The art of lucid dreaming is one that many of us would like to perfect, allowing us to remain conscious while dreaming and to take active control of their content. This ability enables the dreamer to visualise a limitless number of scenarios, all played out in vivid detail yet totally under their control.

A desirable skill for those who awake after an amazing dream, frustrated that they cannot recapture its intensity or detailed events. Even lucid dreamers must eventually forget their dream as they are replaced by others, the same as with real life experiences. But what if we could record our dreams to watch again, like an interactive virtual reality TV show?
read more

Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you had made a different choice, said a different thing, or turned a different corner? Would these decisions have affected your life, or even the world around you?

Do a myriad of different worlds exist where all of these possibilities play out? Where the meteor missed the earth millions of years ago leaving the dinosaurs to rule, or where Germany had won the World War?
read more

Maggot infestations, rotting carcasses, unidentifiable gunk in the kitchen sink – how much your brain responds to disgusting images could predict whether you are liberal or conservative.

In a study to be published in an upcoming issue of Current Biology, an international team of scientists led by Virginia Tech reports that the strength of a person’s reaction to repulsive images can forecast their political ideology.

“Disgusting images generate neural responses that are highly predictive of political orientation even when those neural responses don’t correspond with an individual’s conscious reaction to the images,” said Read Montague, a Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute professor who led the study.
read more

A few weeks ago, Unknown Country reported that NASA were investing millions of dollars into a new laser-based instrument, located on the International Space Station,  which is intended to provide a unique 3-D view of Earth’s forests. The focus of its mission is to provide definitive information about the role of forests in the carbon cycle, and as such, in global warming.

The laser, known as the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) lidar, the instrument will be the first to systematically probe the depths of the forests from space, and assess how they affect our weather systems and other ecosystems.
read more