The Role of Touch in Facilitated Communication.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kezuka, Emiko

1997-01-01

A study investigated the role of touch in the use of facilitated communication with Japanese individuals with autism. Five experiments were conducted involving a "telepathy game" using a rod with an attached strain gauge. Results found the facilitator's contact controlled the motor responses of the subjects. (Author/CR)

The IST-05 Reference Model in Evaluation and Design

DTIC Science & Technology

2004-04-01

bits and bytes in a computer memory. To avoid the need for telepathy in manipulating and understanding the data, the IST-05 Reference Model... synthetic views from digital elevation maps and from photographic imagery, but today’s technology makes this possible. Example 2: Instructions for the arrival

Seeds of Destruction, Seeds of Success: The Survival or Failure of Violent Extremist Organizations

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-06-01

of Asahara, which promised among other things supernatural powers like telepathy and levitation and a new life. Asahara used mediums familiar to...John Negroponte Was Mullah Omar." Common Dreams . February 20, 2005. http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0220-20.htm (accessed March 29, 2010

Virtual Integrated Planning and Execution Resource System (VIPERS): The High Ground of 2025

DTIC Science & Technology

1996-04-01

earth to one meter will allow modeling of 21 enemy actions, to a degree only dreamed of before.8 For example, before starting an air campaign, an...that is facilitated by the system. Interaction may take the form of the written word, voice, video conferencing, or mental telepathy . Control speaks

Where are you, my beloved? On absence, loss, and the enigma of telepathic dreams.

PubMed

Eshel, Ofra

2006-12-01

The subject of dream telepathy (especially patients' telepathic dreams) and related phenomena in the psychoanalytic context has been a controversial, disturbing 'foreign body' ever since it was introduced into psychoanalysis by Freud in 1921. Telepathy- suffering (or intense feeling) at a distance (Greek: pathos + tele)-is the transfer or communication of thoughts, impressions and information over distance between two people without the normal operation of the recognized sense organs. The author offers a comprehensive historical review of the psychoanalytic literature on this controversial issue, beginning with Freud's years-long struggles over the possibility of thoughttransference and dream telepathy. She then describes her own analytic encounter over the years with five patients' telepathic dreams-dreams involving precise details of the time, place, sensory impressions, and experiential states that the analyst was in at that time, which the patients could not have known through ordinary sensory perception and communication. The author's ensuing explanation combines contributory factors involving patient, archaic communication and analyst. Each of these patients, in early childhood, had a mother who was emotionally absent-within-absence, due to the absence of a significant figure in her own life. This primary traumatic loss was imprinted in their nascent selves and inchoate relating to others, with a fixation on a nonverbal, archaic mode of communication. The patient's telepathic dream is formed as a search engine when the analyst is suddenly emotionally absent, in order to find the analyst and thus halt the process of abandonment and prevent collapse into the despair of the early traumatization. Hence, the telepathic dream embodies an enigmatic 'impossible' extreme of patient-analyst deep-level interconnectedness and unconscious communication in the analytic process. This paper is part of the author's endeavour to grasp the true experiential scope and therapeutic significance of this dimension of fundamental patient-analyst interconnectedness.

From ACTS (Air Corps Tactical School) to COBRA: Evolution of Close Air Support Doctrine in World War Two.

DTIC Science & Technology

1988-04-01

cooperated and coordinated their activities in absolute precision cieated by total nental telepathy . Although XIX Tactice.1 Air Coeeand and Third Aray did...capture of the Romanian oil fields and increased production of synthetic oil, Germany produced enough oil to meet her military needs. By 1944, the

CrossTalk. The Journal of Defense Software Engineering. Volume 17, Number 8, August 2004

DTIC Science & Technology

2004-08-01

with refined flour and sugars, updated their resumes, and dreamed of better times. Then one day a lone devel- oper from a neighboring province rode into...over the little blue stone by his keyboard while all of the customers in the room beamed their concept of an ideal system at him via mental telepathy

Translations on Eastern Europe Political, Sociological, and Military Affairs No. 1557.

DTIC Science & Technology

1978-07-03

plans for the future as if we had to come up with something, or dream it up in some prophetic way. Life is such that it always produces those who are...using telepathy , since they refer to the contents of a letter before it reaches the addressee; our post office, we must admit, unfortunately is not that

The Schizophrenic Theme in Science Fiction

DTIC Science & Technology

1965-06-01

science fiction, that certain themes such as super powers, telepathy , being influenced by external agencies, conspiracy, etc., bear only a...prohibition. This war of the instinctual drives (pleasure principle) with the reality principle was manifested in very aspect of the personality. Dreams , F. D...2. Somniomorph: Literary productions depicting events of such a nature and connected in such a manner as they typically occur in dreams . Much of the

Psychic Warfare: Exploring the Mind Frontier

DTIC Science & Technology

1988-05-01

precognition (knowledge of future events), dowsing (clairvoyant ability to find water, minerals, and so on, by means beyond known sensory or perceptuaI...is further subdivided into two categories. The term extrasensory perception (ESP) refers to telepathy, dowsing, precognition and remote viewing...the American public accept the reality of psychic phenomena with 51 percent believing in ESP and 37 percent believing in precognition . The ’June 1983

A Bayes Factor Meta-Analysis of Recent Extrasensory Perception Experiments: Comment on Storm, Tressoldi, and Di Risio (2010)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rouder, Jeffrey N.; Morey, Richard D.; Province, Jordan M.

2013-01-01

Psi phenomena, such as mental telepathy, precognition, and clairvoyance, have garnered much recent attention. We reassess the evidence for psi effects from Storm, Tressoldi, and Di Risio's (2010) meta-analysis. Our analysis differs from Storm et al.'s in that we rely on Bayes factors, a Bayesian approach for stating the evidence from data for…

ELECTROMAGNETIC PHENOMENA WHICH RADIATE FROM THE HUMAN BRAIN DURING INTENSE PSYCHOSENSORIAL ACTIVITY FROM DREAMY, HALLUCINATORY AND TELEPSYCHIC STATES,

DTIC Science & Technology

intense psychosensorial activity (oneirism, hallucinations, telepsychism). Oneirism is the peculiar psychic condition that is favorable to dreams ...normal hallucinatory phenomena during the sleep and dream -like stages of the beginning sleep and of the reverie. As hallucinations, are designated as the...whole gamut of subjective metapsychics (cryptesthesia, spontaneous or pragmatic; lucidity: clairvoyance: telepathy ; rhabdomancy; radiesthesia; graphonomy; cartomancy; chiromancy). (Author)

The Mind/Mind Problem

DTIC Science & Technology

2005-05-01

perception of two separate and distinct minds. In actuality, a hypnotist’s verbal suggestions are taken in like any other auditory input would be, and... subliminal cues that facilitate the illusions of clairvoyance, ESP, and mental telepathy, for example, which some believe not to be illusions at all, but...joke that might normally have left it cold. Similarly, following the kind of repeated stimulation that might occur during learning or exercise, neurons

JPRS Report, Science & Technology, USSR: Science & Technology Policy

DTIC Science & Technology

1990-01-15

opment of theoretical and applied research in the field of cybernetic science was an unrealized dream . It did not receive support among the leaders... dream . Cooperative works with foreign organizations have made it possible to relieve the urgency of some problems, but one must not in all questions...Belonging to the first group, for example, is telepathy —the transmission of informa- tion from a human agent to the human percipient, who is isolated

Translations on USSR Science and Technology Biomedical Sciences No. 2

DTIC Science & Technology

1977-03-08

and foreign scientific litera- ture that, for the last 90-95 years, during which many experiments were con- ducted dealing with telepathy ...here. 30 The Largest phytotron in the country. Telephoto by I. Pavlenko (TASS) 31 "The ancient dream of scientists," said Hero of Socialist...crops. With the start-up of the phytotron, this dream is being realized. We may now reduce the time of development of new varieties 2-3-fold. This

Mesmerising mirror neurons.

