Illusion of Having Three Arms

How we experience our own bodies is a classical question in psychology and neuroscience. It has long been believed that our body image is limited by our innate body plan -- in other words that we cannot experience having more than one head, two arms and two legs. However, brain scientists at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have now shown that it is possible to make healthy volunteers experience having three arms at the same time.

In a novel paper published in the online scientific journal PLoS ONE they describe how it is possible to create an illusion of owning three arms, under controlled conditions in a laboratory. The experiment involves the participant sitting at a table and having a realistic prosthetic arm placed next to their right arm. The subject then sees her two real arms and the extra prosthetic arm, made out of rubber. To produce the feeling of owning the rubber arm, the scientist touches the subject's right hand and the rubber hand with two small brushes at corresponding location -- synchronizing the strokes as perfectly as possible.

"What happens then is that a conflict arises in the brain concerning which of the right hands belongs to the participant's body," says Arvid Guterstam, one of the scientists behind the study. "What one could expect is that only one of the hands is experienced as one's own, presumably the real arm. But what we found, surprisingly, is that the brain solves this conflict by accepting both right hands as part of the body image, and the subjects experience having an extra third arm."

The study consists of a series of experiments; in total 154 healthy volunteers were tested.

To prove that the prosthetic arm was truly experienced as a third arm, the scientist 'threatened' either the prosthetic hand or the real hand with a kitchen knife, and measuring the degree of sweating of the palm as a physiological response to this provocation. The results demonstrated that the subjects had the same stress response when the prosthetic hand was threatened as when the real hand was, but only during the periods when they experienced the third arm illusion. For instance, there was no stress reaction when the prosthetic right arm was replaced with a left arm or a prosthetic foot.

The results of the study may benefit patients by creating new applications in prosthetics research.

"It may be possible in the future to offer a stroke patient, who has become paralysed on one side of the body, a prosthetic arm that can be used and experienced as his own, while the paralysed arm remains within the patient's body image," says Henrik Ehrsson, who has led the study at the Department of Neuroscience. "It is also conceivable that people with demanding work situations could benefit of an extra arm, such as firemen during rescue operations, or paramedics in the field."

This study was funded by the European Research Council, The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, The Human Frontier Science Program, and Stockholm Brain Institute.

Put the tattoo on your heart

True Love Tattoos offers you a brand new way to really express your love for that special someone. Don’t ink your skin like everyone else, ink your heart. Or as they refer to it, your soul-canvas. So, do you really love your partner as much as you say?
Here’s your chance to prove it.

A true love Tattoo is a relatively safe procedure thanks to years of uncompromising research. The operation takes less than 3 hours from choice of tattoo until you have a polaroid proof in hand, however, they strongly sugest that you bring someone to escort you home after surgery.

The team is highly professional and fully educated, so far, they have performed over 500 successful operations without any major complications. They provide a wide range of styles from old school to Japanese. You choose the art, they put it on your heart.

Some questions and answers of this:
Q: Does the ink fade with time?
A: There are case studies indicating that falling out of love may have a slight fading effect on the ink, apart from that, this baby is for life.

Q: Can i still be a heart donor?
A: Yes, you can. However, be aware that research suggest that the new owner of your heart tend to get an unexplainable crush on the person whose name is tattooed on the heart.

Q: How will i prove to my loved one that i hounered him or her with a true love tattoo?

A: You will recieve one polaroid picture of your tattoo on place, and also a video recording of the whole procedure. By the way, this video comes with a great soundtrack from new amazing rock band “Vikunja”.

Q: Is it dangerous?
A: It’s not totally safe, but remember, it can be even more dangerous not to express true love.

Q: How long does it take?
A: It depends on the art work. big hearted patients tend to take longer.

Q: Is it dangerous if i have a high blood pressure?
A: On the contrary, it make the colours shine brighter.

Do not get a tattoo if you have a weak heart, are ink intollerant or if you’re not sure you’re really in love. avoid getting a tattoo if you have a newly broken heart. Let it heal for at least 3 months. Laser erase surgery is available but not recommended. They also supply a special divorce discount if you can prove your partner cheated on you. In some cases they recomend you to cover up your old tattoo with a new one, they are especially skilled in making football team crests. This satisfaction cost about 9 000$ to 12 000$ depending on difficulity of tattoo.

Hublot La Clé Du Temps Watch, For Time Control Freaks

Pretty wild right? This is the new version of the La Clef du Temps watch. From "La Clef" to "La Clé," funny enough they both mean "the key of time." The original La Clef du Temps was never originally meant to be an Hublot watch. It was designed for the Confrerie Horlogere under BNB Concept before it went bankrupt. When Hublot bought up the Confrerie and Mathias Buttet, it got the La Clef du Temps with it. I wasn't really too enthused on that watch - writing about the La Clef du Temps here. I later learned that Mathias designed it with the Predator in mind, and the dial was meant to look like a brain.

Now the weird movement that is able to speed up and slow down time is back in a new watch called the La Cle du Temps - and it is part of the Hublot Confrerie (a division of exclusive, very high-end Hublot watches). It is in a brand new case to hold the movement (which is a reworked version of the one from a couple of years ago). The watch is now much more futuristic and feels more in line with the concept of the Hublot Confrerie.

