If you’re just joining us, please familiarize yourself with the earlier posts in this series so you’re reading this within the context it was intended. :)
Part One: Out on a limb
Part Two: The Science of Intuition
Part Three: What is NVCODE?
Part Four: “Warren”
Part Five: Pheromones or “ESP”?
Part Six: Sasquatch, Lust and Pheremone Chips
A little more reading today – some of the latest and most fascinating information available on this subject. I think all of these articles may be helpful in addressing any remaining questions or doubts your “Warren” might have – I’m hoping I’ve given you enough to chew on that the dots will connect themselves. ;)
Once we’ve got Warren dealt with, we’ll get back to Bigfoot…
Does DNA Have Telepathic Properties?-A Galaxy Insight
April 28, 2009
DNA has been found to have a bizarre ability to put itself together, even at a distance, when according to known science it shouldn’t be able to. Explanation: None, at least not yet.
Scientists are reporting evidence that contrary to our current beliefs about what is possible, intact double-stranded DNA has the “amazing” ability to recognize similarities in other DNA strands from a distance. Somehow they are able to identify one another, and the tiny bits of genetic material tend to congregate with similar DNA. The recognition of similar sequences in DNA’s chemical subunits, occurs in a way unrecognized by science. There is no known reason why the DNA is able to combine the way it does, and from a current theoretical standpoint this feat should be chemically impossible.
Even so, the research published in ACS’ Journal of Physical Chemistry B, shows very clearly that homology recognition between sequences of several hundred nucleotides occurs without physical contact or presence of proteins. Double helixes of DNA can recognize matching molecules from a distance and then gather together, all seemingly without help from any other molecules or chemical signals.
In the study, scientists observed the behavior of fluorescently tagged DNA strands placed in water that contained no proteins or other material that could interfere with the experiment. Strands with identical nucleotide sequences were about twice as likely to gather together as DNA strands with different sequences. No one knows how individual DNA strands could possibly be communicating in this way, yet somehow they do. The “telepathic” effect is a source of wonder and amazement for scientists.
“Amazingly, the forces responsible for the sequence recognition can reach across more than one nanometer of water separating the surfaces of the nearest neighbor DNA,” said the authors Geoff S. Baldwin, Sergey Leikin, John M. Seddon, and Alexei A. Kornyshev and colleagues.
This recognition effect may help increase the accuracy and efficiency of the homologous recombination of genes, which is a process responsible for DNA repair, evolution, and genetic diversity. The new findings may also shed light on ways to avoid recombination errors, which are factors in cancer, aging, and other health issues.
Scientists to study synthetic telepathy
Researchers get grant to develop communication system based on thoughts, not speech
Irvine, Calif., August 13, 2008
A team of UC Irvine scientists has been awarded a $4 million grant from the U.S. Army Research Office to study the neuroscientific and signal-processing foundations of synthetic telepathy.
The research could lead to a communication system that would benefit soldiers on the battlefield and paralysis and stroke patients, according to lead researcher Michael D’Zmura, chair of the UCI Department of Cognitive Sciences.
“Thanks to this generous grant we can work with experts in automatic speech recognition and in brain imaging at other universities to research a brain-computer interface with applications in military, medical and commercial settings,” D’Zmura says.
The brain-computer interface would use a noninvasive brain imaging technology like electroencephalography to let people communicate thoughts to each other. For example, a soldier would “think” a message to be transmitted and a computer-based speech recognition system would decode the EEG signals. The decoded thoughts, in essence translated brain waves, are transmitted using a system that points in the direction of the intended target.
“Such a system would require extensive training for anyone using it to send and receive messages,” D’Zmura says. Initially, communication would be based on a limited set of words or phrases that are recognized by the system; it would involve more complex language and speech as the technology is developed further.”
D’Zmura will collaborate with UCI cognitive science professors Ramesh Srinivasan, Gregory Hickok and Kourosh Saberi. Joining the team are researchers Richard Stern and Vijayakumar Bhagavatula from Carnegie Mellon University and David Poeppel from the University of Maryland.
The grant comes from the U.S. Department of Defense’s Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative program, which supports research involving more than one science and engineering discipline. Its goal is to develop applications for military and commercial uses.