PubMed

Heyes, Cecilia

2010-06-01

Mirror neurons have been hailed as the key to understanding social cognition. I argue that three currents of thought-relating to evolution, atomism and telepathy-have magnified the perceived importance of mirror neurons. When they are understood to be a product of associative learning, rather than an adaptation for social cognition, mirror neurons are no longer mesmerising, but they continue to raise important questions about both the psychology of science and the neural bases of social cognition. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Pre- and Post-Marital Chaplain Ministry to Military Personnel and Korean Nationals.

DTIC Science & Technology

1983-04-01

endurinq friendship and mutual commitment. 8. Isim Chonsim. Isim Chonsim means "my heart-your heart." It can be translated as telepathy but it...does not seek counseling. 0 Disillusionment ("America is Paradise" syndrome). "Like myself, we have big dreams about America. After we get here...quality of life. Although it was obvious that there was not a single route to the fulfillment of the various wishful dreams of Korean wives, those who

1986 AMEDD (Army Medical Department) Clinical Psychology Short Course: Tripler Army Medical Center, Honolulu, Hawaii.

DTIC Science & Technology

1987-09-01

Chonsim. Isim-Chonsim means "my heart-your heart". It can be translated as telepathy but it emphasizes a deep empathic rapport between people which has a...tendency of delving into the unconscious and focused on emotional catharsis through patient verbalization and dream interpretations. During the period from...I notice also that it was far away from every thing else like another Planet almost Dream like. As I set there thinking how I would get Rid of this

Translations on Eastern Europe, Political, Sociological, and Military Affairs, Number 1563.

DTIC Science & Technology

1978-07-13

This is like telepathy , is not it? Therefore, how do you see Yugoslavia in general and how do you see its role in the Third World, in the world of...Comrade Gierek, define the Polish dream ? Every nation has its dream . How would you define this, let us call it, the Polish dream ? Or more closely and...and phenomena. So that the evil will not reoccur, this is the Polish dream . Therefore, peace and peaceful cooperation among nations... [Question

Proceedings of Tunnel Detection Symposium on Subsurface Exploration Technology (4th) held in Golden, Colorado on 26 - 29 Apr 1993

DTIC Science & Technology

1993-04-29

characteristics such as intuition, telepathy , ESP, PSI, subconscious creativity and the likz. "Don’t do it Ruskey," they told me, "give them nuts and bolts." Nuts...basic shape of the homogeneous media response ( i.e. the primary wave). The synthetic waveforms 72 show good conformance with the field data. The minor...as a fracture halo surrounding the tunnel which is unaccounted for in the simulation. Figure 5 shows a suite of synthetic waveforms for an air tilled

Linear game non-contextuality and Bell inequalities—a graph-theoretic approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rosicka, M.; Ramanathan, R.; Gnaciński, P.; Horodecki, K.; Horodecki, M.; Horodecki, P.; Severini, S.

2016-04-01

We study the classical and quantum values of a class of one- and two-party unique games, that generalizes the well-known XOR games to the case of non-binary outcomes. In the bipartite case the generalized XOR (XOR-d) games we study are a subclass of the well-known linear games. We introduce a ‘constraint graph’ associated to such a game, with the constraints defining the game represented by an edge-coloring of the graph. We use the graph-theoretic characterization to relate the task of finding equivalent games to the notion of signed graphs and switching equivalence from graph theory. We relate the problem of computing the classical value of single-party anti-correlation XOR games to finding the edge bipartization number of a graph, which is known to be MaxSNP hard, and connect the computation of the classical value of XOR-d games to the identification of specific cycles in the graph. We construct an orthogonality graph of the game from the constraint graph and study its Lovász theta number as a general upper bound on the quantum value even in the case of single-party contextual XOR-d games. XOR-d games possess appealing properties for use in device-independent applications such as randomness of the local correlated outcomes in the optimal quantum strategy. We study the possibility of obtaining quantum algebraic violation of these games, and show that no finite XOR-d game possesses the property of pseudo-telepathy leaving the frequently used chained Bell inequalities as the natural candidates for such applications. We also show this lack of pseudo-telepathy for multi-party XOR-type inequalities involving two-body correlation functions.

From ether theory to ether theology: Oliver Lodge and the physics of immortality.

PubMed

Raia, Courtenay Grean

2007-01-01

This article follows the development of physicist Oliver Lodge's religio-scientific worldview, beginning with his reticent attraction to metaphysics in the early 1880s to the full formulation of his "ether theology" in the late 1890s. Lodge undertook the study of psychical phenomena such as telepathy, telekinesis, and "ectoplasm" to further his scientific investigations of the ether, speculating that electrical and psychical manifestations were linked phenomena that described the deeper underlying structures of the universe, beneath and beyond matter. For Lodge, to fully understand the ether was to force from the universe an ultimate Revelation, and psychical research, as the most modern and probatory science, was poised to replace religion as the means of that disclosure. (c) 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Strong commitment to traditional Protestant religious beliefs is negatively related to beliefs in paranormal phenomena.

PubMed

Hillstrom, E L; Strachan, M

2000-02-01

Numerous studies have yielded small, negative correlations between measures of paranormal and "traditional religious beliefs". This may partly reflect opinions of Christians in the samples who take biblical sanctions against many "paranormal" activities seriously. To test this, 391 college students (270 women and 121 men) rated their beliefs in various paranormal phenomena and were classified as Believers, Nominal Believers, and Nonbelievers on the strength of their self-rated commitment to key biblical (particularly Protestant) doctrines. As predicted, Believers were significantly less likely than Nominal Believers or Nonbelievers to endorse reincarnation, contact with the dead, UFOs, telepathy, prophecy, psychokinesis, or healing, while the beliefs of Nominal Believers were similar to those of Nonbelievers. Substantial percentages of Nominal and Nonbelievers (30-50%) indicated at least moderate acceptance of the paranormal phenomena surveyed.

Psychical research and the origins of American psychology

PubMed Central

Sommer, Andreas

2012-01-01

Largely unacknowledged by historians of the human sciences, late-19th-century psychical researchers were actively involved in the making of fledgling academic psychology. Moreover, with few exceptions historians have failed to discuss the wider implications of the fact that the founder of academic psychology in America, William James, considered himself a psychical researcher and sought to integrate the scientific study of mediumship, telepathy and other controversial topics into the nascent discipline. Analysing the celebrated exposure of the medium Eusapia Palladino by German-born Harvard psychologist Hugo Münsterberg as a representative example, this article discusses strategies employed by psychologists in the United States to expel psychical research from the agenda of scientific psychology. It is argued that the traditional historiography of psychical research, dominated by accounts deeply averse to its very subject matter, has been part of an ongoing form of ‘boundary-work’ to bolster the scientific status of psychology. PMID:23355763

Extrasensory Perception Experiences and Childhood Trauma: A Rorschach Investigation.

PubMed

Scimeca, Giuseppe; Bruno, Antonio; Pandolfo, Gianluca; La Ciura, Giulia; Zoccali, Rocco A; Muscatello, Maria R A

2015-11-01

This study investigated whether people who report recurrent extrasensory perception (ESP) experiences (telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition) have suffered more traumatic experiences and traumatic intrusions. Thirty-one nonclinical participants reporting recurrent ESP experiences were compared with a nonclinical sample of 31 individuals who did not report recurrent ESP phenomena. Past traumatic experiences were assessed via a self-report measure of trauma history (Childhood Trauma Questionnaire); traumatic intrusions were assessed via a performance-based personality measure (Rorschach Traumatic Content Index). Participants also completed the Anomalous Experience Inventory, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2, the Dissociative Experience Scale, and the Revised Paranormal Belief Scale. The ESP group reported higher levels of emotional abuse, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, physical neglect, and traumatic intrusions. The association between ESP experiences and trauma was partly mediated by the effects of dissociation and emotional distress. Implications for health professionals are discussed. Results also showed the reliability of the twofold method of assessment of trauma.

