Tuesday - October 20 2009

The Psyence Service Announcement For The Week



Triple C’s - Cannabis Cup Champions




New Triple C’s mixtape, the last one before their album drops next week. Filled with an alliteration-heavy title and tons of tracks. Sidenote, the graphic design on this dope. Either way, download link and tracklisting below…

02) Erryday Feat Young Jeezy Jdub
04) Thugs Battlefield Feat Jada Kiss
05) Im Good Remix Feat Clipse Rick Ross
06) Road Kill
08) Where Dey Do Dat Freestyle
09) Lets Go Get Em Freestyle Feat Mmg
10) Lay Back Feat Robin Thicke
11) Money Everday Feat Webbz
12) Gotta Get Paid Feat Rick Ross Murph
13) Throw It In Da Sky Remix Feat Webbie Frank Lin
15) Should Of Seen Feat Gunplay
16) Get My Grind Right Feat Rick Ross
17) 1 On Da Charts
18) Ups Downs Freestyle Feat Torch
19) Illustrious Feat Masspike Miles
20) Throw Your Hands Up Freestyle Feat Young Breed
21) Yac Feat Plies
22) Overdose
23) Southside Feat Lil Wayne

DOWNLOAD NOW



Super Celeb Auction



Lights, Camera, Auction!!!


Sure, Michael Jackson's white sequined glove would be nice to have. Elvis Presley's guitar? Yah, that would be cool. But what really sent buyers into a bidding flurry at a recent California auction: Amelia Earhart's flight goggles. For real.

One lucky winner snapped them up for a cool $141,600, stunning auction experts. The historic glasses that beat out every other item on the block were worn by the pioneering pilot on her 1932 solo transatlantic flight.

The flight gear bested the King's Martin D-28 guitar used in his final Las Vegas performance, a song at $106,200. And an endoskeleton from "T2 3-D: Battle Across Time" couldn't touch the airborne adventurer, selling for a mere $94,400. But in fairness, that cinematic keepsake is a tad more bulky than aviation headgear. Same could be said for the purchase of the lower-selling, full-scale Hero Bumblebee robot from "Transformers," cashing in at $88,500.

Other cool stuff scored by some serious movie buffs: the bullwhip Harrison Ford brandished as Indiana Jones in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." (Really, a deal at $56,000.) And just in time for Halloween, some lucky dino-freak took home a full-size Raptor last seen chasing down prey in "Jurassic Park" with a price tag of $76,700. Recession? What recession?

Still, a pair of dusty old goggles held their own over all that movie memorabilia. Part of the frenzy for the fly-girl could be explained by a new movie, "Amelia," which opens later this month and stars Hilary Swank. The mystery surrounding the disappearance of the aviatrix -- she was declared dead in 1939 after missing for two years during an attempt to circumnavigate the globe -- adds to her mystique, and her memento's price tag.



Brain-Scan 3-D: The Internet Sequel



New Neurological Evidence That the Internet Makes People Smarter.
Your mom might think that the Internet is rotting your brain, but it's possible if she did a little face-time with Google that she could stay sharper in the noggin herself. The real question is how would you tell her that she is Internet-dumb. In a new study, Internet novices who were instructed to search the web showed increased activity in areas of the brain associated with making decisions and memory in just two weeks, according to a poster presented today at the annual Society for Neuroscience conference.

The work comes from a UCLA research team including Gary Small, a professor of psychiatry, and builds off of a previous study we covered in the June issue of Popular Science. He had previously shown that people who already are using the Internet more have more activity in areas of the brain related to complex reasoning, but that study couldn't define what was cause and effect (maybe people with better complex reasoning skills are more drawn to the Internet).

The new study shows that having people use the Internet can actually change their brain function. The experiment involved 24 adults, between 55 and 78 years old. Half had scant experience on the 'net. The other, web-savvy half served as a control group. Participants underwent f MRI scans of their brains while searching the Internet, before and after a two-week Internet training period, when the participants searched the Internet for an hour a day for seven days total. When the naive group was scanned again while using the web, areas of the brain involved in decision making and working memory (things you quickly hold in your head, like a new telephone number you're about to dial) showed more activity.



And You Didn't Think This Would Ever Be Possible



Scientists Use Precise Flashes of Light to Implant False Memories in Fly Brains.Neuroscientists have already spent the better part of a decade manipulating animal minds by using light signals to trigger genetically encoded switches. But a new study has now directly reprogrammed flies to fear and avoid certain smells, and all without the usual Pavlovian shock treatments.

The technique supposedly permits "writing directly to memory," and allowed one scientist to enthuse about being able to "seize control of the relevant brain circuits" for producing all sorts of mental states and behavior. Researchers have discovered 12 specific brain cells that they can stimulate to implant the false memories of events that never occurred -- except in the mind, of course.

This represents just one of the latest steps in the relatively new field of optogenetics, where scientists encode genetic switches inside certain cells and trigger the switches using tailored flashes of light. The genetic switches are made from eye cells that can translate light into the electrical signals used for communication by neurons.

Plenty of past research has manipulated the minds of animals and humans alike by using more blunt methods such as electrodes inserted into the brain. But optogenetics has taken mind control to a new level by permitting researchers to target very specific types of brain cells by merely flashing specific light signals.

The team from the University of Virginia and Oxford University in the UK even hints that such work could eventually go beyond flies. Their technique certainly makes the brainwashing of The Manchurian Candidate look rather coarse by comparison -- if that drama were enacted by tiny insects.