Dream recording device 'possible' !!!

A US researcher says he plans to electronically record and interpret dreams.

Writing in the journal Nature, scientists say they have developed a system capable of recording higher level brain activity.

"We would like to read people's dreams," says the lead scientist Dr Moran Cerf.

The aim is not to interlope, but to extend our understanding of how and why people dream.

For centuries, people have been fascinated by dreams and what they might mean. In Ancient Egypt they were thought to be messages from God.

More recently, dream analysis has been used by psychologists as a tool to understand the unconscious mind. But the only way to interpret dreams is to ask people about the subject of their dreams after they had woken up.

The eventual aim of Dr Cerf's project is to develop a system which would enable psychologists to corroborate people's recollections of their dream with an electronic visualisation of their brain activity.

"There's no clear answer as to why humans dream," according to Dr Cerf. "And one of the questions we would like to answer is when do we actually create this dream?"

Dr Cerf makes his bold claim based on an initial study which he says suggests that the activity of individual brain cells, or neurons, are associated with specific objects or concepts.

He found, for example, that when a volunteer was thinking of Marilyn Monroe, a particular neuron lit up.

By showing volunteers a series of images, Dr Cerf and his colleagues were able to identify neurons for a wide range of objects and concepts - which they used to build up a database for each patient. These included Bill and Hilary Clinton, the Eiffel Tower and celebrities.

So by observing which brain cell lit up and when, Dr Cerf says he was effectively able to "read the subjects' minds".

Dream catcher

He admits that there is a very long way to go before this simple observation can be translated into a device to record dreams, or dream catcher. But he thinks it is a possibility - and he said he would like to try.

The next stage is to monitor the brain activity of the volunteers when they are sleeping.

The researchers will only be able to identify images or concepts that correlate with those stored on their database. But this data base could in theory be built up - by for example monitoring neuronal activity while the volunteer is watching a film.

But Dr Roderick Oner, a clinical psychologist and dream expert, believes that while this kind of limited visualisation might be of academic interest - it will not really help in the interpretation of dreams or be of use in therapy.

"For that you need the entire complex dream narrative," he said.

Another difficulty with the technique is that to get the kind of resolution needed to monitor individual neurons, subjects had to have electrodes surgically implanted deep inside their brain.

In the Nature study, the researchers obtained their results by studying patients who had electrodes implanted to monitor and treat them for brain seizures.

Translating thoughts

But Dr Cerf believes that sensor technology is developing at such a pace that eventually it might be possible to monitor brain activity in this way without invasive surgery. If this were to happen it would open up a range of possibilities.

"It would be wonderful to read people's minds where they cannot communicate, such as people in comas," said Dr Cerf.

There have been attempts to create machine interfaces before that aim to translate thoughts into instructions to control computers or machines.

But in the main these have tried to tap into areas of the brain involved in controlling movement. Dr Cerf's system monitors higher level areas of the brain and can potentially identify abstract concepts.

"We can sail with our imaginations and think about all the things we could do if we had access to a person's brain and basically visualise their thoughts.

"For example, instead of just having to write an email you could just think it. Or another futuristic application would be to think a flow of information and have it written in front of your eyes."

Professor Colin Blakemore, a neuroscientist at Oxford University, believes that it is quite a jump from the limited results obtained in the study to talking about recording dreams.

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Paul, the octopus is no more...

Paul the Octopus, the eight-armed oracle that correctly predicted the outcome of eight World Cup matches this year, has died.

Paul the Octopus, who gained worldwide fame this year by correctly forecasting the outcome of eight World Cup soccer matches including the final, has died peacefully of natural causes, the Sea Life Aquarium in Oberhausen said on Tuesday.