Policing epistemic deviance: Albert Von Schrenck-Notzing and Albert Moll(1).

PubMed

Sommer, Andreas

2012-04-01

Shortly after the death of Albert von Schrenck-Notzing (1862-1929), the doyen of early twentieth century German para psychology, his former colleague in hypnotism and sexology Albert Moll (1862-1939) published a treatise on the psychology and pathology of parapsychologists, with Schrenck-Notzing serving as a prototype of a scientist suffering from an 'occult complex'. Moll's analysis concluded that parapsychologists vouching for the reality of supernormal phenomena, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis and materialisations, suffered from a morbid will to believe, which paralysed their critical faculties and made them cover obvious mediumistic fraud. Using Moll's treatment of Schrenck-Notzing as an historical case study of boundary disputes in science and medicine, this essay traces the career of Schrenck-Notzing as a researcher in hypnotism, sexology and parapsychology; discusses the relationship between Moll and Schrenck-Notzing; and problematises the pathologisation and defamation strategies of deviant epistemologies by authors such as Moll.

Psychical research and the origins of American psychology: Hugo Münsterberg, William James and Eusapia Palladino.

PubMed

Sommer, Andreas

2012-04-01

Largely unacknowledged by historians of the human sciences, late-19th-century psychical researchers were actively involved in the making of fledgling academic psychology. Moreover, with few exceptions historians have failed to discuss the wider implications of the fact that the founder of academic psychology in America, William James, considered himself a psychical researcher and sought to integrate the scientific study of mediumship, telepathy and other controversial topics into the nascent discipline. Analysing the celebrated exposure of the medium Eusapia Palladino by German-born Harvard psychologist Hugo Münsterberg as a representative example, this article discusses strategies employed by psychologists in the United States to expel psychical research from the agenda of scientific psychology. It is argued that the traditional historiography of psychical research, dominated by accounts deeply averse to its very subject matter, has been part of an ongoing form of 'boundary-work' to bolster the scientific status of psychology.

[Criminology and superstition at the turn of the 19th century].

PubMed

Bachhiesl, Christian

2012-01-01

Criminology, which institutionalised at university level at the turn of the 19th century, was intensively engaged in the exploration of superstition. Criminologists investigated the various phenomena of superstition and the criminal behaviour resulting from it. They discovered bizarre (real or imagined) worlds of thought and mentalities, which they subjected to a rationalistic regime of interpretation in order to arrive at a better understanding of offences and crimes related to superstition. However, they sometimes also considered the use of occultist practices such as telepathy and clairvoyance to solve criminal cases. As a motive for committing homicide superstition gradually became less relevant in the course of the 19th century. Around 1900, superstition was accepted as a plausible explanation in this context only if a psychopathic form of superstition was involved. In the 20th century, superstition was no longer regarded as an explanans but an explanandum.

Policing Epistemic Deviance: Albert von Schrenck-Notzing and Albert Moll1

PubMed Central

Sommer, Andreas

2012-01-01

Shortly after the death of Albert von Schrenck-Notzing (1862–1929), the doyen of early twentieth century German para psychology, his former colleague in hypnotism and sexology Albert Moll (1862–1939) published a treatise on the psychology and pathology of parapsychologists, with Schrenck-Notzing serving as a prototype of a scientist suffering from an ‘occult complex’. Moll’s analysis concluded that parapsychologists vouching for the reality of supernormal phenomena, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis and materialisations, suffered from a morbid will to believe, which paralysed their critical faculties and made them cover obvious mediumistic fraud. Using Moll’s treatment of Schrenck-Notzing as an historical case study of boundary disputes in science and medicine, this essay traces the career of Schrenck-Notzing as a researcher in hypnotism, sexology and parapsychology; discusses the relationship between Moll and Schrenck-Notzing; and problematises the pathologisation and defamation strategies of deviant epistemologies by authors such as Moll. PMID:23002296

[Is the brain the creator of psychic phenomena or is a paradigm shift inevitable?].

PubMed

Bonilla, Ernesto

2014-06-01

Every day new scientific information is appearing that cannot be explained using the classical Newtonian model and is calling for the emergence of a new paradigm that would include the explanation of such phenomena as telepathy, clairvoyance, presentiment, precognition, out of the body experiences, psychic healing, after-death communication, near-death experiences and reincarnation. The materialist paradigm which considers the brain as the sole cause of consciousness and psychic phenomena has been challenged by a new paradigm that seems to demonstrate that there is not a cause-effect relationship between brain activity and psychic phenomena but only a correlation between them, since these phenomena can be experienced without the body and appear to have an extra-cerebral origin (cosmic field, cosmic consciousness?). Of course, the brain is intensely involved in the manifestation of consciousness in our daily life but this is not equivalent to affirm that brain creates consciousness. Recent findings force us to consider a non-physical, spiritual and transpersonal aspect of reality.

Magical thinking in somatoform disorders: an exploratory study among patients with suspected allergies.

PubMed

Hausteiner-Wiehle, C; Sokollu, F

2011-01-01

In order to reconceptualize somatoform disorders (SFDs), the psychological characteristics of SFD patients are increasingly investigated. The cognitive style of magical thinking (MT) has not been studied so far in patients with SFDs. In a cross-sectional study, 201 allergy workup patients were interviewed using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV; they answered a set of self-report questionnaires including the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire subscale for MT and the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ). The expression of MT was explored in 61 patients with SFDs compared to 140 patients without SFDs. Patients with SFDs reached higher scores of MT, also when controlled for gender, depression, and anxiety. In particular, they stated more frequently that they were believers in telepathy (64 vs. 44%) and clairvoyance (43 vs. 16%). MT correlated only weakly with somatization/somatic symptom severity, depression, and anxiety. Among allergy workup patients with SFDs we found considerable MT. This indicates that SFD patients may tend to mistake correlation for causality in a more general way, and not just in an illness-related context. The relation to indicators of illness severity (somatic symptom severity/somatization, depression, and anxiety) was relatively weak. Possible implications for research, diagnostics, and therapy are discussed. Copyright © 2011 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Haunted thoughts of the careful experimentalist: psychical research and the troubles of experimental physics.

PubMed

Noakes, Richard

2014-12-01

This paper analyses the relationship between the 'elusive' science of psychical research and experimental physics in the period approximately, 1870-1930. Most studies of the relationship between psychical research and the established sciences have examined the ways in which psychical researchers used theories in the established sciences to give greater plausibility to their interpretations of such puzzling phenomena as telepathy, telekinesis and ectoplasm. A smaller literature has examined the use of laboratory instruments to produce scientific evidence for these phenomena. This paper argues that the cultures of experiment in the established science of physics could matter to psychical research in a different way: it suggests that experience of capricious effects, recalcitrant instruments and other problems of the physical laboratory made British physicists especially sympathetic towards the difficulties of the spiritualistic séance and other sites of psychical enquiry. In the wake of widely-reported claims that the mediums they had investigated had been exposed as frauds, these scientific practitioners were eventually persuaded by the merits of an older argument that human psychic subjects could not be treated like laboratory hardware. However, well into the twentieth century, they maintained that experimental physics had important lessons for psychical researchers. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

On "Telepathic dreams?": an unpublished paper by Robert J. Stoller.

