Simple Brain Mechanisms Explain Arbitrary Human Visual Decisions

piggy submitted, created time 1 month 4 weeks (www.sciencedaily.com)

Mark Twain, a skeptic of the idea of free will, argues in his essay "What Is Man?" that humans do not command their minds or the opinions they form. "You did not form that [opinion]," a speaker identified as "old man" says in the essay. "Your [mental] machinery did it for you—automatically and instantly, without reflection or the need of it."

Twain's views get a boost this week from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and University of Chieti, Italy

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Retinal transplants bear threefold fruit

Darkfrog submitted, created time 3 months 4 weeks (www.nature.com)

A formerly clinically blind woman's vision improved from 20/800 to 20/160--from one-fortieth of ordinary vision to one-eighth--after receiving donated retina. Six months after the operation, the started noticing the pendulum in her grandfather clock. For years, she found that she could read large-print books and emails and returned to her hobbies, knitting and sewing. Now, six years after her operation, her vision is fading, but it is still better than it was before the operation

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Study says eyes evolved for X-Ray vision

sea-maid submitted, created time 4 months 1 week (esciencenews.com)

The advantage of using two eyes to see the world around us has long been associated solely with our capacity to see in 3-D. Now, a new study from a scientist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has uncovered a truly eye-opening advantage to binocular vision: our ability to see through things. Most animals — fish, insects, reptiles, birds, rabbits, and horses, for example — exist in non-cluttered environments like fields or plains, and they have eyes located on either side of their head

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