Wednesday, April 04, 2012

Runaway planets and how the brain handles optical illusions

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Abodes - New research shows that planets can be tossed out of galaxies at extremely high speeds - up to 30 million miles per hour. These runaway planets would be some of the fastest objects in the galaxy. See article.
g Intelligence - One cup or two faces? What we believe we see in one of the most famous optical illusions changes in a split second; and so does the path that the information takes in the brain. In a new theoretical study, scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, the Bernstein Center Göttingen and the German Primate Center now show how this is possible without changing the cellular links of the network. The direction of information flow changes, depending on the time pattern of communication between brain areas. This reorganization can be triggered even by a slight stimulus, such as a scent or sound, at the right time. See article.
g Cosmicus - Quote of the Day: “A man who has been in another world does not come back unchanged. One can't put the difference into words. When the man is a friend it may become painful: the old footing is not easy to recover.” - C.S. Lewis, Perelandra

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