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Brain, bodily awareness, and the emergence of a conscious self: these entities and their relations are explored by Germanphilosopher and cognitive scientist Metzinger. Extensively working with neuroscientists he has come to the conclusion that, in fact, there is no such thing as a "self" -- that a "self" is simply the content of a model created by our brain - part of a virtual reality we create for ourselves. But if the self is not "real," he asks, why and how did it evolve? How does the brain construct the self? In a series of fascinating virtual reality experiments, Metzinger and his colleagues have attempted to create so-called "out-of-body experiences" in the lab, in order to explore these questions. As a philosopher, he offers a discussion of many of the latest results in robotics, neuroscience, dream and meditation research, and argues that the brain is much more powerful than we have ever imagined. He shows us, for example, that we now have the first machines that have developed an inner image of their own body -- and actually use this model to create intelligent behavior. In addition, studies exploring the connections between phantom limbs and the brain have shown us that even people born without arms or legs sometimes experience a sensation that they do in fact have limbs that are not there. Experiments like the "rubber-hand illusion" demonstrate how we can experience a fake hand as part of our self and even feel a sensation of touch on the phantom hand form the basis and testing ground for the idea that what we have called the "self" in the past is just the content of a transparent self-model in our brains. Now, as new ways of manipulating the conscious mind-brain appear on the scene, it will soon become possible to alter our subjective reality in an unprecedented manner. The cultural consequences of this, Metzinger claims, may be immense: we will need a new approach to ethics, and we will be forced to think about ourselves in a fundamentally new way. At

"With 10,000 miles separating them, two makers designed and built a customizable 3-D-printed prosthetic hand for a 5-year old boy named Liam in South Africa for $150 in parts. No power necessary."

ScienceDaily (Jan. 7, 2011) - Certain molecules do exist in two forms which are symmetrical mirror images of each other: they are known as chiral molecules. On Earth, the chiral molecules of life, especially amino acids and sugars, exist in only one form, either left-handed or right-handed. Why is it that life has initially chosen one form over the other?

The Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) program is a worldwide hands-on, primary and secondary school-based science and education program.

"Smarter Research With All Statistics In Your Hands"

""We wondered how individuals assess the credibility of other people in simple social interactions," said Read Montague, director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory and the Computational Psychiatry Unit at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, who led the study. "We found a strong correlation between the amygdala and a baseline level of distrust, which may be based on a person's beliefs about the trustworthiness of other people in general, his or her emotional state, and the situation at hand"

"We often think that the limiting factors to doing science are intellectual or technological. There are many unsolved scientific problems that we know how to answer. We aren't waiting for any conceptual breakthroughs or new technologies. We're waiting for people. We need "hands at the bench" to put in the time to collect the data. The instabilities of salary is a major limiting factor for science and is probably a big reason a lot of them get out of science: they don't see a way to pay the bills. Creating permanent, stable positions for scientists would release a lot of scientific research."

"computerbasedmath.org is the project to perform this reset. We're building a completely new math curriculum with computer-based computation at its heart, while campaigning at all levels to redefine math education away from historical hand-calculating techniques and toward real-life problem-solving situations that drive high-concept math understanding and experience."

"Medical Museion is hosting an open biology (or "biohacking") laboratory and a series of hands-on public events from January-March 2013. The events are part of the European network, Studiolab, that provides a platform for creative projects that bridge divides between science, art and design"

"Last Summer, our Open Wetlab organized a workshop DNA fingerprinting at the Observe Hack Make festival, to bring hackers in contact with the Open Wetlab and Do-It-Yourself biotech. During the hands-on workshop hackers were guided by Pieter van Boheemen (DIY biologist - Open Wetlab)"

"Meet the future of security training. Expert instructors. Hands-on labs. On your schedule."

The British National Bibliography (BNB) lists the books and new journal titles published or distributed in the United Kingdom and Ireland since 1950. It also lists forthcoming book titles and hand-held electronic publications e.g. CD-ROMs, deposited with the Legal Deposit Office since 2003.

Back in 1958, Ted Schwarzrock was an 8-year-old third grader when he became one of the "Torrance kids," a group of nearly 400 Minneapolis children who completed a series of creativity tasks newly designed by professor E. Paul Torrance. Schwarzrock still vividly remembers the moment when a psychologist handed him a fire truck and asked, "How could you improve this toy to make it better and more fun to play with?"

The conventional view of human evolution and how early man colonised the world has been thrown into doubt by a series of stunning palaeontological discoveries suggesting that Africa was not the sole cradle of humankind. Scientists have found a handful of ancient human skulls at an archaeological site two hours from the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, that suggest a Eurasian chapter in the long evolutionary story of man.

An asteroid strike may not only account for the demise of ocean and land life 65 million years ago, but the fireball's path and the resulting dust, darkness and toxic metal contamination may explain the geographic unevenness of extinctions and recovery, according to Penn State geoscientists.

In a new study, researchers measured both liberals' and conservatives' reaction to "gaze cues" -- a person's tendency to shift attention in a direction consistent with another person's eye movements. Liberals responded strongly to the prompts, consistently moving their attention in the direction suggested to them by a face on a computer screen. Conservatives, on the other hand, did not

Those who are easily distracted from the task in hand may have "too much brain".

Researchers at the University of Rochester have determined that when humans see the color red, their reactions become both faster and more forceful. The researchers measured the reactions of students in two experiments. In the first, 30 fourth-through-10th graders pinched and held open a metal clasp. Right before doing so, they read aloud their participant number written in either red or gray crayon. In the second experiment, 46 undergraduates squeezed a handgrip with their dominant hand as hard as possible when they read the word "squeeze" on a computer monitor. The word appeared on a red, blue, or gray background. In both scenarios, red significantly increased the force exerted, with participants in the red condition squeezing with greater maximum force than those in the gray or blue conditions, the researchers said. Ref.: Andrew J. Elliot, Henk Aarts, Perception of the color red enhances the force and velocity of motor output, Emotion, Vol 11(2), Apr 2011, 445-449

Educational researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have found that schoolchildren can independently develop strategies for solving complex mathematical tasks, with weaker students proving just as capable as their stronger classmates. Researchers in mathematics education worked with approximately 1600 8th grade high-school students in various German states. Following an introduction to the general topic by their teachers, the school children were given a workbook of geometric tasks that they had to solve on paper and using a computer over four school periods. Calculating the surface area of Gran Canaria was one of the real-world, free-form assignments the students had to tackle. The workbook material included explanations and examples of various problem-solving approaches. The teachers took a back seat during the session but were on hand to answer questions from the children, who worked in pairs. After testing the students' skills before and after the session, the researchers recorded a significant improvement in their capabilities. The students learned to apply mathematics more effectively, the researchers said. The students were also able to call on these skills in a further test three months later. "We expected students who were weaker at math to benefit more from a greater degree of guidance through the module," said professor Kristina Reiss.  "But we didn't see a significant difference between these and stronger students." The researchers also found that there were also no differences between boys and girls. "We now know that students - also those who are weaker in math - have the skills to master even very complex subject matters at their own pace," said Reiss. Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience