Contagious scratching: shared feelings but not shared body locations

A commentary on: The neural basis of contagious itch and why some people are more prone to it by Holle, H., Warne, K., Seth, A. K., Critchley, H. D., and Ward, J. (2012). Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 109, 19816–19821

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

Confocal Raman microspectroscopy reveals a convergence of the chemical composition in methanogenic archaea from a Siberian permafrost-affected soil

Methanogenic archaea are widespread anaerobic microorganisms responsible for the 25 production of biogenic methane. Several new species of psychrotolerant methanogenic archaea were recently isolated from a permafrost-affected soil in the Lena delta (Siberia, Russia), showing an exceptional resistance against desiccation, osmotic stress, low temperatures, starvation, UV and ionizing radiation when compared to methanogens from non-permafrost environments. To gain a deeper insight into the differences observed in their resistance, we described the chemical composition of methanogenic strains from permafrost and non-permafrost environments using confocal Raman microspectroscopy (CRM). CRM is a powerful tool for microbial identification and provides fingerprint-like information about 33 the chemical composition of the cells. Our results show that the chemical composition of methanogens from permafrost-affected soils presents a high homology and is remarkably different from strains inhabiting non-permafrost environments. In addition, we performed a phylogenetic reconstruction of the studied strains based on the functional gene mcrA to prove the different evolutionary relationship of the permafrost strains. We conclude that the permafrost methanogenic strains show a convergent chemical composition regardless of their genotype. This fact is likely to be the consequence of a complex adaptive process to the Siberian permafrost environment and might be the reason underlying their resistant nature

Ein Datenserver für die historischen Wissenschaften? Datenbanken in der deutschen Geschichtswissenschaft und das ARASS-Projekt

Ebeling D, Gorißen S. Ein Datenserver für die historischen Wissenschaften? Datenbanken in der deutschen Geschichtswissenschaft und das ARASS-Projekt. In: Burckhardt D, Hohls R, Ziegeldorf V, eds. Geschichte und Neue Medien in Forschung, Archiven, Bibliotheken und Museen. Tagungsband .hist 2003. Historisches Forum. Vol 7,2. Berlin: Humboldt-Univ. zu Berlin; 2005: 637-656

Synesthetic experiences enhance unconscious learning

Synesthesia  is characterized  by consistent extra perceptual experiences in response to normal sensory input. Recent studies provide evidence for a specific profile of enhanced memory performance in synesthesia, but focus exclusively on explicit memory paradigms for which the learned content is consciously accessible. In this study, for the first time, we demonstrate with an implicit memory paradigm that synesthetic experiences also enhance memory performance relating to unconscious knowledge