Mysterious Phenomenon Research Articles

A γ-ray burst preceded by X-ray activity

GAMMA-RAY bursts remain mysterious astrophysical phenomena. The discovery of cyclotron harmonics1–3 in their spectra is strong evidence that they originate from strongly magnetized neutron stars, but their energy source and photon production mechanism are unknown. In observations of a γ-ray burst using the Ginga astronomy satellite, we detected X-ray emission in the 2–10 keV energy range ∼10 s before the onset of the γ-ray event, as well as a tail of X-ray emission for ∼30 s afterwards. The long timescale and near black-body spectrum of the precursory X-ray emission suggests that the burst mechanism involves a transition from thermal to non-thermal photon production, and that the energy source for the burst comes from within the neutron star rather than from accretion.

Capsizing of a Ship in Quartering Seas

In the first paper, the authors pointed out that a new mode of capsizing, which accompanied the period doubling bifurcation phenomenon, had been observed and that about 25 % of the total capsizing had been classified into such a new capsizing mode. Since the period doubling bifurcation phenomenon was regarded as a precursor of the chaos in the nonlinear dynamical systems, and the chaos was regarded as a precursor of the unconditional capsizing, which was equivalent to the blue sky catastrophe or the boundary crisis in the softening spring system, the chaos and fractal in the symmetrical capsize equation was examined in the authors' second paper. Although the mysterious nonlinear phenomena appeared in the symmetrical capsize equation were examined numerically, a cascade of the period bifurcations was not observed in the numerical study.In the present paper, the authors have examined the asymmetrical capsize equation as well as the symmetrical one. As a result, the cascade of the Feigenbaum bifurcation, which begins from the period doubling bifurcation and ends at the unconditional capsizing through the chaos, has been observed for both asymmetrical and symmetrical capsize equations. Further it has been clarified that in the symmetrical equation the cascade of the period bifurcations begins after the break of the symmetry of solution, and that the period bifurcation with the distinct difference of the adjoining amplitude, such as observed in the model tests, appears only in the asymmetrical equation. The differences of the fractal capsize boundaries in the initial value plane and the control space between the symmetrical and asymmetrical equations have been also examined, and the danger of the biased ship is emphasized by the numerical results. In the examination of the safe basin in the initial value plane, a cell-to-cell mapping method developed by Hsu has been atempted to confirm its effectiveness and accuracy. A numerical analysis of the fold bifurcation which approximates the capsizing boundary in the control space, and also a numerical Melnikov analysis which approximates the beginning of the fractal metamorphosis in the safe basin in the initial value plane have been carried out. An approximate analytical expression for the flip bifurcation is obtained.The idea that the appearance of the period bifurcation in the roll motion of a ship implies the imminent danger of the capsizing has proved to be correct.

Comments of P. Coumel

The merit of Dessertenne should not be attributed to the description of a particular rhythm disorder, since he himself reminded us that this had already been done. The success of his publication lay in its quality and in the precise description of these characteristic ECG changes. The introduction of a new medical term, torsades de pointes, also contributed to this success. This term allowed the Francophones to conjure up an array of images, and it was also acceptable to Anglo-Saxons. It had the advantage of not implying electrophysiologieal mechanisms, but rather stimulating clinical and experimental research. Twenty years were needed to reproduce arrhythmias experimentally in the isolated heart and to describe the basic mechanisms, even at the cellular level. Thus, the use of misleading terms for torsades de pointes, such as ventricular fibrillation or pohdmorpho~ts ventricular arrhythmia, began to disappear as the use of the new term became more widespread. Twenty years later the entity was sufficiently established and recognized to be reviewed. Every syndrome has variants and torsades de pointes is no exception to the rule. In our opinion this syndrome has to be seen as a "fuzzy set" in which each aspect has certain similarities, but also differences, at the clinical level. For example, the congenital QT prolongation and the acquired QT prolongation are identical in morphology, but differ in their nervous pathomechanisms and in their response to drugs. However, even the congenital QT prolongation has variants with an identical mechanism, prognosis, and treatment: In some cases of catecholamine-induced ventricular tachycardia in children, the occurring polymorphism may reproduce torsades de pointes. However, there are also intermediate forms existing between the two syndromes. Dessertenne stated that the prolonged coupling period of the initial extrasystole is the fundamental characteristic of torsades de pointes. However, some morphologically authentic torsades de pointes have a very short coupling period, less than 300 ms. The few published reports of this quite mysterious phenomenon indicate that it might sometimes be of congenital idiopathic and sometimes of acquired origin. History has taught us that concepts have to be reviewed from time to time, sometimes leading to their death, but more often to their refinement. We have to hope that it will be the same for torsades de pointes.

