Genetic switch left in 'on' position identified by scientists as likely cause of autism in children - Science - News - The Independent It is the first time that researchers have been able to identify a precise mutation that appears to lead to autism, which is known to have a strong inherited component as well as being influenced by non-genetic factors. There are an estimated 700,000 people in Britain with some kind of autistic disorder, which is more than 1 in 100 people in the general population. There is no cure for the condition but the researchers behind the research believe that it might eventually lead to the development of drugs that could ameliorate the symptoms. Scientists studying the cells of a child with autism found that a key enzyme needed for the developing brain seems to be permanently switched on rather than being able to be switched on and off at different times of normal brain development. Loading gallery Science News in Pictures 1 of 103 “Genetic studies are showing that there will be about 1,000 genes linked to autism. “The phosphate group is being added to the UBE3A protein, not to DNA.
This is how optical illusions work We know the mind can be tricked by an optical illusion, but most people don't know why that happens. This video from Inside Science explains just what goes on inside the brain when, for example, a person looks at the dress. In essence, what you see isn't what you get because the brain takes shortcuts to process information. "When you look at something, what you’re really seeing is the light that bounced off of it and entered your eye, which converts the light into electrical impulses that your brain can turn into an image you can use," the video explains. "The process that takes about a tenth of a second but your eyes receive a constant stream of light, an incredible amount of information, so it’s really difficult for your brain to try to focus on everything at once. To find out more, watch the video below More: These Amazon reviews of the dress are really something We know the mind can be tricked by an optical illusion, but most people don't know why that happens.
This optical illusion will make a hole appear in your hand Breaking news: You probably have two eyes. Ok, that's not news, and frankly, this isn't a breaking story either, but it is a neat trick you may want to try if you've got a piece of paper to hand. Roll it up into a tube and look through it with one eye, as if a telescope, while placing your hand over your other eye, a couple of inches from your face. If you look through the tube primarily, it will begin to look like there is a hole in your hand. This is due to a thing called binocular rivalry - ie. your eyes competing for dominance in focus. Watch the full explainer by Vanessa Hill, below: HT Metro More: Seven still images that look like they're moving - and how they work More: The internet is obsessed with the colours of this dress
Presidential optical illusion offers clues to how brain processes faces | Science An optical illusion that appears after looking at pictures of Bill Clinton and George Bush offers important clues to how the brain and eyes see faces. The illusion is conjured by first concentrating for a short while on the red dot between the two men’s faces. When you look down at the second red dot, between a blended version of the faces, you will likely see Clinton’s face on the left side and that of Bush on the right. The illusion, from "Mechanisms of Face Perception" But the bottom two pictures are in fact exactly the same. The illusion comes from an effect called neural adaptation, or sensory adapation, where the way the brain understands things changes over time. It also means that if you look at Clinton for a while and then look at the merged picture, you’ll immediately see Bush, and vice versa. The image was used in a recent study that looked to understand how the eye and brain actually processes such images.
There's only one type of brain that isn't fooled by this optical illusion Optical illusions are fascinating because of their ability to suspend reality tricking people into seeing a false image. And research indicates that one particular illusion fails to fool those who suffer from schizophrenia. The hollow mask is an illusion in which viewers perceive a concave, rather than convex face. The average brain perceives the world using a combination of bottom-up (what it sees) and top-down processing (the expectation based on experience), Wired reports. Danai Dima, Hannover Medical University and Jonathan Roiser of UCL put 16 healthy subjects and 13 schizophrenia patients through an fMRI machine, and measured their brain activity when they were presented with the image. Danai said: Our top-down processing holds memories, like stock models, all the models in our head have a face coming out, so whenever we see a face, of course it has to come out. Such is the strength of the connection, it makes the person perceive the illusion even when they know it to be one.
