The Unhijackable Thread of Randomness

[jafo105 39057]

Something to consider before your next visit with a Lady

 

 

Men know the importance that grooming plays in their lives. Warren Chase Urban Retreat for Men was created by men for men to provide the perfect venue to kickback, grab a beverage, get a haircut, enjoy a massage or clean up the hands and feet. The services cover all the grooming needs guys have, and are provided by either male or female staff. So come and see what the well groomed you looks like.

 

http://www.warrenchaseretreat.com/

[Phaedrus 209521]

[Guest c**io**m7]

[qwertyaccount 15793]

Galileo's optical illusion explained by neuroscience

 

 

A light-colored object on a dark background appears larger than a dark object on a light background, as shown in the image above, but until recently, no one knew why.

 

Now, a study suggests that a difference in how the brain's cells respond to light and dark could explain the illusion. Neurons that respond to light objects may distort the objects more than neurons that respond to dark objects possibly an advantage for human ancestors who needed to see in low-light conditions such as nighttime on the African savanna.

 

The distorted response to light might even hint at why reading in dim lighting may be bad for your eyes, the researchers said.

 

"Every time we think about blur in an image, we usually think about optics," said study leader Dr. Jose-Manuel Alonso, a neuroscientist at the State University of New York's College of Optometry. "But what we're seeing is, there is another component -- the neurons themselves," Alonso told Live Science.

 

Galileo's observation

When the Italian astronomer Galileo was making his observations of the planets, he noticed something strange. With the naked eye, the brighter of the two planets Venus appeared larger than Jupiter, but when viewed through a telescope, Jupiter was clearly larger.

 

Galileo believed the lens of the human eye caused this so-called "irradiation illusion." But the German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz showed that if the optics of the human eye were to blame, dark objects should be distorted just as much as light ones, which they were not.

 

In the new study, Alonso and his colleagues used electrodes to record the electrical signals from neurons in the visual areas of anesthetized cats, monkeys and human brains while the researchers showed the animal and human participants dark shapes on a light background, light shapes on a dark background, or light or dark shapes on a gray background.

 

The visual system has main channels: Neurons sensitive to light things are called "ON" neurons, whereas neurons sensitive to dark things are called "OFF" neurons. The researchers recorded from both types of neurons in the experiments.

 

The scientists found that the OFF neurons responded in a predictable, linear way to the dark shapes on light backgrounds, meaning the more contrast between a dark and light object the more active those neurons. But the ON neurons responded disproportionately to light shapes on dark backgrounds, meaning for the same amount of contrast they had a bigger response.

 

The distortion of light-sensitive neurons finally provides an answer to Galileo's puzzle. Venus, a light object on a dark background, appears disproportionately larger than Jupiter, a more distant, and thus darker, object.

 

Light in the night

The distorted vision turns out to very useful for humans, Alonso said, "because when you're in a very dark place, it allows you to see small amounts of light." This would be helpful to, say, alert you to predators at night. But during the day, more dark objects are visible, so it's better that these aren't distorted, Alonso said.

 

The study's results suggest the distortion may actually occur at the level of photoreceptors, the light-sensitive cells in the eye itself, rather than deeper in the brain. (This contrasts with Galileo's view that the lens of the eye was somehow to blame for the illusion.)

 

Having a stronger response to light than dark may be important when a baby's vision is developing. During the first few weeks after a baby is born, its vision is blurry, which could result in the light-dark distortion.

The findings could also open new windows into understanding problems with vision. Scientists believe that blur causes conditions such as myopia, or shortsightedness. "We now think 'neuronal blur' could be an important part of this story," Alonso said.

 

Neuronal blur might even support the notion that reading in low light is bad for a person's eyes, though that subject remains for another study.

[jafo105 39057]

How am I going to explain the women's panties this time.

[JoyfulC 132299]

[Phaedrus 209521]

[Guest P**aq]

Watching an old episode of Friends.

[Wolf Knight 29667]

It's 5:45am I get out of the shower, dry off and return to the bedroom to pass a grumbling wife who slams the bathroom door. It's now 5:46 and I notice a red envelope on my pillow.

 

It appears I missed the boat this morning and wasn't a quick enough draw with the customary, "Happy Valentines". Fuck that! Next year I'm going to wake her from her sleep at 12:01 and say it.

[Guest c**io**m7]

Sounds familiar nlwoodchuck. I still share a roof with my wife and I politely wished her a Happy VDay...the ice that was returned in her stare could've frozen the Atlantic solid.

