Stendhal Syndrome
Stendhal syndrome, Stendhal’s syndrome, Hyperkulturemia, or Florence syndrome, is a psychosomatic illness that causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness,confusion and even hallucinations when an individual is exposed to art, usually when the art is particularly beautiful or a large amount of art is in a single place. The term can also be used to describe a similar reaction to a surfeit of choice in other circumstances, e.g. when confronted with immense beauty in the natural world.
Wikipedia (Via Best of wikipedia <<great site)
Rays of Sunshine
Kyle is 16 years old and comes from Hyde, Cheshire. He is living with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL).
Rays of Sunshine granted his greatest wish to meet Derren Brown and go to see his Enigma Show.
Hacker loses extradition appeal
UK hacker Gary McKinnon has lost his latest High Court bid to avoid extradition to the United States. US authorities want to try the 43-year-old, from Wood Green, north London, for breaking into US military and Nasa computers in 2001 and 2002. Mr McKinnon admits hacking, but denies it was malicious or that he caused damage costing $800,000.(yeh right! – PD)
He had challenged refusals by the home secretary and director of public prosecutions to try him in the UK. Glasgow-born Mr McKinnon had asked the court to rule on whether the CPS was right to say he could not be prosecuted in the UK, and and also whether his Asperger’s Syndrome meant he could not be extradited to the US.
He faces up to 70 years in prison if convicted in the US of what prosecutors have called “the biggest military computer hack of all time”. Ahead of the decision, his mother, Janis Sharp, told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme they were “fighting for Gary’s life”.In total, Mr McKinnon accessed 97 government computers belonging to organisations including the US Navy and Nasa.
He has always insisted he was looking for classified documents on UFOs which he believed the US authorities had suppressed. In February the Crown Prosecution Service refused to bring charges against Mr McKinnon in the UK. The decision followed a ruling last October by then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to allow his extradition.
Mr McKinnon has already appealed unsuccessfully to the House of Lords and the European Court of Human Rights and his latest judicial reviews in the High Court are likely to be his last chance. His lawyers say the authorities have not given proper consideration to his Asperger’s Syndrome, which could have “disastrous consequences,” including suicide, if he was to be extradited. They argued he was “eccentric” rather than malicious and should be tried on lesser charges in the UK to protect his mental health.
Friday Fun: PhotoFunia
An amusing website, stick your photo in, pick the effect and download.
No sign up necessary. Enjoy 
Marathons and Memory
The Neurocritic has a fascinating summary of a recent paper investigating different types of memory in marathon runners. Why marathoners? Because completing a 26.2 mile race is an insanely arduous exercise, and leads to the massive release of stress hormones such as cortisol. Here are the scientists:
Indeed, cortisol levels recorded 30 min after completion of a marathon rival those reported in military training and interrogation, rape victims being treated acutely, severe burn injury patients, and first-time parachute jumpers.
Full article at The Frontal Cortex a great blog by Jonah Lehrer who is a contributing editor at Wired and who wrote the rather fascinating Proust was a Neuroscientist and How We Decide – go check them out.
Can you help cheer up the world?
Today Richard Wiseman is announcing the start of perhaps his most ambitious mass participation study yet! In a nutshell, the study aims to cheer up the world!
It will take place next week, between Monday 3rd – Friday 7th August. Those taking part first complete a quick questionnaire assessing their current level of happiness. They then see a short video describing a happiness boosting exercise and are asked to repeat it each day of the study. At the end of the project they again rate their level of happiness.
Bill O’Reilly: A Cesspool Of Corruption, Crime
Possibly the worst use of spin (or just bad reporting) I’ve seen in a while. Amsterdam was voted one of the top cities to live in by Mercer (13th). San Fransisco (where a lot of the same practices are emulated) comes in at 29. New York scraped in at 49.
Walking Corpse Syndrome: a Disorder Where People Think They Are Dead
There are many rare mental disorders in the world. Cotard’s Syndrome or Walking Corpse syndrome is one of them. Cotord’s Syndrome is when a person thinks that they have died, lost their soul, or lost a vital organ, when in fact they have lost nothing. They may even think they do not have blood.
This disorder has been linked to many other disorders including Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Other than mental illness this disorder can come about when there is a problem with the persons brain, such as an injury. Some people with this disorder may feel immortal.
Although this feeling is very rare among those that have Cotord’s Syndrome. They may test their own mortality by attempting suicide. So you can see that this disorder is very dangerous to the person who has it.
Beluga whale saved a stricken diver’s life by pushing her to the surface
It looks like a moment of terror – a diver finds her leg clamped in the jaws of a beluga whale. In fact, it was a stunning example of an animal coming to the rescue of a human life. Yang Yun, 26, was taking part in a free diving contest without breathing equipment among the whales in a tank of water more than 20ft deep and chilled to Arctic temperatures.
She says that when she tried to return to the surface, she found her legs crippled by cramp from the freezing cold. At that point Mila the beluga took a hand, or rather a flipper. We suddenly saw the girl being pushed to the top of the pool with her leg in Mila’s mouth,’ said an official at Polar Land in Harbin, north-east China.
‘She’s a sensitive animal who works closely with humans and I think this girl owes Mila her life.’ Thankfully belugas, which live in the Arctic and sub-Arctic and feed on small fish and squid, have only small teeth and Yang Yun was uninjured.
At depths of 20ft and below, the water pressure keeps a body down, particularly if, as in this case, the limbs are effectively paralysed by the cold. Reliving the drama, Yang Yun said: ‘I began to choke and sank even lower and I thought that was it for me – I was dead.
‘Until I felt this incredible force under me driving me to the surface.’
