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News Briefs 29-06-2007

By Gregon

O’Hare airport, Channel Islands…the UFOs seem to be returning.

  • I’ve just posted a brilliant video interview with the pilot involved in the Channel Islands UFO case (from the Richard and Judy show) here on TDG – if it’s moved off the front page by the time you read the news, follow the link provided. Covers topics such as lenticular clouds, rather than the usual fluff (h/t to Orange Orb). Also, see this earlier interview with Capt. Ray Bowyers, in which it is evident that he was not at all happy to be in the air with this ‘thing’.
  • Col. John Alexander, the Pentagon’s former psychic visionary, tells how witches ended up working on Intel. Not sure if he’s referring to the group known as ‘the witches’ in the RV program (see Paul Smith’s Reading the Enemy’s Mind), or some other project involving psychics/witches.
  • Bigelow Aerospace launches second orbital module successfully.
  • Bigfoot caught on tape? I see nothing. This Tom Biscardi guy seems to show up regularly though…
  • Alien dreamtime: the guy who envisions an alien abduction rollercoaster.
  • New home appliance the size of a paperback novel predicts quakes before they hit. I’m not sure if seconds are going to cut it.
  • Will science render men unnecessary? Not until they make a robot that can wash dishes! Oh, they’ve done that already? Errrr….
  • Evidence for ‘anniversary reaction‘? Woman’s defibrillator activates one week to the hour after her father died, while she was standing beside the open grave of her sister, who died when she heard about her father’s death. Tough times in that family…
  • A review of Gerd Gigerenzer’s Gut Feelings: The Intelligence Of The Unconscious.
  • Norway hosts witchcraft experts.
  • There’s nothing funny about Michael Moore’s Sicko.
  • How far away is fusion energy?
  • Space Diving: Extreme sport of the future.
  • Mars dust storm could threaten rovers.
  • House cats’ wild ancestor found. If his name is ‘Toby’, I know that cat…in fact, I have a few scars courtesy of him.
  • Exercise grows new brain cells. I’d just like to raise one pertinent word….’Schwarzenegger’.
  • Potential cure for HIV discovered.
  • Corpses Wanted: Inside America’s body farms.
  • Archaeological team unearths stone circle in one of Britain’s most remote areas.
  • Debate continues over Dead Sea Scrolls.
  • China’s massive 3 Gorges Dam is changing the weather.
  • Do toilets really flush in the opposite direction in the Southern Hemisphere? Let me just go check…
  • Professor claims to survive on just sunshine and fruit juice. Michael Prescott comments.
  • Hospital cures man’s headache, by removing a bullet from his skull.
  • We thought it was extinct, but now – a new glimpse, in the wild, has shocked the world: journalistic integrity rediscovered…

Thanks Rick and Kat.

Quote of the Day:

Steadily, unflinchingly, we strive to pierce the inmost heart of Nature, from what she is to reconstruct what she has been, and to prophesy what she yet shall be. Veil after veil we have lifted, and her face grows more beautiful, august, and wonderful, with every barrier that is withdrawn.

Sir William Crookes

Greg
Editor
Greg is the owner-editor of The Daily Grail, as well as the author of a number of books including Stop Worrying, There Probably is an Afterlife.
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11 Comments

  1. Brain Fitness
    I keep hearing that report, fitness and brain cells, fitness and brain cells, like a mantra of the modern healthcare machine, yet I look around, footballers bloody from bar-room brawls, sports stars doing lame TV endorsements and struggling through the alphabet on Sesame Street, or even the jocks I remember from school, and, well, is it possible? can my entire experience be so gloriously anomalous? Ok, the classic Monty Python philosopher’s football skit aside (and why then is that skit so slapstick funny?) now really, could it be? Einstein as the Yale rowing captain? Richard Feynmann at Wimbleton? Oscar Wilde at the World Cup? And, as we must remember, Hemmingway was a boxer …

    So I am left with an inescapable conclusion: Brain cells have nothing whatsoever to do with ‘intelligence’ — which is likely since, despite a hundred years trying to define the term let alone prove one person’s IQ score over another, only the Mensas are fool-enough to trust the metric.

    Bet they’re ripper at floor-hockey too.

    1. Nothing to do with intelligence
      The study didn’t suggest that these new neurons affected intelligence — only that, after 30 days of exercise, there was an anti-depressant effect. The hippocampus is known to shrink in depressed patients (i.e. humans), and this study showed that exercise stimulated the growth of new neurons in the hippocampus region, which is known to be involved in learning and memory (through its effect on long-term memory formation, if memory serves).

      Of course, this study didn’t reveal the cause of depression. Does depression cause the hippocampus to shrink, or does a shrinking hippocampus (possibly due to a lack of exercise’s necessary neuro-stimulating effects) cause depression? But either way, it did reveal a possible physiological mechanism for why regular exercise has been shown to have an anti-depressant effect in humans — which ought to be good news for anyone who’s depressed but can’t afford SSRI anti-depressants, or can’t abide their sexual side-effects.

      Kat

      1. but really
        There is really no good reason to believe that people in good physical shape get more intelligent.

        More assertive, more confident, more agressive, and things like that.

        But cognitive ability, better reasoning, that is just silly.
        —-
        meetings, n.:
        Where minutes are kept, and hours are lost.

