Krishwords

Cosmic Log reports

British billionaire Richard Branson says he’s sending over a medical officer to talk with physicist Stephen Hawking about getting him into space. That’s how the founder of Virgin Galactic responded to Hawking’s comment that “maybe Richard Branson will help” him achieve his long-held goal of reaching the final frontier, even though he’s a quadriplegic who needs a blink-controlled computer to communicate.

Branson and other Virgin executives indicated today that if there’s any way on earth to accommodate the good doctor-with-a-disability, they’ll do it. And for practice, Hawking could conceivably experience weightlessness aboard a Zero Gravity Corp. plane as early as next year.

How about using Cognitive models of Neuroscience to make some bucks? Ogi Ogas, a grad student, uses the cognitive models of intuition to try out the “Who wants to be a Millionaire” challenge. Check it out here.

Thanks to Rashmi Sinha for the link.

Technorati Tags: Neuroscience, Neuro-Science, Neuro Biology, Cognitive Studies, Models, Intuition, Brain, Millionaire, TV Show

MSNBC has this article on Neurotheology

Austin’s moment in the Underground therefore inspired him to explore the neurological underpinnings of spiritual and mystical experience. In order to feel that time, fear and self-consciousness have dissolved, he reasoned, certain brain circuits must be interrupted. Which ones? Activity in the amygdala, which monitors the environment for threats and registers fear, must be damped. Parietal-lobe circuits, which orient you in space and mark the sharp distinction between self and world, must go quiet. Frontal- and temporal-lobe circuits, which mark time and generate self-awareness, must disengage. When that happens, Austin concludes in a recent paper, “what we think of as our ‘higher’ functions of selfhood appear briefly to ‘drop out,’ ‘dissolve,’ or be ‘deleted from consciousness’.”

Update: Check out the following two articles on this topic

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/godonbrain.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/godonbrainqa.shtml

I am trying to understand this as follows. “God State” is a particular form of a more “generalized state”, which is a result of some neurobiological transformation. It could be achieved through deep meditation or by inducing external electric waves. The “god state” is only formed due to environment and genetics (possibly). In the hypothetical scenario of a human being existing in a world where the concepts of god and religion doesn’t exist, he/she will still experience “god state” under certain conditions, except that it will not be called as “god state” in that world. This, then, goes on to prove that god is just a freakin’ society induced third rated crap, exploiting the fears of the people.

Thanks to my brother for tipping me about this article

Physorg.com reports

Little did they know, high above Earth, a small satellite was already watching the volcano. No one told it to. EO-1 (short for “Earth Observing 1″) noticed the warning signs and started monitoring Talang on its own.

Indeed, by the time many volcanologists were reading their emails from the UN, “EO-1 already had data,” says Steve Chien, leader of JPL’s Artificial Intelligence Group.

EO-1 is a new breed of satellite that can think for itself. “We programmed it to notice things that change (like the plume of a volcano) and take appropriate action,” Chien explains. EO-1 can re-organize its own priorities to study volcanic eruptions, flash-floods, forest fires, disintegrating sea-ice—in short, anything unexpected.