PubMed

Mayer, E L

2001-01-01

In 1973 Robert Stoller wrote a paper on a series of dreams-his own and his patients'--that he reluctantly found himself calling "telepathic." He never submitted the paper for publication, though he returned to the topic of unconscious communication and telepathy with increasing fascination in the years before his death. Publication of Stoller's paper seems particularly opportune just now. In it he pleads for open-minded examination of data, however alien to current scientific belief those data seem. In the past, despite numerous published reports of possibly telepathic experiences in analysis, their investigation remained relatively one-sided, since a technical posture of anonymity with patients constrained analysts from revealing that a communication struck them as telepathic. This has limited what analysts have been able to learn about the information actually exchanged, how it was exchanged, and whether the communication was experienced as uncanny by the patient. Recent attention to the intersubjective nature of the analytic situation has led to a deemphasis of anonymity, opening freer dialogue that may facilitate the rigorous investigation Stoller calls for. Such investigation may further analytic understanding of unconscious mental function and communication in the clinical setting, and lend perspective to the growing body of carefully controlled experimental research on anomalous mental phenomena.

Coincidences in analysis: Sigmund Freud and the strange case of Dr Forsyth and Herr von Vorsicht.

PubMed

Pierri, Maria

2010-08-01

Freud's interest in thought transference opens the possibility for psychoanalytic research on the primary preverbal language and the maternal function, which the emphasis on verbal and paternal communication had hidden in the background of the setting. The author advances a new interpretation of coincidences in analysis and of the psychopathology of everyday life of the setting. Starting from a strange coincidence, new hypotheses are submitted following additional readings of the unpublished manuscript of the 'Forsyth case', recovered by the author, in regard to a significant moment of transformation, both in Freud and in psychoanalysis, at the end of the war. This phase corresponds first to a change of language, from German to English, as well as to the foundation of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis by Ernest Jones. In particular, the roots of the metapsychological turn of the 1920s are explored, together with the opening of private and productive thoughts in the area of 'telepathy' that joined Freud, Ferenczi, and Anna Freud in a true 'dialogue of unconsciouses'. The free association between A Child Is Being Beaten, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, and the clinical experience with 'Herr B.' is outlined in order to understand Freud's heroic self-analysis at the time when he was treating his daughter Anna and grieving the death of his beloved Sophie. Copyright © 2010 Institute of Psychoanalysis.

Mind-Matter Interactions and the Frontal Lobes of the Brain: A Novel Neurobiological Model of Psi Inhibition.

PubMed

Freedman, Morris; Binns, Malcolm; Gao, Fuqiang; Holmes, Melissa; Roseborough, Austyn; Strother, Stephen; Vallesi, Antonino; Jeffers, Stanley; Alain, Claude; Whitehouse, Peter; Ryan, Jennifer D; Chen, Robert; Cusimano, Michael D; Black, Sandra E

Despite a large literature on psi, which encompasses a range of experiences including putative telepathy (mind-mind connections), clairvoyance (perceiving distant objects or events), precognition (perceiving future events), and mind-matter interactions, there has been insufficient focus on the brain in relation to this controversial phenomenon. In contrast, our research is based on a novel neurobiological model suggesting that frontal brain systems act as a filter to inhibit psi and that the inhibitory mechanisms may relate to self-awareness. To identify frontal brain regions that may inhibit psi. We used mind-matter interactions to study psi in two participants with frontal lobe damage. The experimental task was to influence numerical output of a Random Event Generator translated into movement of an arrow on a computer screen to the right or left. Brain MRI was analyzed to determine frontal volume loss. The primary area of lesion overlap between the participants was in the left medial middle frontal region, an area related to self-awareness, and involved Brodmann areas 9, 10, and 32. Both participants showed a significant effect in moving the arrow to the right, i.e., contralateral to the side of primary lesion overlap. Effect sizes were much larger compared to normal participants. The medial frontal lobes may act as a biological filter to inhibit psi through mechanisms related to self-awareness. Neurobiological studies with a focus on the brain may open new avenues of research on psi and may significantly advance the state of this poorly understood field. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Cognitive Experiences Reported by Borderline Patients and Axis II Comparison Subjects: A 16-year Prospective Follow-up Study

PubMed Central

Zanarini, Mary C.; Frankenburg, Frances R.; Wedig, Michelle M.; Fitzmaurice, Garrett M.

2013-01-01

Objective This study assesses three main types of cognition: nonpsychotic thought (odd thinking, unusual perceptual experiences, and non-delusional paranoia), quasi-psychotic thought, and true-psychotic thought in borderline patients followed prospectively for 16 years. It also compares the rates of these disturbed cognitions to those reported by axis II comparison subjects. Method The cognitive experiences of 362 inpatients—290 borderline patients and 72 axis II comparison subjects—were assessed at study entry using the cognitive section of the Revised Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines. Their cognitive experiences were reassessed every two years using the same interview. Results Each of the five main types of thought studied was reported by a significantly higher percentage of borderline patients than axis II comparison subjects over time. Each of these types of thought, except true-psychotic thought, declined significantly over time for those in both groups. Eleven of the 17 more specific forms of thought studied were also reported by a significantly higher percentage of borderline patients over the years of follow-up: magical thinking, overvalued ideas, recurrent illusions, depersonalization, derealization, undue suspiciousness, ideas of reference, other paranoid ideation, quasi-psychotic delusions, quasi-psychotic hallucinations, and true-psychotic hallucinations. Fourteen specific forms of thought were found to decline significantly over time for those in both groups: all forms of thought mentioned above except true-psychotic hallucinations plus marked superstitiousness, sixth sense, telepathy, and clairvoyance. Conclusions Disturbed cognitions are common among borderline patients and distinguishing for the disorder. They also decline substantially over time but remain a problem, particularly those of a nonpsychotic nature. PMID:23558452

Prediction of natural disasters basing of chrono-and-information field characters

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sapunov, Valentin

2013-04-01

Living organisms are able to predict some future events particular catastrophic incidents. This is adaptive characters producing by evolution. The more energy produces incident the more possibility to predict one. Wild animals escaped natural hazards including tsunami (e.g. extremal tsunami in Asia December 2004). Living animals are able to predict strong phenomena of obscure nature. For example majority of animals escaped Tungus catastrophe taking place in Siberia at 1908. Wild animals are able to predict nuclear weapon experiences. The obscure characters are not typical for human, but they are fixed under probability 15%. Such were summarized by L.Vasiliev (1961). Effective theory describing such a characters is absent till now. N.Kozyrev (1991) suggested existence of unknown physical field (but gravitation and electro magnetic). The field was named "time" or "chrono". Some characters of the field appeared to be object of physical experiment. Kozyrev suggested specific role of the field for function of living organisms. Transition of biological information throw space (telepathy) and time (proscopy) may be based on characters of such a field. Hence physical chrono-and-information field is under consideration. Animals are more familiar with such a field than human. Evolutionary process experienced with possibility of extremal development of contact with such a field using highest primates. This mode of evolution appeared to stay obscure producing probable species "Wildman" (Bigfoot). Specific adaptive fitches suggest impossibility to study of such a species by usual ecological approaches. The perspective way for study of mysterious phenomena of physic is researches of this field characters.

Experiences of possession and paranormal phenomena among women in the general population: are they related to traumatic stress and dissociation?