"Management and staff of the Oberhausen Sea Life Aquarium were devastated when Paul was found dead this morning," the aquarium said in a statement. It said it would erect a memorial to the little brown octopus whose astounding predictive powers turned him into the true star of the tournament, eclipsing the likes of Lionel Messi, Wayne Rooney, Thomas Müller and Andres Iniesta. Spain, which won the tournament, embraced "Pulpo Paul" as a hero.
During the World Cup in South Africa in June and July, TV channels around the world provided live coverage of Paul's forecasts, made by picking a tasty mussel from one of two transparent boxes emblazoned with the national flags of the two opposing teams.
There was a one in 256 chance that he would get all eight predictions right. Paul's success rate confounded mathematicians, angered bookmakers and spooked hundreds of millions of football fans around the world.
Paul Enlivened a Dreary World Cup
Paul's uncanny accuracy wasn't the only reason for his fame. The lack of excitement in many of the matches also played a part. Every World Cup needs its heroes, and South Africa 2010 came up short in this respect. Many of the stars that had been predicted to dominate the tournament, such as Rooney and Messi, failed to shine.
Germany sparkled with two stunning victories over England and Argentina, but those matches were the exception in a string of clashes marred by poor and unimaginative passing, some appalling referee errors and, in the case of Sunday's final, by relentless fouling. Not to mention the drone of Vuvuzelas.
So Paul offered a welcome distraction. His success rate enabled him to brush aside competition from other animals chosen to rival his predictive powers during the tournament, for example a chimpanzee called "Pino" in an Estonian zoo, a parakeet called Mani in Singapore, or a crocodile called Harry in Australia.
Attempts to find a scientific explanation for Paul's choices have come to nothing. A Russian biologist, Vyacheslav Bisikov, suggested that he might have been attracted to boxes that displayed flags made up of stripes. But that doesn't explain how he distinguished between two boxes with striped flags, such as Spain and the Netherlands. Besides, octopuses are believed to be color blind, which precludes the explanation that he picked the brightest flags.
Biologists Perplexed by Mystic Powers
Germany's leading octopus researcher, Volker Miske, said Paul may have been making his choices based on the size of the mussel in the box, or the ease with which the box could be opened, or traces of mussel flavor on the outside of the box. It is clear, however, that Paul was highly intelligent. Apart from being a soothsayer, he was an expert at unscrewing the lids off jars.
Before the World Cup, Paul's powers were already known in Germany because he had correctly predicted four out of Germany's five matches in the 2008 European Championship. But his clean sheet this year has made him immortal.
He helped to make the World Cup memorable. Just like everyone will remember the 2006 tournament in Germany for Zinedine Zidane's astounding head butt, and the 1986 one in Mexico for Maradona's "Hand of God" goal against England, South Africa will forever be associated with an octopus.

If he really was born in 2008, then Paul was nearing the end of his natural life. Octopuses only live three years on average and he was never going to be around for the next European Championship in 2012, let alone the World Cup in Brazil in 2014. But here is some comfort for football fans. "Behind the scenes, a young Paul is already acclimatizing himself, he was meant to be trained by Paul the First in the coming weeks," aquarium officials said.
Fellow sea creatures will also benefit from his immortality in future. Oberhausen said it plans to donate some of its income from the sale of commercial rights relating to Paul -- he adorns a clothes brand and adverts for a supermarket chain, for example -- to help finance a rescue station for endangered turtles on the Greek island of Zakynthos.

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Re-using vuvuzela!

A competition is drawing to a close in South Africa to find new ways to use the vuvuzela.

Some ideas submitted so far include turning the plastic horns into chandeliers, lamp shades, bird food dispensers and table stands.

The winning design, to be announced later this month, is to be produced and sold through a local retailer.

The vuvuzela reached the world's attention during the Word Cup which South Africa hosted in June and July.

Competition organiser Jono Swanepoel says designs will be handed over to local manufacturers, who will receive all the proceeds from the sale of the new-look vuvuzela.

"This is ultimately designed to create jobs for crafters out there," he said.

Many of the designs were impractical but funny, Mr Swanepoel said.

"We've seen quite a few entries of hearing aids; things to magnify the sound on your cellphone if you put it on speaker phone," he said.

He also suggested that lamp shades could be useful in South Africa's poor communities.

"For example in lower cost houses where you have a naked light bulb hanging from a ceiling in a shack or a house."

The competition ends on 15 October and organisers say more than 200 entries have been submitted so far.

A prize of 10,000 rand (£916; $1,460) will be distributed among the 10 best suggestions.

Vuvuzelas have long been a feature of football in South Africa.

But many foreign fans criticised them during the World Cup, saying they sounded like a swarm of bees and drowned out traditional football chants.

Several English premiership clubs have banned them from their grounds.

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Nobel Prize in Peace

Jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo has been named the winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize.

Making the announcement in Oslo, Nobel Committee president Thorbjoern Jagland said Mr Liu was "the foremost symbol of the wide-ranging struggle for human rights in China".

Mr Liu's wife and some Western nations have called for his immediate release.

China said the award was a violation of Nobel principles and could damage relations with Norway.

