Higher-order thoughts in action : Consciousness as an unconscious re-description process

Peer reviewedPostprin

The sensitivity and specificity of a diagnostic test of sequence-space synesthesia

People with sequence-space synaesthesia (SSS) report stable visuo-spatial forms corresponding to numbers, days and months (amongst others). This type of synaesthesia has intrigued scientists for over 130 years but the lack of an agreed upon tool for assessing it has held back research on this phenomenon. The present study builds on previous tests by measuring the consistency of spatial locations that is known to discriminate controls from synaesthetes. We document, for the first time, the sensitivity and specificity of such a test and suggest a diagnostic cut-off point for discriminating between the groups based on the area bounded by different placement attempts with the same item

Esloigne des rivages de France The writings of French-speaking immigrants in Elizabethan England

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:D195348 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Measuring the Force Production of the Hormogonia of Mastigocladus laminosus

The cyanobacterium Mastigocladus laminosus forms hormogonia, which glide slowly away from the parent colony by extruding slime out of nozzles. Using video microscopy, we observed hormogonia embedded in and moving through 1–4% agar solutions with an average velocity of 0.5 μm/s. Agar is non-Newtonian and is subject to shear-thinning so that its viscosity greatly increases at low shear rates. We measured the viscosity of these agar solutions at the very low shear rates appropriate for gliding hormogonia and found it to vary from 1 to 52 million centipoise. Then, by applying a Newtonian drag coefficient for a 100-μm-long, cigar-shaped hormogonium, we found that it produced a force of several million pN. A typical hormogonium has 10–100 thousand 9-nm-wide slime extrusion nozzles. Wolgemuth et al. have proposed hydration-driven swelling of the polyelectrolyte slime ejected from these nozzles as the force production mechanism, and our experiment found a large nozzle force that was consistent with this hypothesis. Average single nozzle force depended on viscosity, being large when the viscosity was high: 71 pN in 3% and 126 pN in 4% agar

O Sacrum Convivium: A Feast of Sacred Music

Directed by David J. Smith, this CD combines world-première recordings of new music with familiar favourites. Listeners will enjoy motets by Phillip Cooke composed for the choir as well as new pieces by young composers, John F. Hudson and Thomas LaVoy. Choral classics include 16th-century polyphony as well as music by Purcell, Lotti, Stanford, Tavener and Mealor. The CD also boasts organ music by J.S. Bach played on the chapel’s wonderful organ by Bernard Aubertin