Why Some Images Trigger Seizures

The key, they propose, is a particular repetitive pattern of neural activity in the brain known as gamma oscillations that occurs when people view certain images, such as black and white bar patterns, and not others. In fact, the researchers say, it’s possible that those kinds of images are responsible for other problems, such as migraine headaches, particularly in people who are generally sensitive to light.

The research is in Current Biology. (full open access)

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8 years ago

Unusual fluid behavior observed in microgravity

Normally when a liquid is heated above its boiling point, it evaporates, turning into a vapor. But when scientists recently performed an experiment on the International Space Station (ISS), they observed that the vapor near a heat pipe condensed into a liquid even when the temperature was 160 K above the substance’s normal boiling point. The results show that microgravity significantly alters the processes of evaporation and condensation, but the scientists do not yet have a complete explanation for the phenomenon.

The research team, consisting of scientists from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the NASA Glenn Research Center, have published a paper on the surprising observations in a recent issue of Physical Review Letters.

This is not the first time that unexpected behavior in heat pipes, which are devices used to cool components of a spacecraft, has been observed in microgravity. In 2015, many of the same researchers made a related, counterintuitive observation during experiments conducted on the ISS.

At that time, the researchers observed that increasing the heat input to a heat pipe did not cause the device to dry out near the heated end as it does on Earth, but instead it caused liquid accumulation there. At the time, the processes responsible for this phenomenon were not completely understood.

Hubble Views The Final Frontier For Dark Matter

“This phenomenon of gravitational lensing stretches galaxies into streaks and arcs, magnifying them, and creating multiple images. It also enables us to reconstruct the mass distribution of the cluster, revealing that it’s mostly due to dark matter.”

When you look out at the distant Universe, you can see all sorts of things: stars, galaxies, clusters of galaxies, going as far back into the distant past as our telescopes can image. But where you have the greatest concentrations of mass, an extreme phenomenon emerges: that of gravitational lensing. Any foreground objects lying behind that mass will have their light stretched, magnified and distorted by the intervening matter. Recently, as part of the Hubble Frontier Fields program, the telescope followed-up on galaxy cluster Abell 370, and revealed the most spectacular gravitational lensing signal ever seen in a galaxy cluster. Most importantly, it provides some very strong evidence not only for dark matter’s existence, but for its presence distinct from any galaxies at all.

Come get the full story in images, videos, and no more than 200 words on this edition of Mostly Mute Monday!

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