About the University of California, Irvine: The University of California, Irvine is a top-ranked university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Founded in 1965, UCI is among the fastest-growing University of California campuses, with more than 27,000 undergraduate and graduate students and nearly 2,000 faculty members. The third-largest employer in dynamic Orange County, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $3.6 billion.
All in the mind: The ‘telepathy’ chip that lets you turn on the TV using the power of thought
By David Derbyshire
3rd September 2009
A ‘telepathy’ chip that allows people to control computers, televisions and light switches by the power of thought is being developed by British scientists.
The tiny sensor would sit on the surface of the brain, picking up the electrical activity of nerve cells and passing the signal wirelessly to a receiver on the skull.
The signal would then be used to control a cursor on a computer screen, operate electronic gadgets or steer an electric wheelchair.
Dr Jon Spratley’s chip allows people to control computers, televisions and light switches by the power of thought
Think about it: Dr Jon Spratley’s chip allows people to control computers, televisions and light switches by the power of thought
The chip is the brainchild of Dr Jon Spratley, 28, from Stevenage, Hertfordshire, who developed a prototype during his PhD at Birmingham University.
”We are just trying to help people with severe communication problems or motor neurone disease – like Dr Stephen Hawking or Christopher Reeve,’ he said.
For real: telephone and email telepathy
September 6, 2006
Many people have experienced the phenomenon of receiving a telephone call from someone shortly after thinking about them – now a scientist says he has proof of what he calls telephone telepathy.
Rupert Sheldrake, whose research is funded by the respected Trinity College, Cambridge, said on Tuesday he had conducted experiments that proved that such precognition existed for telephone calls and even emails.
Each person in the trials was asked to give researchers names and phone numbers of four relatives or friends. These were then called at random and told to ring the subject who had to identify the caller before answering the phone.
“The hit rate was 45 percent, well above the 25 percent you would have expected,” he told the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. “The odds against this being a chance effect are 1000 billion to one.”
He said he found the same result with people being asked to name one of four people sending them an email before it had landed.
However, his sample was small on both trials – just 63 people for the controlled telephone experiment and 50 for the email – and only four subjects were actually filmed in the phone study and five in the email, prompting some scepticism.
Undeterred, Sheldrake – who believes in the interconnectedness of all minds within a social grouping – said that he was extending his experiments to see if the phenomenon also worked for mobile phone text messages.
Paralyzed Man Uses Thoughts to Move a Cursor
By ANDREW POLLACK
July 13, 2006
A paralyzed man with a small sensor implanted in his brain was able to control a computer, a television set and a robot using only his thoughts, scientists reported yesterday.
Matthew Nagle, left paralyzed when he was stabbed five years ago, and the circle he drew on a computer screen by using only his thoughts.
Those results offer hope that in the future, people with spinal cord injuries, Lou Gehrig’s disease or other conditions that impair movement may be able to communicate or better control their world.
“If your brain can do it, we can tap into it,” said John P. Donoghue, a professor of neuroscience at Brown University who has led development of the system and was the senior author of a report on it being published in today’s issue of the journal Nature.
In a variety of experiments, the first person to receive the implant, Matthew Nagle, moved a cursor, opened e-mail, played a simple video game called Pong and drew a crude circle on the screen. He could change the channel or volume on a television set, move a robot arm somewhat, and open and close a prosthetic hand.
Although his cursor control was sometimes wobbly, the basic movements were not hard to learn.
“I pretty much had that mastered in four days,” Mr. Nagle, 26, said in a telephone interview from the New England Sinai Hospital and Rehabilitation Center in Stoughton, Mass. He said the implant did not cause any pain.
Mr. Nagle, a former high school football star in Weymouth, Mass., was paralyzed below the shoulders after being stabbed in the neck during a melee at a beach in July 2001. He said he had not been involved in starting the brawl and did not even know what had sparked it. The man who stabbed him is now serving 10 years in prison, he said.
Implants like the one he received had previously worked in monkeys. There have also been some tests of a simpler sensor implant in people, as well as systems using electrodes outside the scalp. And Mr. Nagle has talked before about his experience.
