Saturday, August 13, 2011

How Blind People Can Use Echolocation To See Like Bats

Echolocation is the ability to 'see' with sound using sound to sense the surrounding area and detect obstacles. Usually bats and a few marine mammals exhibit echolocation. But, in recent research it was determined that, like these animals, blind people could also see with their 'natural' echolocation ability.
According to an article published in the May 25, 2011 issue of the scientific journal PLos ONE, researchers at The University of Western Ontario’s Centre for Brain and Mind have discovered that blind people can use echolocation to determine important information about surrounding objects – their size, shape and movement – with great accuracy. The question is: how do they use their ears to 'see' and navigate their environment. To better understand human echolocation, let us first understand echolocation in animals. The best example of echolocation is found in bats.


A depiction of the ultrasound signals emitted by a bat, and the echo from a nearby object
Bats are very good at echolocation. They have an amazing ability to hear – and 'see' – through the use of sonar. While navigating in the dark or hunting prey, a bat emits a series of short, high-pitched sound waves from its mouth or nose. These sound waves bounce off any object they come across, producing an echo. This process helps the bat recognize features in the environment – not to mention prey.

The Echolocation Experiment 
A figure showing the activation to echoes in the brain of the echolocation expert and the absence of activation in the brain of a control (sighted) person.
'Flash sonar' is a synonym for the word ‘echolocation’ in the human world. Visually impaired persons have been found to be able to sense silent objects in the environment by processing sound in the visual centers of their brains. 
In the experiment mentioned above, the Canadian researchers placed tiny microphones in the ears of blind individuals and recorded the clicks of their tongues and the returning echoes. Those recorded echoes were played back and the individuals' brain activity during that period was studied with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). fMRI is a specialized MRI scan used to measure the change in blood flow in the brain or spinal cord of humans (and animals) related to neural activity.
The fMRI scanning results were very surprising. Interestingly, the scanner showed activity in that particular part of the brain which is associated with ‘visual information processing’, instead of the part where auditory information is processed. "This suggests that visual brain areas play an important role for echolocation in blind people," says lead author Lore Thaler, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Western Ontario, Canada.

How Echolocation works in blind people? 
Left panel: Bold activity while participant listened to the recordings and judged the location, Right Panel: Contrast between BOLD activations for recordings containing echoes from objects and recordings that did not contains the echoes 
The researchers found that the blind echo locators could sense "the shape, motion and location of the objects based on the recorded echoes." The click gives information about the density of an object, where it is located, and its dimension.
On the other hand, sighted control subjects who do not echolocate could not detect objects based on the echo recordings. Also, their brain scans did not show activity related to the echoes.
There is much more to investigate in this first-of-its-kind study, and the research is still ongoing. “Even at this point, it is clear that echolocation enables blind people to do things that are otherwise thought to be impossible without vision and in this way it can provide blind and vision-impaired people with a high degree of independence in their daily lives,” said senior author Mel Goodale, Canada Research Chair in Visual Neuroscience.

Friday, August 12, 2011

How to Detect Hidden Camera in Trial Room?

How to Detect Hidden Camera in Trial Room?

In front of the trial room take your mobile and make sure that mobile can make calls........
Then enter into the trail room, take your mobile and make a call.....
If u can't make a call......!!!!
There is a hidden camera......
This is due to the interference of fiber optic cable during the signal transfer......

Please forward this to your friends to educate this issue to the
public......To prevent our innocent ladies from HIDDEN CAMERA...........

Pinhole Cameras in Changing Rooms of Big Bazaar, Shoppers Stop?

A few days ago, I received this text message:
Please don't use Trial room of BIG BAZAAR there are pinhole cameras to make MMS of young girls.
So, please forward to all girls. Also forward to all boys who have sisters and girlfriends.

Don't be shy in forwarding this message. Because its about protecting the integrity of all girls & ladies.

HOW TO DETECT A 2-WAY MIRROR?

When we visit toilets, bathrooms, hotel rooms, changing rooms, etc., How many of you know for sure that the seemingly ordinary mirror hanging on the wall is a real mirror, or actually a 2-way mirror I.e., they can see you, but you can't see them. There have been many cases of people installing 2-way mirrors in female changing rooms or bathroom or bedrooms.

It is very difficult to positively identify the surface by just looking at it. So, how do we determine with any amount of certainty what type of Mirror we are looking at?

CONDUCT THIS SIMPLE TEST:

Place the tip of your fingernail against the reflective surface and if there is a GAP between your fingernail and the image of the nail, then it is a GENUINE mirror.

However, if your fingernail DIRECTLY TOUCHES the image of your nail, then BEWARE, IT IS A 2-WAY MIRROR! (There may be someone seeing you from the other side). So remember, every time you see a mirror, do the "fingernail test." It doesn't cost you anything. It is simple to do.

This is a really good thing to do. The reason there is a gap on a real mirror, is because the silver is on the back of the mirror UNDER the glass.

Whereas with a two-way mirror, the silver is on the surface. Keep it in mind! Make sure and check every time you enter in hotel rooms.

Share this with your sisters, wife, daughters, friends, colleagues, etc.

Pass this message to all Ur friends in the Contacts.