PubMed

Sar, Vedat; Alioğlu, Firdevs; Akyüz, Gamze

2014-01-01

This study sought to determine the prevalence of experiences of possession and paranormal phenomena (PNP) in the general population and their possible relations to each other and to traumatic stress and dissociation. The study was conducted on a representative female sample recruited from a town in central eastern Turkey. The Dissociative Disorders Interview Schedule, the posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and borderline personality disorder sections of the Structured Clinical Interviews for DSM-IV Axis-I and Personality Disorders, and the Childhood Abuse and Neglect Questionnaire were administered to 628 women. Of these, 127 (20.2%) women reported at least 1 type of PNP and 13 (2.1%) women reported possession. Women with a dissociative disorder reported all types of possession and PNP (except telepathy) more frequently than those without. Whereas women with a trauma history in childhood and adulthood or PTSD reported possession more frequently than those without, PNP were associated with childhood trauma only. Factor analysis yielded 4 dimensions: possession by and/or contact with nonhuman entities, extrasensory communications, possession by a human entity, and precognition. These factors correlated with number of secondary features of dissociative identity disorder and Schneiderian symptoms. Latent class analysis identified 3 groups. The most traumatized group, with predominantly dissociative and trauma-related disorders, had the highest scores on all factors. Notwithstanding their presence in healthy individuals, possession and PNP were associated with trauma and dissociation in a subgroup of affected participants. Both types of experience seem to be normal human capacities of experiencing that may be involved in response to traumatic stress. Given the small numbers, this study should be considered preliminary.

"Spooky actions at a distance": physics, psi, and distant healing.

PubMed

Leder, Drew

2005-10-01

Over decades, consciousness research has accumulated evidence of the real and measureable existence of "spooky actions at a distance"--modes of telepathy, telekinesis, clairvoyance, and the like. More recently scientists have begun rigorous study of the effects of distant healing intention and prayer vis-a-vis nonhuman living systems and patients in clinical trials. A barrier to taking such work seriously may be the belief that it is fundamentally incompatible with the scientific world view. This article suggests that it need not be; contemporary physics has generated a series of paradigms that can be used to make sense of, interpret, and explore "psi" and distant healing. Four such models are discussed, two drawn from relativity theory and two from quantum mechanics. First is the energetic transmission model, presuming the effects of conscious intention to be mediated by an as-yet unknown energy signal. Second is the model of path facilitation. As gravity, according to general relativity, "warps" space-time, easing certain pathways of movement, so may acts of consciousness have warping and facilitating effects on the fabric of the surrounding world. Third is the model of nonlocal entanglement drawn from quantum mechanics. Perhaps people, like particles, can become entangled so they behave as one system with instantaneous and unmediated correlations across a distance. Last discussed is a model involving actualization of potentials. The act of measurement in quantum mechanics collapses a probabilistic wave function into a single outcome. Perhaps conscious healing intention can act similarly, helping to actualize one of a series of possibilities; for example, recovery from a potentially lethal tumor. Such physics-based models are not presented as explanatory but rather as suggestive. Disjunctions as well as compatibilities between the phenomena of modern physics and those of psi and distant healing are explored.

Testing for Questionable Research Practices in a Meta-Analysis: An Example from Experimental Parapsychology.

PubMed

Bierman, Dick J; Spottiswoode, James P; Bijl, Aron

2016-01-01

We describe a method of quantifying the effect of Questionable Research Practices (QRPs) on the results of meta-analyses. As an example we simulated a meta-analysis of a controversial telepathy protocol to assess the extent to which these experimental results could be explained by QRPs. Our simulations used the same numbers of studies and trials as the original meta-analysis and the frequencies with which various QRPs were applied in the simulated experiments were based on surveys of experimental psychologists. Results of both the meta-analysis and simulations were characterized by 4 metrics, two describing the trial and mean experiment hit rates (HR) of around 31%, where 25% is expected by chance, one the correlation between sample-size and hit-rate, and one the complete P-value distribution of the database. A genetic algorithm optimized the parameters describing the QRPs, and the fitness of the simulated meta-analysis was defined as the sum of the squares of Z-scores for the 4 metrics. Assuming no anomalous effect a good fit to the empirical meta-analysis was found only by using QRPs with unrealistic parameter-values. Restricting the parameter space to ranges observed in studies of QRP occurrence, under the untested assumption that parapsychologists use comparable QRPs, the fit to the published Ganzfeld meta-analysis with no anomalous effect was poor. We allowed for a real anomalous effect, be it unidentified QRPs or a paranormal effect, where the HR ranged from 25% (chance) to 31%. With an anomalous HR of 27% the fitness became F = 1.8 (p = 0.47 where F = 0 is a perfect fit). We conclude that the very significant probability cited by the Ganzfeld meta-analysis is likely inflated by QRPs, though results are still significant (p = 0.003) with QRPs. Our study demonstrates that quantitative simulations of QRPs can assess their impact. Since meta-analyses in general might be polluted by QRPs, this method has wide applicability outside the domain of experimental parapsychology.

Testing for Questionable Research Practices in a Meta-Analysis: An Example from Experimental Parapsychology

PubMed Central

Bierman, Dick J.; Spottiswoode, James P.; Bijl, Aron

2016-01-01

We describe a method of quantifying the effect of Questionable Research Practices (QRPs) on the results of meta-analyses. As an example we simulated a meta-analysis of a controversial telepathy protocol to assess the extent to which these experimental results could be explained by QRPs. Our simulations used the same numbers of studies and trials as the original meta-analysis and the frequencies with which various QRPs were applied in the simulated experiments were based on surveys of experimental psychologists. Results of both the meta-analysis and simulations were characterized by 4 metrics, two describing the trial and mean experiment hit rates (HR) of around 31%, where 25% is expected by chance, one the correlation between sample-size and hit-rate, and one the complete P-value distribution of the database. A genetic algorithm optimized the parameters describing the QRPs, and the fitness of the simulated meta-analysis was defined as the sum of the squares of Z-scores for the 4 metrics. Assuming no anomalous effect a good fit to the empirical meta-analysis was found only by using QRPs with unrealistic parameter-values. Restricting the parameter space to ranges observed in studies of QRP occurrence, under the untested assumption that parapsychologists use comparable QRPs, the fit to the published Ganzfeld meta-analysis with no anomalous effect was poor. We allowed for a real anomalous effect, be it unidentified QRPs or a paranormal effect, where the HR ranged from 25% (chance) to 31%. With an anomalous HR of 27% the fitness became F = 1.8 (p = 0.47 where F = 0 is a perfect fit). We conclude that the very significant probability cited by the Ganzfeld meta-analysis is likely inflated by QRPs, though results are still significant (p = 0.003) with QRPs. Our study demonstrates that quantitative simulations of QRPs can assess their impact. Since meta-analyses in general might be polluted by QRPs, this method has wide applicability outside the domain of experimental parapsychology. PMID:27144889

Born-Infeld extension of Lovelock brane gravity in the system of M0-branes and its application for the emergence of Pauli exclusion principle in BIonic superconductors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sepehri, Alireza

2016-07-01

Recently, some authors (Cruz and Rojas, 2013 [1]) have constructed a Born-Infeld type action which may be written in terms of the Lovelock brane Lagrangians for a given dimension p. We reconsider their model in M-theory and study the process of birth and growth of nonlinear spinor and bosonic gravity during the construction of Mp-branes. Then, by application of this idea to BIonic system, we construct a BIonic superconductor in the background of nonlinear gravity. In this model, first, M0-branes link to each other and build an M5-brane and an anti-M5-brane connected by an M2-brane. M0-branes are zero dimensional objects that only scalars are attached to them. By constructing higher dimensional branes from M0-branes, gauge fields are produced. Also, if M0-branes don't link to each other completely, the symmetry of system is broken and fermions are created. The curvature produced by fermions has the opposite sign the curvature produced by gauge fields. Fermions on M5-branes and M2 plays the role of bridge between them. By passing time, M2 dissolves in M5's and nonlinear bosonic and spinor gravities are produced. By closing M5-branes towards each other, coupling of two identical fermions on two branes to each other causes that the square mass of their system becomes negative and some tachyonic states are created. For removing these tachyons, M5-branes compact, the sign of gravity between branes reverses, anti-gravity is produced which causes that branes and identical fermions get away from each other. This is the reason for the emergence of Pauli exclusion principle in Bionic system. Also, the spinor gravity vanishes and its energy builds a new M2 between M5-branes. We obtain the resistivity in this system and find that its value decreases by closing M5 branes to each other and shrinks to zero at colliding point of branes. This idea has different applications. For example, in cosmology, universes are located on M5-branes and M2-brane has the role of bridge between universes. When M5-branes become close to each other, this bridge dissolves in universes and causes that they expand. Also, when branes get away from each other, universes are contracted by compacting branes. The reason for flatness of universe in this system may be the neutralizing of curvature produced by gauge and scalar fields by the curvature produced by fermions. Using this idea in cuprates, we show that by decreasing temperature of system, branes which electrons live on it approach to each other in extra dimensions and superconductivity creates. Applying this idea in QCD, we calculate the potential between particles and anti-particles which is in good agreement with predicted potential for confined color particles. This means that one BIonic superconductor between quark and antiquark may be the main reason of confinement in QCD. Finally, in biological system, the emergence of superconductor between two neurons of two different brains via extra dimension leads to transmission of information between them and happening telepathy.