Solar tantrum erupting

Mysterious phenomena within the sun break through the surface with an intensity that rises and falls on an average 11-yr cycle. The surface goes from relative quiescence to extraordinary turbulence. And this brief report, reprinted by permission from the Science section of the 18 Dec. 1989 edition of The Washington Post, discusses the current sunspot cycle which may become the most violent ever.

The Bleeding Mind: An Investigation into the Mysterious Phenomenon of Stigmata by Ian Wilson

The Bleeding Mind: An Investigation into the Mysterious Phenomenon of Stigmata by Ian Wilson

Life and death above the plane

Life and death above the plane

Antigenic relationships between avian paramyxoviruses

A combinatorial mathematical model describing the antigenic relationships found between different avian paramyxovirus (PMV) serotypes (Lipkind and Shihmanter, 1986) is presented. According to the model, the network of the antigenic interconnections is determined by the specific combinatorial sets of antigenic determinants, some of them being serotype-specific and the others being common to certain other avian PMV serotypes. The suggested model is based on certain postulates concerning PMV virion structure; the bifunctional organization of PMV haemagglutinin-neuraminidase (HN) glycoprotein, its amount per virion and a mechanism of antibody-caused inhibition of its functional activities; the definition of an antigenic determinant as an elementary unit inducing and reacting only with a homologous type of antibodies. The model interprets in specific terms some serological results, in particular the old but mysterious phenomenon of asymmetric cross reactivity.

Performance of gas permeable hard lenses on the eye

Performance of gas permeable hard lenses on the eye

Radiation Hydrodynamics of the Broad Line Region in Seyfert Galaxies and Quasars

The broad line region in quasars and in the nuclei of active galaxies is the site of remarkable hydrodynamic activity unprecedented elsewhere in the universe. Considerable theoretical effort has been directed to determine how this intense radiation is related to high velocity gas motions in these small regions, which, because of their great distances, cannot be resolved by direct observation. A better theoretical understanding of the nature of the broad line-emitting gas involves many novel aspects of radiation hydrodynamics and may eventually provide insights into the nature of the mysterious quasar phenomenon itself.Continuum and emission line properties of active galaxies and quasars are sufficiently similar that there is little doubt that both can be accounted for by a similar or closely related physical model. The main difference is one of luminosity; typical quasars are considerably brighter than Seyfert galaxies.In the discussion below the relevant observations of quasars and active galaxies are briefly reviewed with an emphasis on the physical properties of the line-emitting gas and its immediate environment. Arguments that support the importance of radiation forces in producing the observed gas velocities are summarized. Finally, the nature of the acceleration process is described with particular attention paid to the various instabilities that may be present and which are generally characteristic of situations in which plasma velocities result directly from the deposition of radiative momentum. In fact, these troublesome instabilities suggest that radiative forces, although very strong, may provide only a partial explanation of the gasdynamical activity observed.

The Red and the Black

Since 1969 Italy has suffered through the worst epidemic of terrorist violence in the Western world. The extreme left and the extreme right have been involved in this violence, which remains a fundamentally mysterious phenomenon. Economic, political, and psychological theories, as well as theories of conspiracy, all fail to provide an adequate account of Italian terrorism. The author contends that Italy's culture of violence-that is, the long-standing intellectual tradition that seeks to make violence "photogenic"- has played a critical and generally ignored role in the Italian terrorism of our time.

