Google Science Fair 2011

In partnership with CERN, the LEGO Group, National Geographic, and Scientific American Google have created an exciting new global science competition, the Google Science Fair. Students all over the world who are between the ages of 13 and 18 are eligible to enter this competition and compete for prizes including once-in-a-lifetime experiences, internships and scholarships.

Google will be accepting submissions from 11 January to 4 April 2011. Students who make it to the finalist stage will be invited with a parent or guardian to their celebratory event at Google headquarters in California in July, where they’ll be able to showcase their project and meet some of the brightest minds in science today. They will select and announce our winner at this event.

How to Play Online Games

One moment you might be interested to play blackjack online. It is necessary to know some basic things about the game so you can maximize the chances of victory in the play.

First thing first, Players place the pot in the middle of the betting circle. The dealer will divide the two open cards to each player and for him is given two cards, one is open, and other one is closed. King, Queen, Jack, and 10 are given a score of 10. Aces count as 1 or 11, as a player wishes. All other cards 2-9, calculated based on the number of values printed on it.

If the first two cards Ace and 10, players get a Blackjack and will be paid one and a half times the pot (3:2), unless the dealer also has Blackjack. Players who did not get a Blackjack may continue to work close to the number 21 with continue to add cards, but if the amount exceeds 21, the player "breaks" (fall) and lost the bet.

Dealer must hit (plus card) when all totals of 16 or less. Dealers must stand (no additional cards) when all totals of 17 or more.

BLACKJACK TERMS

HIT: Request an additional card

STAY: No additional cards

SPLIT: The player separates the first two cards into 2 installation bet and double the stakes. Both cards must be of the same value (a pair of 8 and 8, the King and Queen, etc.). In this split condition, Ace and 10 counts as "21" and not blackjack.

DOUBLE DOWN: The player will match (or double down for less) in the first two cards dealt and receive only one additional card. Double down wagering is not permitted on a Blackjack.

INSURANCE: When the dealer open card is Ace, the player can buy insurance that amount equal to half the original wager. Player may purchase insurance when he assumed the dealer's down card 10.

If the Dealer has Blackjack, the insurance wager pays 2:1. Conversely, if the dealer fails to get Blackjack, the insurance is gone and the game continued as usual. A Blackjack will beat the total of "21".

That’s all folks, at the next opportunity will be presented how to play online slots. The game is also quite interesting to be learned.

But before that time, maybe you better try to recognize and play the game on online casinos. How about that?

Recent Deja Study by Brown

About 2/3 of the population experience deja vu, but there is a science behind it. The phenomenon is being put to the test at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.  The research study is headed by psychologist and SMU Professor Alan Brown.  Dr. Brown is one of the country's lead researchers on memory.

He says that eerie feeling is actually something called double perception.  "That is you'll glance at something where your mind is vacant or absent or thinking about something else, but when you glance at it again and somehow it's a familiar experience. That experience was just a second or 2 before it wasn't months or years ago."

Brown says this happens because we live in a distracted society and a lot of information gets put in our brain but is not fully processed. We are continually multi tasking, whether it's on the phone, in the car, on the computer or with an IPOD.

"We're not paying attention to one information source."

The research shows about 90-percent of the population has experienced deja vu. It is most common in teenagers and young adults. When we hit our 30s those feelings start, but you never forget the sensation.

The research is funded by Duke University. Dr. Brown says this is just one of many theories. His study was just published in the Journal of Psychological Science.

The Brain Slip

The human brain is, arguably, the most complex construct in nature, with its billions of neurons and synapses, all working together to ensure that we are able to process outside stimuli, such as noises, sights, tastes, and so on. It also allows us to store, process and remember memories, and also to move each and every part of our bodies. But, when things go wrong, the effects can be difficult to cope with. Some of the more minor slips of the brain are the déjà vu and the “tip-of-the-tongue,” and they have puzzled experts ever since they were first reported.

Basically, tip-of-the-tongue refers to trying to remember a word, knowing you know, but simply not remembering it at one point. Naturally, minutes or hours later, it comes back to you, and you start wondering how was it that you couldn't remember it in the first place, given that it was so obvious. Deja vu is a more complex phenomenon, and refers to the instances when you find certain events, people or places familiar, even though you haven't been there before. You witness actions going on around you and keep saying, “I remember this,” even though it's the first time you've been there.

Two new studies have recently come out, and they attempt to shed some light on some of the most weird and interesting manifestations of our brain. Wellesley College in Massachusetts Psychologist Jennie Pyers believes that tip-of-the-tongue moments occur most often in bilingual people simply because similar-sounding words in two or more languages compete for attention inside the brain. “Often when we're having tip-of-the-tongue experiences, words that sound the same come to mind. There's a sense that you do know the first letter; there's a sense that you might know how many syllables it is,” she said, quoted by NewScientist.

On the other hand, one of the most interesting explanations for deja vu is the fact that the brain recognizes subtle cues that the subconscious mind has just processed moments earlier. It's a well-known fact that the subconscious mind is aware of everything around us before we are, a fact that has been demonstrated in multiple functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) tests, where the parts of the brain were seen lighting up before the conscious mind became aware of a decision.

However, the explanation does not account for the fact that some people experiencing deja vu report feeling familiar emotions and states of mind, alongside familiarity with individuals they have never seen before and unique situations that never repeat themselves again. It's hard even for researchers to determine if déjà vu is a flaw of the brain, or if it's something else. And the possibilities may be too tantalizing for scientists to even think about considering.

Deja vu results when elements of new and old situations overlap

Deja vu, the feeling that a present event has happened before in the same way, may occur when specific aspects of a current situation resemble those of any circumstances one has faced in the past, according to a new study report.

