Our brain is divided into two hemispheres, which are linked through only a few connections. However, we do not seem to have a problem to create a coherent image of our environment – our perception is not “split” in two halves. For the seamless unity of our subjective experience, information from both hemispheres needs to be efficiently integrated. The corpus callosum, the largest fibre bundle connecting the left and right side of our brain, plays a major role in this process. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt investigated whether differences between individuals in the anatomy of the corpus callosum would predict how observers perceive a visual stimulus for which the left and right hemisphere need to cooperate. As their results indicate, the characteristics of specific callosal fibre tracts are related to the subjective experience of individuals.
An Introspective Perspective
thebigcatblog: Rare Sand Kitten Birth Gives Hope for Conservation
After 63 days of gestation, a rare Sand Cat Kitten was born at Israel’s Safari Zoo. Once plentiful in numbers in the dunes of Israel, the Sand Cat has become extinct in the region. This is Safari Zoo’s first successful Sand Cat birth and it is hoped this kitten will join Israel’s Sand Cat Breeding Program in order to help reintroduce the species into the wild.
Photo credits: Safari Zoo
Notes from Wildlife Rehab and Education in Houston, TX: Baby Squirrels
Squirrels are birthing their second litter of the year (in the southern United States). So this IS NOT a good time to bring down dead trees or limbs, please consider waiting until late October. Squirrel nests look like a big wad of leaves and small sticks. If you find one on the ground please check it for babies.
(via: WRE - Facebook) (image: Fox Squirrel pups, WRE)
Why Don’t Woodpeckers Get Headaches?
by Corey Binns
Woodpeckers hit their heads up to 20 times a second. But muscles, bones and an extra eyelid protect their small bird brains.
Strong, dense muscles in the bird’s neck give it strength to repeatedly thump its head. But it is extra muscles in the skull that keep the bird from getting hurt. These muscles act like a protective helmet for the brain. Unlike the human brain, the woodpecker’s brain is tightly confined by muscles in the skull and a compressible bone. This keeps the woodpecker brain from jiggling around when the bird is stabbing away at a tree trunk.
A millisecond before making impact, a woodpecker contracts its neck muscles. Then, it closes its thick inner eyelid. The eyelid acts like a seat belt for the eye, said University of California Davis ophthalmologist Ivan Schwab, whose 2007 study on this phenomenon was published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology. Without an extra eyelid, the retina could tear, and worse, the eye could pop out of its socket…
(read more: Life’s Little Mysteries)
(photo: Great spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major) by Dietiked | Dreamstime)
What a “Shooting Star” looks like from Space. Taken on August 13, 2011 by Astronaut Ron Garan on the International Space Station during Perseids Meteor Shower.
Source: NASA SDO Facebook page.
(via thebutterymuffin)
Last week engineers from the University of Southampton built a drone aircraft from parts printed on a 3D laser printing machine. They entered each part’s specifications and the machine printed out all the pieces by building up layers of plastic or metal until each part was complete. Then they took the parts and snapped them together in minutes like a simple airplane model and they had themselves an unmanned air vehicle (UAV). Add a battery and a piloting system and you’re ready to go. From nothing to airborne in a day.Very cool. And it scared the hell out of me.(via Is 3D Printing Technology a Supervillain’s Best Friend? Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Drone | Esoterica | Big Think) Yes, everybody is gradually becoming empowered to build everythings that exists in somebody’s mind. And it is not going to stop. We are step by step entering a world where institutions can not anymore protect itself or citizens from what individuals can do. For good and for bad…
(via thebutterymuffin)
Sadly, in the era of climate crisis, overfishing and other forms of unsustainable harvest are the least of our problems. Rising carbon emissions are radically changing the chemical composition of our seas, having already contributed to the destruction of more than 85 percent of the world’s coral and oyster reefs. Rising air temperatures are changing wind patterns, which is a major cause of more than 400 ocean “dead zones” devoid of oxygen and sea life. Species ranging from gray whales to plankton are fleeing their native habitats for the first time in nearly 2 million years as water temperatures rise. Climate Change and Sustainable Seafood (via crookedindifference)
(via crookedindifference)