"Science" in the practice of medicine: its limitations and dangers. As exemplified by a study of the natural history of acute bronchial asthma in children.

"SCIENCE"* IN THE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE: ITS UMITATIONS AND DANGERS AS EXEMPLIFIED BY A STUDY OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF ACUTE BRONCHIAL ASTHMA IN CHILDREN WILUAM ROEi There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. [Hamlet l:v] Is it not possible that modern humanistic man, excited by the success of the scientific method, and exalted by his liberationfrom the absurdities of medieval thought, has been carried away into a new period ofdogmatic folly only a little less absurd than that which preceded it? Could he be making a gigantic mistake? [Alister Hardy, The Spiritual Nature of Man] Introduction There was a time when physicians of the Western world possessed sufficient humility, courage, and integrity to accept the fact that certain forces which were obviously of vital importance in the maintenance of the health of their patients, being intangible, could not be accurately The author thanks his colleagues Drs. B. Hardie Boys, H. Kingston, T. Parr, and D. Carroll, under whose care many of die patients in the study were admitted; die house surgeons and nurses who bore the brunt of the immediate responsibility for patient management ; the physiotherapists for their valuable contribution; and the general practitioners of die Nelson Province, without whose tolerance toward die heretic in dieir midst die study would not have been possible. Thanks, also, to the staff of the National Health Statistics Centre for their invaluable assistance. ""'Science," defined in the restricted terms in general use in contemporary medicine, namely, diat body of knowledge acquired by the application of die scientific method—die experimental testing of hypotheses. tConsultant Paediatrician (retired), Department of Paediatrics, Nelson Hospital, Nelson , New Zealand. Address: 30 Moncrieff Avenue, Tahunanui, Nelson' New Zealand.© 1984 by The University of Chicago. AU rights reserved. 003 1-5982/84/2703-0394$01 .00 386 I William Roe ¦ Science in Medical Practice defined and hence were not amenable to investigation by the scientific method. As a consequence, the practice ofmedicine was divided into die art and the science, the former being considered no less important than the latter. With the passage of time, however, and especially in the twentieth century, the art has suffered neglect and even denigration, while the status accorded the science has steadily increased until it has now acquired an aura of holiness which bodes ill for its future and for the future of mankind. In certain quarters, especially in academic circles, medicine is actually regarded as a science, with the implication diat anything not scientific has no place in medicine. Thus has been created a serious imbalance between these two components. By starting from a false premise, a superstructure has been created which is, to a not inconsiderable degree, an iatrogenic fantasy. The primary function of medicine has been transformed from a service to patients to a vocation and avocation for medical and paramedical personnel (see later); iatrogenic disease has become a major problem [1-5] and medicine has become big business [6-10]. An urgent need exists to correct this imbalance, to restore the ari of medicine to its former status. This is unlikely to occur without appreciation of how the current situation developed. Nor is it likely to occur until we recognise the absurdity and danger of the consequences of this imbalance. This paper offers an hypothesis to explain the manner in which the situation arose and, by means of a study of a specific disease, illustrates this absurdity and danger. Man, the Mythmaker No more than a superficial acquaintance with anthropology, ethnology , or history is required for it to become apparent that die need to indulge in fantasy is deeply ingrained in man. Indeed, it seems the most distinctive (and perhaps the most dangerous) characteristic of that species of the genus Homo we conceitedly label sapiens is not his wisdom but his reluctance to admit to ignorance. Rather than do so, he is prone to posit an hypothesis and, all too frequendy in the absence of supporting evidence, comes to believe it. Thus are myths created. Prior to the sixteendi century, the hypodiesis most frequendy invoked to explain all manner of mysterious phenomena was God. The importance man attached to this...

