Latest Optical phenomena Stories

Michael Harper for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Researchers from the University of California in Berkeley have finally pinpointed the area of the brain responsible for not only seeing fast-moving objects, but responding to them as well. This development explains why athletes are able to react and respond to balls traveling at speeds upwards of 100 miles an hour. According to this research, our brains are capable of “pushing” fast moving objects, so we perceive them to be...

Hosted by Wonder Junkie Jason Silva and Featuring Mind Manipulator Apollo Robbins, Brain Games Premieres Tonight, Monday, April 22, at 9 PM ET/PT on the National Geographic Channel WASHINGTON, April 22, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- National Geographic Channel invites you to explore a world where time slows down, reality is an illusion and things aren't always as they seem -- the human brain. Taking a close look at your brain's gray matter, and all the neurons and synapses in...

Michael Harper for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Our brains are capable of doing some amazing things. Yet, there are some processes which, while sophisticated enough, are mostly thought of as common and basic. For instance: The reflex which allows us to keep our eyes focused on one point while our heads are moving about. This reflex is called the Vestibular-Ocular Reflex (or VOR), and we share it with most vertebrates. For many years, scientists have believed that this reflex is...

With the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament set to begin, college basketball fans around the United States are in the throes of March Madness. Anyone who has seen a game knows that the fans are like extra players on the court, and this is especially true during critical free throws. Fans of the opposing team will wave anything they can, from giant inflatable noodles to big heads, to make it difficult for players to focus on the basket. But one way a player might be able to improve...

PHOENIX, July 13, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- With the 3D release of the final Harry Potter film this week, leading visual neuroscientists at Barrow Neurological Institute say 3D illusions not only provide great entertainment, but might also tell us a lot about how our brains function. Top researchers Susana Martinez-Conde, PhD, and Stephen Macknik, PhD, have spent years examining the correlation between vision and the brain. Recently they have teamed up with some of the world's best magicians,...

How the brain's architecture makes our view of the world uniqueWellcome Trust scientists have shown for the first time that exactly how we see our environment depends on the size of the visual part of our brain.We are all familiar with the idea that our thoughts and emotions differ from one person to another, but most people assume that how we perceive the visual world is usually very similar from person to person. However, the primary visual cortex "“ the area at the back of the brain...

By Milius, Susan Iridescence could be pretty meaningful-or maybe just pretty Believe it or not, science has barely begun to fathom the peacock's tail. Subtle as a pink tuxedo, one mightthink. Bigflashything. Peahens love it. What's not to understand. Roslyn Dakin, though, has plenty of questions. There's the matter of choreography. Already this year she has left Queen's University in Kingston, Canada, to visit peacocks (the birds) in Los Angeles and New York. She has spent weeks collecting...

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has revealed a never-before-seen optical alignment in space: a pair of glowing rings, one nestled inside the other like a bull's-eye pattern. The double-ring pattern is caused by the complex bending of light from two distant galaxies strung directly behind a foreground massive galaxy, like three beads on a string.More than just a novelty, this very rare phenomenon can offer insight into dark matter, dark energy, the nature of distant galaxies, and even the...