iNow

One thing I gleaned from Gliders post is that the thalamus has more to do with actual sensory input (physically being touched or actually receiving sound in the ear canal), so I'm led to believe that (in the case of dreams and imagination) the thalamus is not really a factor (or, at least not a major one). Also, the auditory cortex is in the temporal lobe, along with the secondary visual areas, so would VERY MUCH be involved. It is tied closely to the areas in that same region of the brain (temporal lobe) which is involved in memory. So, the temporal lobe seems to be the biggest player for these types of experiences, so long as you remain aware of the memory implications and impact from the hippocampus. So, maybe you can alter the title to "Live at the Brodmann" (see wiki link in primary auditory cortex for clarification). However, what I'm not sure about is whether or not it's the primary auditory cortex which is more important here, or the secondary/teritiary (see Gliders comments on primary visual cortex, and how most processing goes on in secondary and tertiary areas). From the wiki on Primary Auditory Cortex link shared above: The secondary auditory cortex has been indicated in the processing of “harmonic, melodic and rhythmic patterns.” The tertiary auditory cortex supposedly integrates everything into the overall experience of music.

This Faux News clip seems to support the point you're making: And the other side presented by Keith Olbermann (which gives the clips of Obama which seem to present the context you referenced):

Slightly off topic, and not likely to be cheaper, but I read this article the other day discussing new ways to contain and wrap liquids and gases. http://www.aip.org/press_release/nanoballoon.html Airtight containers are not always so airtight. As any child will discover the day after a birthday party, even a tightly tied helium balloon will leak its gas out over the course of many hours. Now scientists have come up with a supremely efficient barrier that lets nothing in or out. As described in a recent issue of the journal Applied Physics Letters, this new wrapping material is made of graphene, a natural carbon fabric that is only a single-atomic-layer thick. The actual journal article: http://link.aip.org/link/?APPLAB/93/193107/1 We have performed a first-principles density functional theory investigation of the penetration of helium atoms through a graphene monolayer with defects. The relaxation of the graphene layer caused by the incoming helium atoms does not have a strong influence on the height of the energy barriers for penetration. For defective graphene layers, the penetration barriers decrease exponentially with the size of the defects but they are still sufficiently high that very large defects are needed to make the graphene sheet permeable for small atoms and molecules. This makes graphene a very promising material for the construction of nanocages and nanomembranes.

...is that we are, in fact, evolving.

Indeed. Very well timed article. Thanks for sharing it, Lance. In 1956, Denham Harman proposed the theory that aging is caused by an accumulation of molecular damage caused by "oxidative stress", the action of reactive forms of oxygen, such as superoxide, on cells. This theory has dominated the field of aging research for over fifty years. But now, a study published online today in the journal Genes & Development suggests that this theory is probably incorrect and that superoxide is not a major cause of aging. "The fact is that we don't understand much about the fundamental mechanisms of aging," says Dr David Gems from UCL. "The free radical theory of aging has filled a knowledge vacuum for over fifty years now, but it just doesn't stand up to the evidence." Dr Gems and colleagues at the Institute of Healthy aging studied the action of key genes involved in removing superoxide from the bodies of the nematode worm C. elegans, a commonly-used model for research into aging. By manipulating these genes, they were able to control the worm's ability to "mop up" surplus superoxide and limit potential damage caused by oxidation. Contrary to the result predicted by the free radical theory of aging, the researchers found that the lifespan of the worm was relatively unaffected by its ability to tackle the surplus superoxide. The findings, combined with similar recent findings from the University of Texas using mice, imply that this theory is incorrect.

What precise, clear, and testable definition of the word soul you are using in your post, vlntn? I don't believe that word is very common in scientific literature.

Roger Ebert finally got around to a review of this stellar masterpiece of a film. Let's just say that his take was both sincere and rather telling. http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/12/win_ben_steins_mind.html That is simply one revealing fragment. This film is cheerfully ignorant, manipulative, slanted, cherry-picks quotations, draws unwarranted conclusions, makes outrageous juxtapositions (Soviet marching troops representing opponents of ID), pu$$y-foots around religion (not a single identified believer among the ID people), segues between quotes that are not about the same thing, tells bald-faced lies, and makes a completely baseless association between freedom of speech and freedom to teach religion in a university class that is not about religion. And there is worse, much worse. Toward the end of the film, we find that Stein actually did want to title it "From Darwin to Hitler." <more at the link>

You're quite right about being tasteful. His speech on race was both inspired and inspiring. However, IIRC, it was the opponents endless cycling of his preacher, Jeremiah Wright, to inspire the "hey, he's different" outgroup mentality, and the snarky use of his middle name, Barack Hussein Obama, or that he was an arugala eating gun hating uppity elitist which prompted his response. While he did it with class, and while his desire NOT to talk about it in some sense was a way of bringing it to the conversational table by all of us spectators, I think the chronology of the election shows clearly that he was responding to, not generating the issue. If my assertion is correct, this would mean the suggestion that he was "playing the race card" falls flat on its face, and ignores the actions of those who truly were involved in such a wedge driving card game among our populace.

Okay, so we have carbon scrubbers on our submarines and on the space shuttle and in the space station. Why don't we scale up production of these bad boys a few orders of magnitude, power them with solar panels, and plop them in large density across the planet? It's just an idea, and I'm sure there are problems with it, but what are they? Identifying a problem is the first step in solving it...