[jafo105 39057]

Sexy Commercials That Aren't What They Seem

 

 

 

 

Funniest News Fails and Bloopers 2013

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lif4BRfbzI

[qwertyaccount 15793]

Is it random to post a question like "is this random" in the Unhijackable Thread of Randomness thread?

[Sweet Emily J 172062]

[Phaedrus 209521]

...in four-part harmony.

 

[Guest c**io**m7]

I have one of the top TV packages available but still put on a bluray last night because nothing was appealing.

[qwertyaccount 15793]

I have one of the top TV packages available but still put on a bluray last night because nothing was appealing.

 

 

Additional Comments:

[Guest P**aq]

Purple is a colour

[qwertyaccount 15793]

Purple is a colour

 

No it isn't, but violet is.

[Guest P**aq]

No it isn't, but violet is.

 

The colour Purple is a book. Violet is a flower.

[qwertyaccount 15793]

The colour Purple is a book. Violet is a flower.

 

No you were right the first time.

 

According to this handy colour chart, purple is a colour:

 

 

Guys, you should print this chart out and keep it in your wallet so that you'll know when a lady says "Please hand me the spindrift cami" you'll have a chance, albeit slim, of handing her the right one.

[Guest P**aq]

No you were right the first time.

 

According to this handy colour chart, purple is a colour:

 

 

Guys, you should print this chart out and keep it in your wallet so that you'll know when a lady says "Please hand me the spindrift cami" you'll have a chance, albeit slim, of handing her the right one.

 

Darn, I didn't see fuchsia on the list. Now I'll never know...

[qwertyaccount 15793]

Darn, I didn't see fuchsia on the list. Now I'll never know...

 

Is fuchsia even a colour?

[Guest P**aq]

Is fuchsia even a colour?

 

Maybe it's a drink. I just don't know anymore. Life just got complicated after there were 57 channels and nothing on.

[jafo105 39057]

[qwertyaccount 15793]

Big discovery: Tiny electron's mass more precisely measured

 

By Tia Ghose Published February 20, 2014 LiveScience

Scientists have made the most precise measurement yet of the electron's atomic mass.

"It is a major technical improvement," said Edmund Myers, a physicist at Florida State University, who wrote an accompanying News & Views article Wednesday in the journal Nature, where the new measurement is detailed.

"They have improved the precision by a factor of 13." The new value is just the tiniest bit smaller than the previous best value, though not by a significant amount.

The new measurement could one day be used in experiments to test the Standard Model, the reigning physics theory that describes the tiny particles that make up the universe.

But before the new value can be used to test the basic physics theory, other fundamental constants need to be measured at higher precision, Myers said.

Electron mass

The electron's mass is one of a few key parameters that govern the structure and properties of atoms, yet because the electron is so tiny, precisely measuring its atomic mass has been difficult. The most precise measurement so far was one adopted by the Committee on Data for Science and Technology, in 2006.

To improve on this value, Sven Sturm, a physicist at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Germany, and his colleagues bound an electron to a bare carbon nucleus, which has a mass that's already known. The result was a charged carbon nucleus or ion. Next, they pinned the bound electron into place using electric and magnetic fields.

The team developed a technique to measure the ion when it was almost at rest, which limits uncertainty in the system, Sturm said in an email.

Electrons' intrinsic angular momentum, or spin, act like tiny bar magnets, which, when exposed to a magnetic field, rotate around the field's axis. By combining information on the carbon nucleus with the frequency at which the electron's spin rotates in the presence of a magnetic field, the team deduced the electron's mass more precisely than ever before, Sturm said in an email.

Testing the Standard Model

The exquisitely precise measurement could pave the way for future tests of the Standard Model, which has extraordinary predictive ability but can't explain many phenomenon, such as the existence of gravity, the prevalence of dark matter and energy and the amount of antimatter in the universe.

One theory is that Standard Model is a good approximation when there are low electric fields, but not in the presence of extreme electric fields. In that instance, one way to test the Standard Model would be using a highly charged ion and the strongest available electric fields to potentially reveal unknown physics, Sturm said.

The atomic mass of an electron, however, is just one parameter that is needed to calculate another value, known as the fine structure constant, Myers said. That, in turn, could allow physicists to get more precise measurements of the electron's magnetic moment. Only then will scientists truly be able to test the Standard Model, he said.

But the researchers say they are already at work crafting new experiments.

"We are currently setting up a next-generation experiment for tests of the Standard Model in heavy, highly-charged ions, which will be extremely sensitive to physics beyond the Standard Model," Sturm said. "The electron mass will be a key input parameter for these experiments."