[Symptoms of DSM IV borderline personality disorder in a nonclinical population of adolescents: study of a series of 35 patients].

PubMed

Chabrol, H; Chouicha, K; Montovany, A; Callahan, S

2001-01-01

1,363 high school students were solicited to complete a personality disorder questionnaire and were encouraged to continue in the study by signing up for interviews with Master's level psychology students. 107 students (7.8%, 34 males, 73 females, mean age = 16.7 +/- 1.8) manifested themselves for the interview and were assessed by using structured diagnostic interviews for borderline personality disorder and major depressive disorder (DIB-R, Revised Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines; MINI, Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview). The interviews were audiotaped. Interrater reliability was determined by independent ratings of 12 borderline subjects and 12 non-borderline subjects (kappa: 0.795). The distribution of the 107 subjects based on the number of DSM IV borderline personality disorder criteria indicated a gradual dispersion suggesting a continuum from normality to borderline personality disorder: 8% of the subjects met none of the criteria; 16% met one criterion; 17% met two; 12.5%, three; 13.7%, four; 8.4%, five; 5.6%, six; 9.3%, seven; 4.6%, eight; 4.6%, nine. Thirty-five of these 107 subjects (32.7%, 6 males, 29 females, mean age = 16.7 +/- 1.7) received a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder according to DSM IV criteria. The most frequent symptoms were paranoid ideation or dissociative symptoms (97.1%), affective instability (88.6%), inappropriate, intense anger (85.6%), suicidal gestures or automutilation (82.9%), followed by frantic efforts to avoid abandonment (77%), impulsivity (65.7%), unstable and intense relationships (62.9%), identity disturbance (60%), and emptiness (57.1%). The comparison between borderline and non-borderline subjects showed that all borderline personality disorder criteria discriminated significantly between the two groups. The high incidence of paranoid ideation (97.1%) and dissociative experiences (65.7%) in the borderline group suggests the pertinence of criterion 9 in the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder in adolescents. Two criteria of schizotypal personality disorder were also frequent in this group: 68.6% of the borderline group reported odd beliefs or magical thinking, in particular beliefs in clairvoyance or telepathy and 88.6% reported unusual perceptual experiences, in particular sensing the presence of a force or person and bodily illusions. Moreover, 31.4% of the borderline group reported transient "quasi" psychotic experiences, mainly "quasi" visual hallucinations. Auditory hallucinations or delusional ideas were not observed. This symptomatology suggests a "quasi" psychotic dimension of adolescent borderline personality disorder. Affective instability was the next most frequent symptom which was usually marked by a cyclothymic appearance. Comorbidity with major depressive disorder was high: 85.7% of the borderline subjects had a concurrent diagnosis of major depression versus 45.8% of the non-borderline subjects. Thus, major depression is more frequent than most of the borderline personality disorder criteria, with the exception of the already noted paranoid ideation and affective instability. Hypomanic symptoms were frequent in the borderline group (65.7%) as well as in the non-borderline group (38.8%). This symptomatology suggests that adolescent borderline personality disorder is linked to an attenuated bipolar spectrum characterised by major depressive episodes and soft signs of bipolarity. However, hypomanic symptoms, which were quite frequent in non-borderline subjects, might also be due to a mechanism of defence, i.e. the denial of depression. Comorbidity with anxiety disorders appeared also to be high: anxiety symptoms were found in 91.4% of the borderline subjects who reported symptoms of generalised anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and somatoform disorders. The overall clinical appearance of these borderline adolescents not referred for treatment seemed to be quite similar to that of borderline adolescents in clinical samples. This study shows that adolescent borderline personality disorder in non-clinical population is a serious disorder characterised by the importance of mental suffering and behavioural disturbances the disorganising power of which may fix the developmental process in a pathological pathway. Adolescent borderline personality disorder appears in this study to be strongly associated with major depressive disorder and at-risk behaviours linked to impulsivity, affective instability, and suicidal ideation. However, this study found an absence of precise cut-off between borderline and non-borderline subjects. Two factors might have contributed to the appearance of a continuum. First, some degree of impulsivity and instability in affectivity, self-images and interpersonal relationships is part of normal adolescence. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED)

From biologically-inspired physics to physics-inspired biology From biologically-inspired physics to physics-inspired biology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kornyshev, Alexei A.

