Tag: existence
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Seeing better. Through not seeing. Descartes and the wisdom of Silenus…
Visual acuity is normally thought to be dictated by the shape and condition of the eye but these new findings suggest that it may also be influenced by perceptual processes in the brain. "We discovered that visual acuity - the ability to see fine detail - can be enhanced by an illusion known as the…
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Neurons, plants and the mystery of patterns…
Plants and brains are more alike than you might think. Salk scientists discovered that the mathematical rules governing how plants grow are similar to how brain cells sprout connections. In particular, plants use the same rules to grow under widely different conditions (for example, cloudy versus sunny) and the density of branches in space follows…
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Caesar breath… Your breath…
Julius Caesar could have stayed home on March 15, 44 B.C. But mocking the soothsayer who had predicted his death, the emperor rode in his litter to Rome’s Forum. There he met the iron daggers of 60 senators. As he lay in a pool of blood, he may have gasped a final incrimination to his…
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The transition to life. mRNA translation. The futility of life questions.
The transition from an egg to a developing embryo is one of life's most remarkable transformations. Yet little is known about it. Now Whitehead Institute researchers have deciphered how one aspect - control of the all-important translation of messenger RNAs (mRNAs) into proteins - switches as the egg becomes an embryo. That shift is controlled…
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Meditation going wrong? Watch out what you look for…
Meditation is increasingly being marketed as a treatment for conditions such as pain, depression, stress and addiction, and while many people achieve therapeutic goals, other meditators encounter a much broader range of experiences - sometimes distressing and even impairing ones - along the way. Meditators reported multiple unexpected experiences from across the seven domains of…
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