But the paper in Nature is the first peer-reviewed publication of an experiment in people with a more sophisticated implant, able to monitor many more brain neurons than earlier devices. The paper helps “shift the notion of such ‘implantable neuromotor prosthetics’ from science fiction towards reality,” Stephen H. Scott, professor of anatomy and cell biology at Queen’s University in Ontario, wrote in a commentary in the journal.
The sensor measures 4 millimeters by 4 millimeters — less than a fifth of an inch long and wide — and contains 100 tiny electrodes. The device was implanted in the area of Mr. Nagle’s motor cortex responsible for arm movement and was connected to a pedestal that protruded from the top of his skull.
When the device was to be used, technicians plugged a cable connected to a computer into the pedestal. So Mr. Nagle was directly wired to a computer, somewhat like a character in the “Matrix” movies.
Mr. Nagle would then imagine moving his arm to hit various targets. The implanted sensor eavesdropped on the electrical signals emitted by neurons in his motor cortex as they controlled the imaginary arm movement.
Obstacles must be overcome, though, before brain implants become practical. For one thing, the electrodes’ ability to detect brain signals begins to deteriorate after several months, for reasons not fully understood. In addition, the implant would ideally transmit signals wirelessly out of the brain, doing away with the permanent hole in the head and the accompanying risk of infection. Further, the testing involving Mr. Nagle required recalibration of the system each day, a task that took technicians about half an hour.
Still, scientists said the study was particularly important because it showed that the neurons in Mr. Nagle’s motor cortex were still active years after they had last had a role to play in moving his arms.
The implant system, known as the BrainGate, is being developed by Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems Inc. of Foxborough, Mass. The company is now testing the system in three other people, who remain anonymous: one with a spinal cord injury, one with Lou Gehrig’s disease and one who had a brain stem stroke.
Timothy R. Surgenor, president and chief executive, said Cyberkinetics hoped to have an implant approved for marketing as early as 2008 or 2009. Dr. Donoghue, the chief developer, is co-founder and chief scientist of Cyberkinetics. Some of the paper’s other authors work at the company, while still others are from academic or medical institutions including Massachusetts General Hospital.
Like his performance in other tasks, Mr. Nagle’s control of the computer cursor was not particularly smooth. When his goal was to guide the cursor from the center of the screen to a target on the perimeter, he hit the target 73 to 95 percent of the time. When he did, it took 2.5 seconds on average, but sometimes much longer. And the second patient tested with the implant had worse control than he, the paper said.
By contrast, healthy people moving the cursor by hand hit the target almost every time, and in only one second.
Dr. Jonathan R. Wolpaw, a researcher at the New York State Department of Health, said the BrainGate performance did not appear to be substantially better than that of a noninvasive system he is developing using electroencephalography, in which electrodes are placed outside the scalp.
“If you are going to have something implanted into your brain,” Dr. Wolpaw said, “you’d probably want it to be a lot better.”
Dr. Donoghue and other proponents of the implants say they have the potential to be a lot better, because they are much closer to the relevant neurons than are the scalp electrodes, which get signals from millions of neurons all over the brain.
One way to improve implant performance was suggested by another paper in the same issue of Nature. In a study involving monkeys, Krishna V. Shenoy and colleagues at Stanford University eavesdropped not on the neurons controlling arm movement but on those expressing the intention to move, which occurs earlier and would make the system work faster.
“Instead of sliding the cursor out to the target, we can just predict which target would be hit and the cursor simply leaps there,” said Dr. Shenoy, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and neurosciences. He said the system could operate at the equivalent of typing 15 words a minute, about four times as fast as the devices produced by Cyberkinetics and Dr. Wolpaw.
After more than a year, Mr. Nagle had his implant removed so he could undergo another operation, which allowed him to breathe without a ventilator. He can control a computer by voice, so he does not really need the implant. But he said he was happy he had volunteered for the experiment.
“It gave a lot of people hope,” he said.
Seven Films Showing Matt Nagle Controlling Electronic Devices Using Thought
How’s your Warren feeling about all of this? Let me know. :)