2010-10-01

The conference 'From DNA-Inspired Physics to Physics-Inspired Biology' (1-5 June 2009, International Center for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy) that myself and two former presidents of the American Biophysical Society—Wilma Olson (Rutgers University) and Adrian Parsegian (NIH), with the support of an ICTP team (Ralf Gebauer (Local Organizer) and Doreen Sauleek (Conference Secretary)), have organized was intended to establish stronger links between the biology and physics communities on the DNA front. The relationships between them were never easy. In 1997, Adrian published a paper in Physics Today ('Harness the Hubris') summarizing his thoughts about the main obstacles for a successful collaboration. The bottom line of that article was that physicists must seriously learn biology before exploring it and even having an interpreter, a friend or co-worker, who will be cooperating with you and translating the problems of biology into a physical language, may not be enough. He started his story with a joke about a physicist asking a biologist: 'I want to study the brain. Tell me something about it!' Biologist: 'First, the brain consists of two parts, and..' Physicist: 'Stop. You have told me too much.' Adrian listed a few direct avenues where physicists' contributions may be particularly welcome. This gentle and elegantly written paper caused, however, a stormy reaction from Bob Austin (Princeton), published together with Adrian's notes, accusing Adrian of forbidding physicists to attack big questions in biology straightaway. Twelve years have passed and many new developments have taken place in the biologist-physicist interaction. This was something I addressed in my opening conference speech, with my position lying somewhere inbetween Parsegian's and Austin's, which is briefly outlined here. I will first recall certain precepts or 'dogmas' that fly in the air like Valkyries, poisoning those relationships. Since the early seventies when I was a first year PhD student at the Frumkin Institute in Moscow attending hot theoretical seminars chaired by Benjamin Levich (1917-1986, a pupil of Landau and the founding father of physical-chemical hydrodynamics), I particularly remember one of his many jokes he used to spice up his seminar. When some overly enthusiastic speaker was telling us with 100% confidence how the electron transfers between atomic moieties in a solvent near an electrode, and what the molecules exactly do to promote the transfer, he used to ask the speaker: 'How do you know it? Have you been there?' Today this is no longer a question or even a joke. We have plenty of experimental tools to 'get there'. The list of such techniques is too long to cover fully, I may just refer to FIONA (fluorescence imaging with nanometer accuracy) which allows us to trace the motion of myosin on actin or kinesin on microtubules and similar aspects of protein motility in vivo and in vitro (fluorescence methods were at the center of the Biological and Molecular Machine Program at Kavli ITP, Santa Barbara, where the founders of those techniques taught us what we can learn using them) or visualizing the positions of adsorbed counterions on DNA by synchrotron radiation. Therefore, the following dogmas can be given: Dogma 1: 'Seeing is believing'. Once, I asked an Assistant Professor from one of the top US universities, who was preaching such methods, had he tried to plot his data in some coordinates, where I would have expected his data to lie on a straight line. The answer was, 'Come on, what you speak about is 20th century science; it's no longer interesting!' I am afraid he was not unique in his generation, voting for what I would call 'MTV-science'. This science does make you dance, but on its own is not sufficient without a deep theoretical analysis of what you actually see. Otherwise, 'what you see is what you get' and not more. Dogma 2: 'A theory must contain not more than exponential functions, logarithms and alike. Otherwise the job should be left with computers. No Bessel functions, please!' This point of view was advocated by my office mate at KITP, Rob Philips, Professor of Applied Physics and Molecular Biophysics at Caltech, who found his new love—biology: from solid state theory. We had heated arguments about it. And my strongest one was that it was the maths of the now famous paper by Cochran et al [1] that allowed Watson and Crick to decipher the DNA x-ray patterns of Rosalind Franklin. The CCV formula for the x-ray scattering intensity fully explained the structure of the famous cross of the scattering maxima on the (kz, K)-map, where kz and K are, respectively, the components of the scattering wave-vector transfer in the direction along the main axis of the columnar array of the DNA molecules and in the perpendicular plane. From the distance and the position of the darkest spots on that pattern it was possible to deduce that the studied DNA has a shape of a double helix, to find its radius, the width of the minor and major groove, the vertical rise between base pairs, and the helical pitch. There were still some features in that pattern which have not been noticed, which were only understood half a century later after the corresponding extension of the CCV theory [2, 3], but those were not essential for solving the structure of DNA itself at that time, but rather for the understanding of DNA-DNA interactions and their effect on more subtle aspects of DNA structure, which are an issue today. The 'Bessel function' was the key player in the CCV equation and the extensions that followed. Dogma 3:'This happened once. It is unlikely to ever happen again' (from a conversation with a respectable editor of a high-profile biological journal about the revolution made by physics in biology). This is a common opinion, at least in the biological community. Note, that of the four discoverers of the DNA structure, three were physicists and only Watson was a biologist, and the key secret in that discovery was the 'chemistry' between an enthusiastic biologist (Watson) and physicist (Crick) that helped them to find common language, and as a result discover not only the structure but also the 'function' of DNA. Now we know that the machinery of DNA replication is very complex, promoted by motor proteins such as DNA helicase, polymerase, ligases etc, but the complementary principle of synthesis of two identical DNA molecules on the unwound complimentary single strands as templates remains the same as mentioned in the famous phrase ('It did not escape our attention') of the first Watson-Crick paper. Dogma 4: (Almost literally from a letter from Don Roy Forsdyke, Biochemistry Professor at Queens Ontario). 'Biologists will not read a paper with formulae. The biological literature is vast. Biologists have too many papers to read and too many experiments to make. They will leave aside any reading that looks difficult'. If this is true, and I think it is, we are in big trouble; this brings us to the next dogma. Dogma 5: (Catch 22) It is impossible to publish a serious theoretical paper in a biological journal. Physicists, particularly, theorists need derivations to prove the validity of their findings. But with the derivations in the script, the paper will be rejected. If you still publish it in a physical journal it will not be read by those to whom it is addressed. Dogma 6:Physicists are too ignorant to offer biologists anything useful. Perhaps, some new spectroscopic method or apparatus for force measurement, but that's about it. Leave biology to professionals. Full stop. I make no comments about this extreme point of view, referring the reader to the dispute between Parsegian and Austin, which is still quite relevant today. Next, a pearl of wisdom of a theoretical physicist, Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine, Max Delbrück (Caltech), formulated in his 1949 lecture in Copenhagen, the principles on which organisms of today are based must have been determined by a couple of billion years of evolutionary history; 'you cannot expect to explain so wise an old bird in a few simple words'. It is indisputably so, but it is followed by two other competing sub-dogmas: Dogma N6a: Physics wants to simplify and unify things, as much as possible, biology resists the reductionist approach and is happy about diversification and complexity. In my opinion all these dogmas have been beaten by this icon, the understanding of which gave rise to the idea of DNA replication and all the following principles of molecular biology. Not only 'this will happen again' but on a smaller scale this happens all the time. Generally, through centuries, physics and mathematics have changed our lives completely. In a short article one cannot give a full list of such achievements from Aristotle's time, but I name just a few of the summits of the last two centuries. A great physicist Rutherford (who was, by the way, a Nobel Laureate in Chemistry for 'his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances') was also famous for an extreme (and definitely outdated) statement: 'All science is either stamp collecting or physics'. Let us paraphrase him and collect some stamps. I have no space to stop on the Faraday-Ampere laws of stationary electricity (who cares, electric current comes from a plug would be the answer of most of people unfamiliar with physics, and forget about electricity that is supplied to biological laboratories). So, let us go straight away to James Clerk Maxwell. He derived four equations that related electricity and magnetism and, as the legend tells us, it took him seven years to write the fourth equation to complete the set with four unknown variables. The story of the fourth Maxwell equation is one of the most dramatic stories in the history of science [4]. As a solution of that set he obtained relativistically-invariant electromagnetic waves, which no one saw and the consequences of which no one had foreseen at that time. But very soon Hertz understood how to generate them, Thomson how to receive them, and now we have the world all connected online. My next stamp goes to the Zhukovski equation of the hydrodynamics of a wing, which explained how aerodynamic lift force is generated. Now we can get from London to Washington in a third of a day, essentially due to that equation. Of the many things that the genius of Einstein discovered his energy-matter relation has led us to atomic power, whether we like it or not. Rutherford and Bohr unraveled the structure of atoms and all our materials science followed from it. Discovery of the transistor made the world of electronics and computers possible, and, again—whether we like it or not—most of us spend many hours daily staring at computer screens. Crick's equations and Franklin-Wilkins' observations (made possible by Roentgen's discovery that I omitted to mention after Maxwell) gave rise to the world of molecular biology which could also be easily forgotten by the wide public, if not our ever grateful forensic experts. Just two more milestones of much more 'modest' caliber. This is the discovery of lasers which are massively used for communication, in medicine and spectroscopy, including biological research. Next, I mention the discovery of scanning probe techniques, which allowed us to see individual atoms. For these two I did not even find stamps, but I am sure they must exist somewhere. The STM