcendence. Just in time for the holidays.
—Cynthia Graber

难词：Hanukkah  solstice Zygon

[ 本帖最后由 阿泰 于 2009-1-17 22:25 编辑 ]

glamorouskyUID: 2459211

是拿来听写么~~~:rolleyes:

阿泰UID: 209473

是的

james011137UID: 2280989

阿泰你的头像是 周杰伦？

阿泰UID: 209473

恩

james011137UID: 2280989

原帖由 阿泰 于 2008-12-26 22:44 发表
恩

脸咋变型了。。人家周董脸很小的:loveliness:

阿泰UID: 209473

角度的问题吧;)

hyacinthUID: 2184492

你这是自己听写呢。。。还是带板油听写呢。。。:confused:

阿泰UID: 209473

自己

阿泰UID: 209473

12月27日 Fasting May Equal Calorie-Restricted Diets

Sometimes it’s not what you eat, but when you eat it. At least when it comes to longevity diets. For some time, scientists have known that animals kept on a strict diet live longer than their well-fed peers. But this Methuselah meal plan is no ordinary just-say-no-to-that-second-slice of pie kind of diet. To reap the life-extending benefits, some of these animals cut their calorie consumption in half. Such a diet might be do-able for captive mice and monkeys, but it would be a tough sell for people.

Then, five years ago, studies in mice suggested that intermittent fasting would work just as well. These mice abstained from eating every other day, and lived longer then their gluttonous comrades—without really skimping on the total calories they consumed.

Now, scientists at Kyoto University have found the same thing in worms that fasted every third day. And they found a gene that regulates the effect, results reported in the journal Nature. Like the mice, these fasting worms did not cut their total calorie intake. But they boosted their lifespan by 50 percent, and showed fewer signs of physical decline than their peers. So go ahead, enjoy that extra slice of pie. Because tomorrow’s another day. To not eat.

—Karen Hopkin

难词：Methuselah intermittent gluttonous

hyacinthUID: 2184492

又要考了? :confused:

加油~~

阿泰UID: 209473

phd==permanent head damage:rolleyes:

阿泰UID: 209473

今天没有，上个December 23, 2008的

Crowds Walking Can Make A Bridge Sway http://www.sciam.com/podcast/epi ... -bridge-sw-08-12-23

On its opening day, 90,000 tourists traipsed across the London Millennium Bridge. That pitter patter of pedestrian feet caused the structure to visibly rock, earning it the nickname “the wobbly bridge.” Now, in the December 17th issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society, civil engineers say they think they know what made the London bridge sway.

It had initially been assumed that the movement was caused by a portion of the pedestrians marching in lock-step. Their synchronized waddle could have caused the bridge to oscillate, leading even more of them to tread in tandem. But the engineers say that the same oscillations can be generated by people who are simply plodding along, just trying to keep their balance—no marching necessary.

Using mathematical modeling, the scientists showed that even walking on level ground people stabilize themselves by controlling where they place their feet side-to-side. So if they’re walking on a bridge that also wiggles side-to-side, in an effort to keep their balance they may shift their weight even more, making the problem worse. So next time you go to walk across the Thames, remember, the London Millennium Bridge is not falling down. But you still might want to watch your step.


生词： traipsed tandem

阿泰UID: 209473

December 22, 2008 Fruit Fly Immunity Stronger While Sleeping

For those of you who’ve spent many of your waking hours this winter washing your hands and fretting about getting sick, you might be better off just staying in bed. Because scientists from Stanford University have found that the immune system works best after dark.

The scientists were studying fruit flies, which are active at dawn and dusk, and sleep through the night like you and me. The circadian rhythm that tells these critters, and many others, when to snooze and when to cruise, controls lots of bodily functions. So the scientists got to wondering whether it also regulates the immune system and the fly’s ability to fight infections. Yes, even fruit flies can catch some pretty nasty bugs. Which the scientists proceeded to demonstrate.

They took a bunch of flies and infected them with some unsavory bacteria. Half the flies were infected while they slept, half while they were awake. Turns out that the flies that were infected at night were better able to battle their bugs than flies who got sick during the day, results presented at the American Society for Cell Biology meeting in San Francisco on December 14th. Whether human immunity is also better during sleep isn’t yet known. But Shakespeare might have been onto something when he called sleep “nature’s soft nurse.

难词：fretting critter

阿泰UID: 209473

December 29, 2008  Men's Chess Superiority Explained
http://www.sciam.com/podcast/epi ... -explained-08-12-29

Women are so much better than men at so many things. But according to a report published by the Royal Society, chess is not one of them. The topic of sex differences when it comes to matters of the mind is, needless to say, a divisive one. Those who wish to argue that women are just not as smart as men often point to chess as their proof. Although girls can obviously play, no woman’s ever been world champion. But before looking for cultural or biological explanations for the disparity, scientists say you need to do the math.

Serious chess players are assigned ratings based on their performance against other players. So the scientists compared the ratings of the top hundred male and top hundred female players from Germany. And they found that the men indeed outperformed the women. However that difference can be almost entirely explained by statistics. Because the larger the population, the wider the range of measured scores—the bell curve has a longer tail. And because many more men play than women, the best male players are extreme outliers on that bell curve. As more women play, a few should also reach those extremes, right out there with the men. To which one might be tempted to say: Checkmate.

无难词