Anne M. Cleary, a psychologist at Colorado State University, writes in the report that one gets a strong feeling of familiarity when there is a lot of overlap between the elements of the new and old situations.

Many parallels between explanations of deja vu and theories of human recognition memory exist. Theories of familiarity-based recognition and the laboratory methods used to study it may be especially useful for elucidating the processes underlying deja vu experiences, she writes in the report.

Cleary describes familiarity-based recognition as an experience when a person feels that the current situation feels familiar, but does not remember when it has happened before: for instance, seeing a familiar man in a store, but not remembering where one knows him from.

She points out that deja vu is believed to be an example of familiarity-based recognitionone is convinced that one recognizes the situation, but is not sure why.

Cleary conducted experiments testing familiarity-based recognition in which participants were given a list of celebrity names, and shown a collection of celebrity photographs a bit later. Some photographs corresponded to the names on the list, while others did not.

She says that the volunteers were asked to identify the celebrities in the photographs, and indicate how likely it was the celebritys names were on the list they had seen previously.

The researcher observed that the volunteers had a sense of which names they had studied earlier and which they had not, even when they were unable to identify a celebrity by photo.

She says that the participants could not identify the source of their familiarity with the celebrity, but they knew the celebrity was familiar to them.

Even when famous places like Stonehenge and the Taj Majal were substituted for celebrities, Cleary got similar results.

Those observations suggested that the studys subjects stored a little bit of the memory, according to the report, but it was hazy and that is why they were unable to connect it to the new experience.

Cleary also conducted experiments to see what features or elements of situations could trigger feelings of familiarity, and made participants study a random list of words for the purpose. Some of the words resembled the earlier words in sound (e.g. lady sounds similar to eighty).

She observed that the volunteers reported a sense of familiarity for the new words, even when they could not recall the earlier-presented, similar-sounding words that were the source of this familiarity.

Referring to studies conducted in the past, the researcher pointed out that people might feel familiarity when shown a visual fragment containing isolated geometric shapes from an earlier experience, which suggested that familiar geometric shapes might create the sense that an entire new scene has been viewed before.

Cleary says that the findings support the proposition that events and episodes one experiences are stored in ones memory as individual elements or fragments of that event, and that deja vu may occur when specific aspects of a current situation resemble certain aspects of previously occurring situations.

Her study report has been published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

The Psychology Of Deja Vu

All of us have experienced being in a new place and feeling certain that we have been there before. This mysterious feeling, commonly known as déjà vu, occurs when we feel that a new situation is familiar, even if there is evidence that the situation could not have occurred previously. For a long time, this eerie sensation has been attributed to everything from paranormal disturbances to neurological disorders.

However, in recent years, as more scientists began studying this phenomenon, a number of theories about déjà vu have emerged, suggesting that it is not merely a glitch in our brain’s memory system. A new report by Colorado State University psychologist Anne M. Cleary, published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, describes recent findings about déjà vu, including the many similarities that exist between déjà vu and our understanding of human recognition memory.

Recognition memory is the type of memory that allows us to realize that what we are currently experiencing has already been experienced before, such as when we recognize a friend on the street or hear a familiar song on the radio. The brain fluctuates between two different types of recognition memory: recollection and familiarity. Recollection-based recognition occurs when we can pinpoint an instance when a current situation has previously occurred.

For example, seeing a familiar man at a store and realizing that we’ve seen him before on the bus. On the other hand, familiarity-based recognition occurs when our current situation feels familiar, but we don’t remember when it has happened before. For example, we see that familiar man in the store, but we just can’t remember where we know him from. Déjà vu is believed to be an example of familiarity-based recognition—during déjà vu, we are convinced that we recognize the situation, but we are not sure why.

Cleary conducted experiments testing familiarity-based recognition in which participants were given a list of celebrity names. Later on, they were shown a collection of celebrity photographs; some photographs corresponded to the names on the list, other photographs did not. The volunteers were told to identify the celebrities in the photographs and indicate how likely it was the celebrity’s names were on the list they had seen previously. The findings were surprising. Even when the volunteers were unable to identify a celebrity by photo, they had a sense of which names they had studied earlier and which they had not. That is, they couldn’t identify the source of their familiarity with the celebrity, but they knew the celebrity was familiar to them. Cleary repeated the experiment substituting famous places (such as Stonehenge and the Taj Majal) for celebrities and got similar results. These findings indicate that the participants stored a little bit of the memory, but it was hazy, so they were not able to connect it to the new experience.

Cleary also ran experiments to figure out what features or elements of situations could trigger feelings of familiarity. She had participants study a random list of words. During a word recognition test, some of the words on the test resembled the earlier words, although only in sound (e.g. lady sounds similar to eighty), but the volunteers reported a sense of familiarity for the new words, even when they could not recall the earlier-presented, similar-sounding words that were the source of this familiarity. Previous research has also shown that people feel familiarity when shown a visual fragment containing isolated geometric shapes from an earlier experience. This suggests that familiar geometric shapes may create the sense that an entire new scene has been viewed before.

These results support the idea that events and episodes which we experience are stored in our memory as individual elements or fragments of that event. Déjà vu may occur when specific aspects of a current situation resemble certain aspects of previously occurring situations; if there is a lot of overlap between the elements of the new and old situations, we get a strong feeling of familiarity. “Many parallels between explanations of déjà vu and theories of human recognition memory exist”, Cleary concludes, “Theories of familiarity-based recognition and the laboratory methods used to study it may be especially useful for elucidating the processes underlying déjà vu experiences.”

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Adapted from materials provided by Association for Psychological Science.