has just led Stuart Lindsey's team (University of Arizona) to the first steps towards ultrafast sequencing of DNA using functionalized STM tips. At the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics there is no need to convince anyone that involved mathematics and physics is needed. But neither do we need to explain to anyone there that the applications of physics may be equally exciting as its fundamentals. The appreciation of massive achievements of physical methods in DNA research made it possible to host and massively sponsor this DNA conference at the ICTP. The conference was generously co-sponsored by the Wellcome Trust (UK). It comprised approximately 60 talks on topically focused sessions devoted to: DNA mechanics DNA structure, interactions and aggregation Recognition of homologous genes Conformational dynamics, supercoiling and packing DNA compactization in viruses DNA-protein interaction and recognition DNA in confinement (pores and vesicles) Smart DNA (robotics, nano-architectures, switches, sensors and DNA electronics) The success of the conference was that it was not a meeting of a club of physicists interested in biology, but a meeting of physicists, carrying out important work widely published not only in physical but also biological journals, with the leading biologists who, personally, were keenly interested in learning what novelties physical methods and existing knowledge could offer them. They were equally eager to explain to physicists and mathematicians the most challenging paradigms of molecular biology research. The conference was opened by two inspiring high-impact talks, from a Director of the European Molecular Genetics Center in Trieste, Arturo Falaschi, the Editor of HFSP Journal (who sadly just passed away last month), and from a scientist of the next generation, Lynn Zechiedrich, Professor of Baylor Medical School and former co-worker of the late Nick Cozzarelly. Both showed astounding manifestations of the polymeric behavior of DNA, where physics is eagerly awaited like rain in the desert. However, at the whole conference about 40% of lectures were delivered by biologists. In this short article it is not possible to cover even the most exciting presentations, and I refer interested readers to the website [5] where further information can be found. I will outline below just a couple of issues. The conference revealed big progress in understanding the details of DNA mechanics, including its local sequence-dependent elastic properties. Progress was achieved in understanding the role of electrostatic interactions with ions and charged moieties that can influence the shape and elasticity of DNA, highlighted particularly in the studies of Jim Maher (University of Minnesota). Generally, the role of helical structure dependent, so called `helix-specific' interactions on which the lecture of Sergey Leikin (NIH) was focused, was unequivocally found to play a crucial role in the interaction, aggregation and assembly of DNA—from liquid crystals to intracellular compartments, as well as viral capsids. One of the hottest sessions was devoted to the 'last great enigma' of genetic recombination: its 'zero' stage—the recognition of homologous genes. The big picture was overviewed in biological terms by Adi Barzel (following a 'manifesto' article with Martin Kupiec [6]). New experiments were then reported that showed that DNA can recognize its homology from a distance without unzipping and local base pair formation. The reported published experiments of an Imperial-NIH team [7], widely discussed last year under a controversial notion of DNA-'telepathy' (in quotes, of course), were based on the direct observation of spontaneous segregation of homologous DNA in cholesteric liquid crystals. The reported by Mara Prentiss, and now published, beautiful experiments of the Harvard team [8] were more involved and were based on the application of the magnetic bead technique (purely physical methods). These have unambiguously demonstrated homology pairing at the double-stranded DNA level, also providing evidence of unimportance of defect-based Watson and Crick pairing in this phenomenon. Both kinds of experiments supported the expectations of an electrostatic snapshot recognition mechanism behind intact, double-stranded DNA homology pairing [9]. But none of them has yet systematically studied its various features, after which one could consider the mentioned mechanism experimentally confirmed. Discussions at breakout meetings referred to the experiments to be performed, that might finally rebute the last presumption of molecular biology that only Watson and Crick pairing can provide recognition, i.e. that the recognition between intact double stranded DNA is impossible. Notably the suggested electrostatic snap-shot recognition mechanism is also based on the helical structure of DNA and correlation of the structure with the text of the sequence (for further details see [10].) DNA packing in chromatin and chromatin dynamics were the main focus of the conference. Andrew Travers (Ecole Normale Superiore de Cachan), exposed the problem in all its biological complexity, followed by the physical insight into its modeling, overviewed by Helmut Schiessel. Using different kinds of single molecule pulling experiments Jörge Langowski (University of Heidelberg) and David Bensimon (Laboratoire Physique Statistique, Paris) revealed invaluable insights into nucleosome opening and the role of remodeling factors. Jim Kadonaga (UCSD) reported a discovery of a new ATP driven motor-protein, exhibiting annealing/reverse helicase activity. Lars Nordensiöld (Singapore Nanyang TU) has established the sequence of counterions promoting DNA compactization in chromatin, and so on. Another class of astounding results was related with the structure of DNA phases, coils and toroids in viral capcids, understanding of which at the nanoscopic level, is instrumental for the development of antiviral therapies. Bill Gelbart (UCLA) and Avi Ben-Shaul (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) highlighted various aspects of packing inside the capsids, as well as how viral DNA or RNA can get in and out. Amazing observations of Francoise Livolant have shown the local liquid crystalline structure of DNA in that dense packing. The experiments of her group have unambiguously demonstrated azimuthal correlations between the densely packed double strands, in agreement with similar effects detected earlier in wet DNA fibers described on the physical level in the talk of Sergey Leikin [11]. No matter which aspect of DNA research was discussed at the conference, the physical chemistry of solution, particularly the role of counterions, was found to be extraordinarily important. Loren Williams (Georgia Tech) presented decisive synchrotron x-ray 3d-maps of distribution of the most important class of adsorbed counterions between the major and minor grooves of DNA or phosphates. Purely physical methods were used to obtain them with the results crucial for understanding the resulting charge patterns of DNA (including the adsorbed counterions) that determine DNA physical behaviour and DNA-DNA helix specific forces. The conference has shown substantial progress in the characterization, understanding of physics, geometry and topology of DNA-supercoiling, as well as its biological implementations, and a set of lectures was devoted to its modeling and experimental characterization. New techniques were also the center of attention, such as DNA transport through solid-state pores. In particular, Serge Lemay (Kavli Institute, TU Delft, now at Twente) has shown a number of new developments related to a combination of magnetic tweezers techniques and transport, allowing him to precisely characterize the trapping of DNA in the pores and revealing what can be learned from it. Amit Meller (BU) reported an intriguing result showing that DNA capture rate increases with its length for medium long DNA whereas there is no length dependence for longer molecules. Statistical physics of polymers was needed to explain this, revealing also a crucial role of electrostatics. Creation of salt gradients across the pore is providing a tool that increases the sensitivity of this popular new method by an order of magnitude. A unique single molecule technique to study the effect of RNA polymeraze backtracking, using a dual trap optical tweezers assay, was reported by Stephan Grill (Max-Plank Institute, Dresden). Many theoretical models reported at the conference were elegant, but most importantly closely related to experimental findings. On the first day of the meeting we were able to celebrate Adrian Parsegian's 70th birthday. A worldwide renowned figure in modern biological physics, its distinguished veteran, a former President of the Biophysical Society and an author of many seminal, pioneering papers, Adrian has worked at the NIH for four decades and over the last two has led a vibrant Structural and Physical Biology Laboratory, created by him. Adrian has done a lot for physicists and biologists coming closer together. That summer, full of his ever young energy—an example for many young scientists—he is moving to build a new research team as a Professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. My feeling is that something is beginning to move in the difficult interactions between the physical and biological communities, the progress noticeable at least at the scale of 130 people present in Trieste. A few years ago, Paul Selvin, a biophysicist at the University of Illinois who has made crucial contributions to the visualization and characterization of biomolecular motility, suggested that if Rutherford was alive today, he would have possibly conclude that 'All science is either....biology or tool-making for biology... or not fundable'. Generally, 'pride and prejudice' today is no longer on the side of physicists. But in order to overcome the barrier of skepticism we, physicists, not only should not be shy about what we were able to demonstrate in the test tube, but also have to think how we could show that our 'beautiful physical effects' work equally inside the cell! This is much more difficult. Many of us will not be able to do it alone without finding a biologist match. Crick was not only a great mind, he was also lucky to meet his biologist. But Crick himself was very serious about real biology rather than just 'biologically-inspired physics'. And this is what Adrian advised all of us to do in his 1997 Physics Today paper. But in support of his opponent, Bob Austin, I wish to quote the conclusion from a memorable Steven Hawking's talk at the White House: 'The greatest discoveries of the 21st century will be, where we don't expect them'. So, physics will bring surprises to biology, and the conference left us no doubt of it. Acknowledgments I wish to thank John Seddon (Imperial College, UK) for useful remarks about these comments. The initial version of this article featured a collection of post stamps/photos, illustrating the discoveries mentioned in it. As it was difficult to obtain permissions to reproduce these pictures in print, we had to delete all of them, at the last moment. I apologize for this, but although the presentation became less flashy, I still think that the arguments remained clear. There is therefore nobody to acknowledge on this front. 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