I presume you either didn't read or didn't comprehend the post made in response to you by Sisyphus. Obama was explicity trying to PREVENT race from being an issue, asking the electorate to judge him on his abilities and character, not simply on the melanin content of his dermal layer. Your interpretation seems to me very far removed from the reality of the situation. Just because the McCain campaign and Faux News accused him of doing this doesn't mean that he actually was. If you think it does, then I've got a bridge I want to sell ya. It might help if you read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_card

CrazCo - You may be interested in reading articles about the Carrying Capacity of Earth. The wiki is pretty good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_capacity The way we're living now, it would take roughly 5-6 Earths to sustain, and yet we continue reproducing. I'm not a mathematician, but soemthing about the equation isn't reassuring. Here's the last part of an interesting talk with Aubrey Manning (one of the worlds top ethologists) and another well known science guy.

Prop 8 - The Musical "Prop 8 - The Musical" starring Jack Black, John C. Reilly, and many more... from Jack Black

No, that's not really what I intended. I think this link explains it better than I could: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/moon_mechanics_0303018.html Gravity is said to be the weakest of all the fundamental forces. But one aspect of it is very consequential: Gravity never goes away. It weakens with distance, but it is always at work. This fact is the primary driver of tides. The side of Earth nearest the Moon always gets tugged more than the other side, by about 6 percent. Hey, you might say, there are two high tides on this planet at any given moment. True. And another far more complex set of phenomena explains this. The Moon does not just go around the Earth. In reality, the two objects orbit about a common gravitational midpoint, called a barycenter. The mass of each object and the distance between them dictates that this barycenter is inside Earth, about three-fourths of the way out from the center. So picture this: The center of the Earth actually orbits around this barycenter, once a month. The effect of this is very important. Think, for a second, of a spacecraft orbiting Earth. Its astronauts experience zero gravity. That's not because there's no gravity up there. It's because the ship and its occupants are constantly falling toward Earth while also moving sideways around the planet. This sets up a perpetual freefall, or zero-g. Like the orbiting spaceship, the center of the Earth is in free-fall around the barycenter of the Earth-Moon system. Here's the kicker: On the side of Earth opposite the Moon, the force of the Moon's gravity is less than at the center of the Earth, because of the greater distance. It can actually be thought of as a negative force, in essence, pulling water away from the Moon and away from Earth's surface -- a second high tide. Our planet rotates under these constantly shifting tides, which is why high and low tides are always moving about, rolling in and rolling out as far as observers on the shore are concerned. The Sun, too, has a tidal effect on Earth, but because of its great distance it is responsible for only about one-third of the range in tides. When the Earth, Moon and Sun are aligned (at full or new Moon), tides can be unusually dramatic, on both the high and low ends. When the Moon is at a 90-degree angle to the Sun in our sky (at first quarter or last quarter) tides tend to be mellower.

If you have a rubber ball, and one side gets pushed out, the rest of the ball will deform. Think of squashing the ball between your hand and the floor. The area around the equator gets expanded, and the area around the poles moves closer to the center. Similar with earth. It's not so much that "one side is getting closer to the moon," it's that the earth bulges at the center and squashes in from the poles, hence the bulge is seen around the entire planet, not just the moon facing side.

Yeah, my first thought went to Mandelbrot, too.

Very nice.

I believe this gives the Republicans a source of leverage. On any votes which are close and right on the edge, that ONE republican will receive promises and gifts and whatever it takes to coerce him/her to the other side. If leveraged correctly, you could have a few smart republicans becoming very powerful through all of this, precisely because they will be so needed.

Well, in my opinion, and looking at the data (declining resources like water and food, inceasing pollution and climate change, etc...), we're diving quickly to our own extinction because we're reproducing too much. Either we need to find sources of resources beyond our own planet, or we need to have negative population growth for a while. It won't be pretty, but it will happen whether we want it to or not (nature is a real bee-atch sometimes).

An informative and welcome correction. Thanks, DH.

To whom?

Then, in addition to the parts bascule referenced, you'd also see higher levels of activation in the auditory cortex: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_auditory_cortex Btw - the thalamus is like a crossroads or a junction through which almost all neural signals travel. "All roads lead to the thalamus."

Your feeling is the right one. It involves all of the different regions, much like dreaming. Here's the kicker, though... the different regions which are involved depend greatly on the subject of your imagination. For example, if you are imagining a big math problem, it would be prefrontal cortex. If you were imagining pitching a fast ball during the world series, your motor cortex would be more involved. If you were imagining a painting of clouds, it would be more the occipital cortex. Then, on top of all THAT, there are the contributions from your more basic reptilian brain regions, the emotional and memory areas, like the hippocampus and amygdala, which change the "taste" or "texture" of those imaginative explorations. Glider is the best person here to answer such questions, but you'd probably need to be a bit more specific first ("When I imagine X, and how it relates to Y, which brain regions tend to show the most activity on fMRI scans or PET...positronic emission topography... or CAT scans?) Interesting question, though. Now you've got me thinking about this.

Not sure if it's a sign of deeper problems or not, but long story short... He enjoys the games and the feeling he gets while playing them. If you want him to stop the game playing (or, at least, limit it), you ought to try finding a replacement... Some alternative that gives a similar pleasurable exprerience. Some people do martial arts or other sports for the "good feelings" and endorphin rush that they get out the games. The trick is to replace it with something else that provides a similar feeling of enjoyment.

Why do I feel like I'm stuck in the middle of a Who's on First skit?

If I read that article correctly, they got off because they never appeared in court, and on other technicalities like alternate jurors being inproperly substituted one day. That's our legal system for you. Guilty until dismissed by procedural nonsense. [Administrative Judge]Banales withheld judgment on whether probable cause existed for the Cheney and Gonzales indictments because they were not represented in court and did not present any argument. Banales dismissed all eight indictments because GEO Group attorney Tony Canales showed that two alternate jurors were part of the panel that day but had not been properly substituted.