Researchers from the Carnegie Mellon University have discovered that brains of different persons register certain objects in the same way. By measuring how a first set of people register certain objects after observing them, they then can measure what objects are observed by a second set of people. This way it is possible to read thoughts (nm).

Kim Wanten is a Dutch expert in the area of facial coding: what do our facial expressions say? She's written an extensive article (Dutch) of which a (long) summary follows.

Facial Coding originates with Charles Darwin who discovered in 1872 that facial expressions are natural and comparable to those of orangutans. He concluded that we, long before we could communicate verbally, communicated using facial expressions. After that it took until the middle of the 60s before Paul Ekman took up where Darwin left off. Ekman discovered that facial expressions are universal and uniform.

US researchers at the University of Virginia say the use of a localized magnetic field can reduce swelling after an inflammatory injury. Thomas Skalak, a professor of biomedical engineering, and graduate student Cassandra Morris found that application of an acute, localized static magnetic field of moderate strength can result in significant reduction of swelling when applied immediately after tissue trauma. The findings were published in the American Journal of Physiology. (up)

Much of the knowledge humans have gathered over thousands of years, like the healing power of magnetic fields, will be recognized over the years to come. We are getting better in understanding the non-tangible (non-atomic) nature, and prove these understandings scientifically. This will dramatically change the way we (at least the western world) treat health issues.

The rubber-hand-illusion is a phenomenon through which a test person gets the feeling a fake hand is part of his own body. In this experiment a visible fake-hand is moved in exactly the same way as the real hand, which is invisible. As a result, the test person considers the fake-hand to be his real hand. This phenomenon is declared by the ability of the brain to make connections between different kinds of sensory perceptions (i.e., visual, tactile, and proprioceptive), based on a personal internal representation of someone's own body in the brain. This is what the video shows. Meanwhile, additional research has been conducted.

People appear to even in the virtual world create a natural distance to other people. They also remain sensitive to subtle cues like eye contact. In one study, participants moved their avatars back if another character stood too close, even though the space violation was merely virtual. The researchers say our brains are not specialized for 21st-century media (al). We make the virtual world as real as possible, and within that world we just act like people. All emotions we feel, all expressions we show, everything we say, all the behavior we show, and all contacts we have, follow one rule: people will behave exactly the same in the virtual world as they do in the physical world. This research proves that again.

A couple of striking differences between Chinese and American internet users:

• Chinese users regularly use photoshop to touch up their pictures.


• Chinese users don't mind their picture to be blurred.


• American users look straight into the camera, in contrast to their Asian counterparts.

(vc). Children nowadays get to meet people from other cultures at an early age. They start speaking different languages much earlier than their parents did. They get an early consciousness of the cultural differences between people. But humans mostly learn their own behavior by looking at other people, and imitating them. If in the future all toddlers in the world are connected, we can expect very special developments. The result in the long run will be that human behavior worldwide will be identical, and in the end there will be one culture. This however will take at least another hundred years.

This video shows how our apparent creativity strongly depends on the surroundings in which we produce something (fc). It shows we are connected to one another. And it becomes clear that the human body and mind don't stop at our skin. We are all connected and our creations are consequences of that connectivity. This special, six-minute video again shows us that. It might surprise us now, but what if we really start recognizing and using these capacities? Creativity will take off to great heights. A point of focus for this century!