Psychologist attempts to debunk auras
Psychologist Jamie Ward of University College London thinks he may be able to explain the phenomenon of auras. The answer may lie in people with a condition known as synaesthesia, who experience one sense in terms of another: they can feel music, taste art, see sounds. By conservative estimates, about one in 2,000 people is a synaesthete. After doing extensive research on a synaesthetic woman known only as G.W., Ward has concluded that people who claim to see auras may simply just be synaethetes, and therefore the colours they see around individual people may exist only in their minds. G.W. apparently sees colours around people, words, and places that have an emotional association for her. People and things she likes are tinted pink, for example. G.W. does not believe she sees auras, but Ward thinks that some synaethetes who are more spiritual may believe they do.
-Zoe Cormier
Source: Nature
Anti-depressants to carry suicide warning
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has deemed that all anti-depression medications will be forced to carry labels warning of the risk of suicide in children and teenagers. The decision comes after clinical trials showed that up to three per cent of children on the drugs experience suicidal thoughts and behaviours as a result of taking the pills. The only anti-depressant that has so far been approved to treat juvenile depression is Prozac, otherwise known as fluoxetine.
-Z.C.
Source: Nature
Earth twists fabric of space
Some Italian and American physicists may have proved one of the last unconfirmed predictions of Einstein’s general theory of relativity: the space warp. Einstein described gravity as a curvature in space produced by objects sitting in it. A rotating object, such a planet, would drag space around it like a spinning top in molasses. Physicists tracked the movement of two of NASA’s scientists over eleven years using laser range-finders. They found that the paths of the satellites were pulled out of their predicted positions by about two metres a year, which could be explained by the space warp effect. The only prediction of the theory of relativity left to be proven (or disproven) is the existence of gravity waves. Several teams are currently searching for them.
-Z.C.
Source: Nature
