What's New Friday August 24, 2007

WHAT’S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 24 Aug 07   Washington, DC

1. THE SOUL: EXPERIMENTAL INDUCTION OF OUT-OF-BODY SENSATIONS.
The journal Science today reports new results on this curious experience, 
more often associated with the tabloid media.  You may recall a New York 
Times story by Sandra Blakeslee about a year ago(3 Oct 06) in which a 
Swiss neurologist induced the effect by mild electrical stimulation of the 
angular gyrus, a region of the brain in the parietal lobe involved in a 
number of processes related to language and cognition.  The effect is 
attributed to discrepancy between the actual position of the body and the 
mind’s perceived location.  The Swiss group has now induced the out-of-
body effect without brain stimulation or hallucinogenic drugs by fitting 
the subject with display goggles that show a video image of the person 
from a different perspective.  It is important in part because out-of-body 
experiences, particularly when associated with near-death, are often cited 
as evidence of a soul.  The odd belief that the half-million embryonic 
stem cells left over from in-vitro fertilization have souls is behind 
objections to using them in research rather than sending them to the 
autoclave.  

2. THE AMYGDALAE: IF WE HAVE A SOUL, THIS MUST BE IT.
I consulted with two Catholic theologians on the faculty of a nearby 
seminary, who explained that the soul is the "spiritual essence" of a 
person.  After much discussion, "spiritual essence" seemed to be 
associated with empathy (see last week’s WN), though Catholic priests use 
different words.  Our emotional response to sensory input is determined by 
the amygdalae, two almond shaped groups of neurons located deep within the 
medial temporal lobes.  Embryos, I note, don’t have amygdalae.

3. THE RESEARCH: JAPANESE STEM CELL SCIENTIST MOVES TO U.S.
Also reported today, Shinya Yamanaka, one of Japan’s leading stem cell 
scientists, will join the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease in 
San Francisco, where his work will be funded in part by California’s stem 
cell initiative.  This is good news, of course, but we note that he’s 
recognized for persuading skin cells from mice to behave like stem cells.  
We’ve lost years while stem-cell research has been diverted to 
circumventing religious objections to the use of human eggs or embryos.

4. EMF: ARE WE IN FOR A NEW WAVE OF EMF INDUCED HYPOCHONDRIA?
The Alaska Supreme Court upheld a compensation board ruling awarding 
disability to an equipment installer as a result of workplace exposure to 
RF radiation.  The worker was exposed to a six gigahertz signal, which was 
found to be slightly over the RF safety limit set by the FCC but well 
below the FCC’s recognized level of thermal harm.  The decision was not 
entirely unreasonable: the Court felt it was up to the Board and not the 
courts to decide which witnesses to believe, but it was accepted that the 
only danger is thermal heating, so it does not take us back to power 
lines, or even cell phones. 

5. THE NIGERIAN SCAM: HAS IT MIGRATED TO THE "CITY" IN LONDON?
Denis Knockton, who claims to be a fund manager for Fidelity International 
in London, says he discovered the $22.4 million in a dormant account, 
which he would like my help in spending.  Like Homo sapiens, the loose 
$22.4 million apparently migrated up through Europe to Britain.  

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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