        1. Phyiscal nonsense
          I don’t think physical condition has anything to do with any of this. Let me cite my own case.
          I left school at 15 and led an unthinking life, very active, finally ending up in the RAF. Then, 25 years ago I came down with M.E., which I’ve suffered in varying degrees ever since.
          The lifestyle change required led me to books and I ended up educating myself. Whether this is ‘intelligence’, I’ll leave up to you to decide.
          The point is, my mind abilities improved once I was NOT physically active. And so, too, did my assertiveness.
          To a great extent, such mind abilities are, I think, down to choice, circumstance, etc. It dpends on our decision to use them.

          …

          I’m fanatical about moderation

          Anthony North

          2. By implication
            Hi Kat,
            The article says:
            ‘The researchers also examined the hippocampus region of the brain, involved in learning and memory. Neurons there increased dramatically in the depressed rats after wheel-running.’
            By implication, learning and memory are essential to intelligence. So by implication, it can be interpreted as such, surely?

            …

            I’m fanatical about moderation

            Anthony North

          3. Implication doesn’t work here
            >>By implication, learning and memory are essential to intelligence. So by implication, it can be interpreted as such, surely?

            Not really. The only reason the hippocampus is associated with learning and memory is because it plays a primary role in converting short-term memories into long-term memories. Those of us who grew up taking rote tests in school typically end up associating the ability to memorize information from a book with being ‘smart’, but being able to regurgitate memorized facts doesn’t equate to higher intelligence. Even having a so-called photographic memory doesn’t mean someone will be able to manage a high score on an IQ test. Intelligence isn’t about being able to remember bits of information, it’s about being able to put disparate bits of information together in new and novel ways.

            To my mind, there’s some evidence that intelligence isn’t even dependent on having a brain. For instance, octopuses have no identifyable brain but they’re incredibly intelligent — especially when you consider that they only live for one year. About a year ago, I posted a story about an octopus living in captivity. The octopus noticed that the humans came by once a day to clean the garbage out of the aquarium it lived in. All of a sudden one day the octopus began handing bits of garbage (empty crab shells, etc.) to that human hand reaching into its tank. Then it realized that instead of handing one bit of garbage at a time to the hand, it would be easier to just pile all the garbage up in one corner, and let the human hand take it from there. That’s not memory — that’s intelligence.

            So the article wasn’t about intelligence — it was about depression. There’s no evidence for my pet theory yet, but it seems to me that the subconscious mind decides the depressed person is focusing too much on stressful long-term memories, and therefore tries to help by interferring with the brain’s ability to create such long-term memories. When the person begins to be active again, that signals the subconscious that the person is no longer rumminating, so it begins to allow the regeneration of neurons in the hippocampus again.

            Kat

          4. octopus brains
            Octopi definetely have brains. The brains are not as centralized as they are in vertebrates.

            With regard to intelligence, as in reasoned thinking – many people with knowledge of cognitive science believe that “reasoned thought” is entirely a function of memory. What happens is that memory is re-shaped into remembering things that have not happened. “Imagination” combines parts of memories, and comes up with something new. There is almost certainly nothing like a computer’s processing unit, just layers of the memory mechanism.

            —-
            meetings, n.:
            Where minutes are kept, and hours are lost.

          5. Split down the middle
            Good morning, everyone,
            I seem to be split down the middle here – damned painful. I’m convinced memory plays an important part in intelligence, but only as a catalyst for something else. Intelligence IS much more than this, I’m sure, but won’t happen without memory.
            I agree with Kat about the brain. Although the octopus was a bad example, I’m not sold on the idea that mind is in the brain. There have been experiments on single-celled organisms that seem to suggest memory. I think one was ‘paramacium’, but my memory may be failing me here.
            I tend to view the brain as a kind of ‘terminal’ required in higher organisms for a mind, or consciousness, ‘outside.’ Maybe consciousness lies in the subatomic – after all, if it is the foundation of the universe, it must hold the information the universe requires to build itself. To then place mind in the brain alone is an unrequired complication.
            Kat, I like your view of depression, but can I suggest a couple of problems? First of all, I’m not sold on an exact long and short term memory. Many paranormal researchers are aware of ‘cryptomnesia,’ where obscure facts are remembered from minute experience of a book, film, etc. The long/short term memory separation fails to account for this ability.
            This aside, long term memory can be of optimistic or pessimistic qualities. Surely, for depression, the pessimistic would be predominant. This suggests an attitude of mind above your concept.

            …

            I’m fanatical about moderation

            Anthony North

          6. hello Anthony
            I’m pretty sure memory has little to do with inteligents.
            Back to the core of this thread: statistics show overwieght people are more prone to depression. This could be self image or it could be lak of exercise. Regarding the rats, if the “tweak” was to shrink the hippocampus to induce depression, then the reverse would have the reverse effect. So what caused it in the first place without lab intervention. As Kat noted, what caused what first.
            It all seems a little inconclusive really.

            “Life can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you do what your told.”
            LRF.

  2. Channeling UFOs
    At last, a bonafide UFO story. The Channel Islands case deserves mainstream attention, and it’s a shame UFOlogy doyens are focusing on the drones. I posted the drone story last week in response to Whitley Strieber and Linda Moulton Howe giving it far too much publicity. I wanted to get it out of the way, hit it on the head quickly, so we can all move on to bigger and brighter things. And they don’t come much bigger and brighter than two cigar-shaped objects — each up to a mile wide — witnessed by seasoned pilots near the UK’s Channel Islands.

    It makes one wonder about the timing of the drone story — designed to distract us from Channel Islands and Chicago O’Hare?

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