The reading test that shows you what it's like to be dyslexic Daniel Britton is a graphic designer who was diagnosed with full dyslexia in his last year as a student at the London School of Communications. In response to the diagnosis and in an attempt to recreate the emotional experience of dyslexia, he created a font. See if you can read it: Picture: Daniel Britton It took you a while, right? That's the whole point. Daniel told indy100 that he made the font because he was frustrated with the current material which tries to mimic the condition - or give people a taste of it: What's out there at the moment, in most of the awareness posters, tries to recreate what it’s like with dyslexia - the problem is that with a non-dyslexic brain you can work out exactly what’s going on very, very quickly. Britton set up a crowdfunding page, with which he hoped to create an educational pack around the font, for use in schools, because he sees a lack of awareness about the realities of the condition. Daniel told indy100: HT MailOnline
Scientists have found another new way to trick your brain Researchers at Bielefeld University in Germany have found a new way to outwit our perception, the cunning so-and-so’s. The scientists at the Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology, placed test subject’s fingers in an apparatus upon the surface of an elastic fabric strap. Picture: CITEC/BIELEFELD UNIVERSITY While touching the object, the strap would tighten or loosen at random, although the position of the subjects’ finger would barely change. The volunteers were asked to say whether they thought their finger had bent, and all were confused as to the reality of what had happened, as explained by Dr Alessandro Moscatelli: Astonishingly, all study participants estimated their finger to be most bent when the elastic band was loose. Essentially, the fact that our fingers are fleshy and can give way to a surface can betray our brains as to whether we're touching something hard or soft, as well as to whether our finger has moved. So, how's your perception?
Neuroscientists create ‘atlas’ showing how words are organised in the brain | Science Scientists have created an “atlas of the brain” that reveals how the meanings of words are arranged across different regions of the organ. Like a colourful quilt laid over the cortex, the atlas displays in rainbow hues how individual words and the concepts they convey can be grouped together in clumps of white matter. “Our goal was to build a giant atlas that shows how one specific aspect of language is represented in the brain, in this case semantics, or the meanings of words,” said Jack Gallant, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley. No single brain region holds one word or concept. A single brain spot is associated with a number of related words. Described as a “tour de force” by one researcher who was not involved in the study, the atlas demonstrates how modern imaging can transform our knowledge of how the brain performs some of its most important tasks. Huth used stories from The Moth Radio Hour because they are short and compelling.
This optical illusion will break your brain | indy100 This one's absolutely diabolical. Akiyoshi Kitaoka is a professor of psychology, specialising in visual perception, at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan. He's behind most of the optical illusions you've found online since 2002, the ones which make your brain really hurt. This one is no different. Here are two green and blue spirals among pink ones. Right? Nope, they're both actually this colour: You can run it through photoshop if you want, they're both the same (RGB, R=0, G=255, B=150). The reason this illusion works is a version of the brightness illusion called 'White's effect'. Essentially the stark, contrast in colours makes it hard for our brain to process each colour individually, when positioned close to each other - as a result we see the same colour as slightly different. HT Buzzhunt More: Can you tell how many colours there are in this optical illusion? More: This Starbucks cup shows a completely different name when turned around
Your eyes are lying to you. These strawberries are not red | indy100 Akiyoshi Kitaoka is a Professor of Psychology at the College of Letters, Ritsumeikan University, in Kyoto, Japan. As we've established before, he's behind a majority of the most devious optical illusions on the internet. He's come up with another one, which he recently tweeted: There are no red pixels in the image. We checked it out, he's right, obviously. Picture: @AkiyoshiKitaoka/Twitter/Screengrab It's definitely a neutral grey. So how is the illusion done? Colour constancy - your brain is attempting to colour correct the world in different light - it expects to see red strawberries, so tries to. Bevil Conway, an expert from the National Eye Institute, told Vice: If you imagine walking around outside under a blue sky, that blueness is, in some sense, colour-contaminating everything you see. If you like optical illusions he's worth a follow. You'll get more brain-melting images such as these: We need a lie down. More: This optical illusion will break your brain
Mental health campaigner reveals OCD causes him dark, intrusive thoughts to prove condition not 'just being tidy' | The Independent It took mental health campaigner Aaron Harvey twenty years to seek help for the brutally violent thoughts that were consuming his mind. By that point, he had started to struggle separating his visions from reality. “I finally sought treatment when I started challenging my harm OCD thoughts,” Harvey tells The Independent. “I remember having an image flash into my mind where I was standing in front of a mirror in a dark room holding a butcher knife to my neck. Now, the 36-year-old from Orlando, Florida, is speaking out how OCD took over his life in a bid to encourage others with the condition to get help, and to hit back at the idea that the mental illness is just about being anally retentive about tidying. OCD is an anxiety condition which manifests itself in obsessive thoughts. After struggling to understand his own condition for two decades, Harvey set up the mental health non-profit organisation IntrusiveThoughts.org. “Violence. “The feeling is indescribable. “It's unbearable.