Quantized synchrotron radiation as a cause of γ-ray bursts

In the last several years gamma-ray bursts have continued to be a mysterious and intr iguing phenomenon. The most remarkable observational fact is that the onset of radiation is almost instantaneous (< 2.10-4 s) with a subsequent rapid decay (< 0.35). The revealed concentration of their locations in the direction of the galactic center implies that distances to them are large and should be, on the average, a few kpc; the corresponding estimates of the average-energy output from these bursts, (104~ 1041) erg, yield a value of (10 ~9-104~ erg.s -1 for the average luminosity (1). An overall analysis of the observational data suggests that the burst are produced in regions with a gravitat ional potential of (0.1--0.2)c 2 and a magnetic field 2.1012 gauss (2). How does a gamma-ray burst work? Several models have been proposed to explain the energy source of these bursts. Impact models (3) suggest that a solid body (a comet or an asteroid) falls into the surface of a neutron star providing a nearly instantaneous release of energy. Accretion models (4) speculate that either the Eddington limit or a thermonuclear explosion on the surface of a neutron star may provide the explanation. In this note we try to explore quantized magnetic bremsstrahlung radiation in intense magnetic fields from the surface layers of neutron stars as a possible burst mechanism. In intense magnetic fields, when the gyrating radius of the electron is comparable to its de Broglie wave-length, the classical description of electrons is not valid, and a quantization process similar to that for atomic electrons takes place, resulting in discrete energy levels (known as Landau levels) in the motion perpendicular to the magnetic field, but the motion is still free along the field direction. The Landau levels

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome as a Medical Research Problem since 1945

During the 1970s, sudden infant death syndrome was recognized as a major medical problem in the United States and became the focus of a federally mandated research effort. Although Congress, the National Institutes of Health, and medical researchers all played important roles in these developments, groups of parents of victims were crucial in calling attention to the social significance of sudden infant death syndrome and in demanding more research. The history of the interaction of bereaved parents, research scientists, and federal officials since 1945 illuminates how a mysterious phenomenon that had attracted little interest from researchers became transformed in the 1970s to a high-priority medical research problem.

A three-oscillator model of the human circadian system controlling the core temperature rhythm and the sleep-wake cycle

Even during “free-running” experiments, in which subjects lived in caves or cellars without any time cues, various circadian rhythms such as core body temperature and the sleep-wake cycle remained for a long time mutually synchronized in one group of subjects. In another group of subjects, or later in the same subjects, a number of unusually long sleep-wake cycles occurred while body temperature persisted in a near-24 hr rhythm. This has been termed “internal desynchronization” by Aschoff & Wever (1962) to emphasize the uncoupling of rhythms. Zulley (1980) and Czeisler et al. (1980) found that the duration of sleep depends regularly on the phase of the sleep onset in the body temperature rhythm, even in the apparently “random and irregular” sleep-wake pattern. The graph which plots, the sleep duration against the sleep onset phase is called sleep duration in this paper. We develop a quantitative, multi-oscillator model of human circadian system following Wever (1979) and Kronauer et al. (1982). Because the simplest model, which describes the state of each component oscillator by only one variable (ptlase) was adopted for each component oscillator, we can determine the intFraction between oscillators using sleep duration. It is found that a three-oscillator model can simulate several qualitative features of human circadian rhythms, such as an irregular free-running pattern and sleep duration. Moreover we find that the model reproduces the mysterious phenomenon of “forbidden wake up”, although we do not incorporate a priori any mechanism to explain it.

The Rule of the Average: Czech Official Literature in the 1970s

I approach literary creation from a perspective which treats it not as an irrational and mysterious phenomenon, the result of the extraordinary inspiration of a genius separated from other men and from ordinary life, but on the contrary as a particularly precise and coherent expression of the problems which pose themselves to ordinary men in their daily lives and of the ways in which they are led to resolve them. Lucien Goldmann, Criticism and Dogmatism in Literature

Landau Damping for Students Part II Boundary Value Problem

By setting the frequency ω in Vlasov's equation to a complex number, we have been able to remove the singularity in the integrand that has, in our own experience, caused our students so much trouble in the past. The resulting proper integrals are real, easily evaluated by elementary means, and yield correctly Landau's value for growth (and by extension, damping). The basic point in Justifying the derivation is that Landau damping for the student is no longer a mysterious phenomenon, obtained only via complex, contour integration, but an easily computed fact.