Mr Jagland admitted he knew the choice would be controversial. He told local television before the announcement: "You'll understand when you hear the name."

'Curtailed freedom'

Mr Jagland, reading the citation, said China's new status in the world "must entail increased responsibility".

"China is in breach of several international agreements to which it is a signatory, as well as of its own provisions concerning political rights."

In the weeks leading up to this announcement, Beijing was very strong on its statements. It said that Liu Xiaobo was not a suitable candidate. Beijing regards him as a criminal and said the award could damage relations between China and Norway.

Many Chinese people will see this as an attack by the West on what they stand for and certainly many nationalists will see this as an example of the West trying to demonise China.

The statement of the Nobel Peace Prize committee will not get a lot of traction with ordinary people. The authorities have very effectively given him no publicity whatsoever.

Mr Jagland said that, in practice, freedoms enshrined in China's constitution had "proved to be distinctly curtailed for China's citizens".

Mr Jagland said the choice of Mr Liu had become clear early in the selection process.

Mr Liu, 54, who was a key leader in the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, was jailed for 11 years on Christmas Day last year for drafting Charter 08, which called for multiparty democracy and respect for human rights in China.

The Nobel Foundation citation read: "Liu has consistently maintained that the sentence violates both China's own constitution and fundamental human rights."

Ending the citation, Mr Jagland said: "The campaign to establish universal human rights in China is being waged by many Chinese, both in China itself and abroad. Through the severe punishment meted out to him, Liu has become the foremost symbol of this wide-ranging struggle for human rights in China."

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Nobel Prize in Literature

Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa, one of the most acclaimed writers in the Spanish-speaking world, has been awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize for literature.

The Swedish Academy hailed "his cartography of structures of power" and "trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat."

The 74-year-old has written more than 30 novels, plays and essays.

He is the first South American winner of the prize since 1982 when it went to Colombian Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

In the previous six years, the academy awarded the 10 million kronor (£938,000) prize to five Europeans and one Turk, sparking criticism that it was too Euro-centric.

The Swedish Academy's Peter Englund said Vargas Llosa was "a divinely gifted story-teller," whose writing touched the reader.

'Total surprise'

Mr Englund added that the writer was in New York and was told by telephone that he had won the prize.

Vargas Llosa is currently teaching at Princeton University.

"I will try to survive the Nobel Prize," he joked during a news conference later on Thursday. "It was a total surprise."

But he said the honour would not affect his craft. "I don't think the Nobel Prize will change my writing, my style, my themes," he said.

Previously, the author had told the BBC's Latin American service that "a writer shouldn't think about the Nobel prize as it is bad for one's writing".

Born in the town of Arequipa, Vargas Llosa took Spanish nationality in 1993 - three years after an unsuccessful bid for the Peruvian presidency.

The author had long been mentioned as a possible Nobel candidate - he has won some of the Western world's most prestigious literary medals including the Cervantes Prize in 1995 - the Spanish-speaking world's most distinguished literary honour.

His works have also been translated into 31 languages, including Chinese, Croatian, Hebrew and Arabic.

Burnt copies

The writer's international breakthrough came with the 1960s novel The Time of The Hero which built on his experiences at the Peruvian military academy, Leoncio Prado.

The book was considered controversial in his homeland and 1,000 copies were burnt publicly by officers from the academy.

His best-known works include Conversation In The Cathedral, The War of the End of the World and The Feast of the Goat.

Several books were made into movies including the 1990 Hollywood film Tune in Tomorrow, based on his novel Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, which starred Barbara Hershey, Peter Falk and Keanu Reeves.

The author once had a great friendship with Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, about whom he wrote his doctoral thesis in 1971.

But their relationship turned into one of literature's greatest feuds after Vargas Llosa punched Garcia Marquez at a theatre in Mexico City in 1976, leaving him with a black eye.

The pair have never disclosed the reason for their dispute, although witnesses have suggested they fell out over a conversation between Garcia Marquez and Vargas Llosa's wife.

In the intervening years, the authors fell out politically, too, with the Peruvian publicly criticising Garcia Marquez's friendship with Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Relations appeared to thaw in 2007, however, when Vargas Llosa provided the foreword to the 40th anniversary edition of Garcia Marquez's classic work, A Hundred Years of Solitude.

After the Nobel announcement on Thursday, Garcia Marquez - himself a Nobel laureate - tweeted: "Cuentas iguales" ("Now we're even").

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