If you aren't familiar with the movement in the La Cle du Temps, let me explain it. It starts with a tourbillon based movement, where the tourbillon juts out of the bottom side of the watch. This is called a vertically mounted tourbillon. You can see it in the picture looking like some space age propeller. The watch dial, to tell the time, is on the upper right of the dial. The lower left of the dial is a power reserve indicator (looks like 5 days worth in the manually wound movement), and above it is the selector for speeding up for slowing down the time. This is where it gets interesting, and Hublot has clearly changed the format of the dial a bit from the previous watch. Using a crown on the left of the watch you can alter the time to run fast or run slow. A fun, but gimmicky way of "controlling time." The neat part is that the movement always retains knowledge of the correct time - so you can always switch it back to "normal" mode and the time isn't all screwed up.

When is a watch like this useful? Honestly, I am not sure it ever is above and beyond appreciating the complexity of it all. In a sense, it is a metaphor about controlling time. The name of the watch itself is the "key of time." If you can afford it, you can say that you hold the key to time - and what greater power is there than that?

In terms of technical details and specifics on the watch - little is known thus far. Hublot is keeping tight lipped on that until March 2011. What I do know is that there will be something special that helps the green parts of the watch glow. The rest of it will be in black, save for the polished base plate of the dial. Mathias Buttet designed the new La Cle du Temps himself as I understand it, and he is generally very clever in these things. I am quite excited to get this crazy creation on my wrist. It will no doubt be highly limited in production, and come with a rather high six figure price. Now start thinking about how you'd use this watch in your every day lives... via

Neutron stars are doomed if vacuum energy goes wild

Wait, what? Vacuum energy? Even in the vacuum of space, there’s energy— not a whole lot of it, but apparently it’s enough that if it’s concentrated enough around a neutron star, the whole neutron star could collapse. And that’s all the introduction I can write about that… this is all news to me.

What is often thought of as the empty vacuum of space is actually filled with ghostly energy and virtual particles wavering in and out of existence, a bizarre prediction of quantum theory that numerous experiments have proven true.

This “vacuum energy,” as scientists call it, is usually thought of as extremely weak at best. But theoretical physicists in Brazil suggest that the immensely powerful gravitational fields of neutron stars could “awaken the vacuum,” causing its energy to build up exponentially very quickly.

The extraordinary density of neutron stars means they possess incredibly strong gravitational pulls that warp the fabric of space-time, distortions that could drive up vacuum energy. Surprisingly, the researchers found the vacuum energy in the neighborhood of a neutron star could keep building exponentially, depending on the size and mass of the neutron star. This could rapidly cause the vacuum energy to exceed the neutron star’s combined mass and energy. The neutron star could then either collapse to form a black hole or explode and shed a significant fraction of its mass — the intricate calculations as to what exactly might occur are not yet complete, Vanzella said. Read more...

Temple of Boom!

A Temple with the most amazing sculptures. The Khajuraho temple complex is a fascinating monument to the sanctity of human sexuality. The central theme of the temples is the celebration of womankind, her form, for her beauty and her temperament.

Located in the fertile Gangetic plains of Madhya Pradesh, the complex, built by the Chandela rulers between 950 and 1050, is a one of the finest example of Indo-Aryan architecture. It was built during a period of peace and prosperity, where creativity flourished under royal patronage. The Chandelas commissioned 85 temples, but only 22 are remaining today. The finely engraved figures show gods, goddesses, nymphs (apsara), men, women and beasts engaged in many and varied sexual activities.

The temples are clustered into three groups, spread over 20 square km of land. The Chausath-Yogini, Brahma and Mahadeva temples are made of granite while all the other temples are built with fine grained sandstone.

Khajuraho, or Khajur-vahika, derives its name from the golden date palms (khajur) that ones adorned the gate of the great city. The engravings were not built merely for aesthetic value, as they also served to teach young virgins all they needed to know about sexuality.

The temples are today listed as a UNESCO world heritage site, and the The Archeological Survey of India is entrusted with preserving these temples for future generations.

Eery Mammatus Clouds Picture

Some clouds can be very bizarre. These Mammatus clouds are bizarre and amazing!

Mammatus are pouch-like cloud structures and a rare example of clouds in sinking air.

Sometimes very ominous in appearance, mammatus clouds are harmless and do not mean that a tornado is about to form; a commonly held misconception. In fact, mammatus are usually seen after the worst of a thunderstorm has passed.

As updrafts carry precipitation enriched air to the cloud top, upward momentum is lost and the air begins to spread out horizontally, becoming a part of the anvil cloud. Because of its high concentration of precipitation particles (ice crystals and water droplets), the saturated air is heavier than the surrounding air and sinks back towards the earth.

The temperature of the subsiding air increases as it descends. However, since heat energy is required to melt and evaporate the precipitation particles contained within the sinking air, the warming produced by the sinking motion is quickly used up in the evaporation of precipitation particles. If more energy is required for evaporation than is generated by the subsidence, the sinking air will be cooler than its surroundings and will continue to sink downward.