The Mystery of the Cross-Roads

FEW phenomena or situations in nature have intrigued, teased, or tantalized the mind of man more than the meeting and parting of ways. The mighty rise of a mountain might challenge his courage and athletic instincts to try the steep ascent and lead him, if frustrated, to imagine that supernatural powers hinder his upward climb or even purpose to plunge him down to his destruction. The depths of the waters would repulse the diver and bar his downward progress unless, it was imagined, access was granted by supernatural agency. The impassable, mist-shrouded marshes and fens and dark, endless forests challenged the courage of the boldest and bravest to try to defy their animaland, supposedly, demon-haunted widths and depths. Compared to such perils and terrors, easily manifest to the more or less primitive mind, the meeting and parting of roads might be thought to seem like a comforting landmark of human endeavour and reassuring advance of civilization into the mysterious realm of nature. Yet this has turned out to be very far from being the case. The meeting and parting of ways is a phenomenon that has to an amazing extent captured popular imagination, in a way that bridges the cleft between primitive superstition and modern poetic fantasy; it has left its imprint on the mind of man on various levels of development. In the recorded folklore of many lands cross-roads' are associated with the appearance and activities of various, generally uncanny creaturesghosts, witches, and demons of many kinds. They are a place where mysterious preternatural phenomena occur and magic rites of multiple sorts are performed.2 At them suicides were in former times traditionally buried. An indication of the impact this widespread fascination with cross-roads and the popular superstitions connected therewith has had even on the sophisticated modern mind are its reflections in literature, even aside from that of the popular kind. Who, having read Ibsen's Peer Gynt, can forget the Button-moulder, the re-caster of negative souls, who in the final act of the immortal play relentlessly awaits the protagonist, on each roadintersection to find out if the latter qualifies as his legitimate prey ? Scarcely less memorable to readers of Galsworthy's short story The Apple Tree is the suicide's grave at the cross-road, the sudden recognition of whose surroundings sends the ageing wayfarer Ashurst on a journey down memory lane to vividly relive a bitter-sweet romance of his youth. Readers of Heinrich Heine may recall the woebegone lyric poet's contemplation of the blue Armensiinderblume 'Poor Sinner's Flower' (Wild Chicory) at a cross-road,

Psychomotor Epilepsy: A Polydimensional Study

This valuable cross-disciplinary approach to the mysterious biological phenomenon of the psychomotor seizure activity is most welcome, especially at this time. Dr. Jovanovic has created a remarkable book that in upto-date fashion reviews the multiple aspects of this complex symptom whose origin is in the temporal lobe. Anatomically and even etiologically, the author lists psychomotor seizures as arising from areas of excitement in the temporal lobe, which he entitles the first barrier; the medical structure of the brain he calls the second barrier; the neocortical areas, the third barrier; the lower parts of the brain stem, the fourth barrier, and finally, he lists the spinal cord as the fifth barrier. He agrees that the most common psychomotor firing comes forth from the hippocampal gyrus or the hippocampus itself. For a condition so complicated and at the same time such a diagnostic challenge, the author has written a text of unquestioned

Immunologic Mechanisms in Allergic Disease

Allergic reactions must no longer be looked upon as mysterious phenomena but must be considered as part and parcel of the organism’s response to substances recognized as foreign. Consideration of clinical reactions in terms of the mechanisms involved in their reproduction allows for more rational treatment.

A Certain Morbidness: A View of American Literature.

Edward Stone here analyzes works of six major American authors and reveals this irrational fear, the dread of finding Nothing beyond the mysterious and beguiling phenomena of existence that underlies their literature. He amply demonstrates that the morbid strain in the writings of Herman Melville, Henry James, Stephen Crane, Robert Frost, William Faulkner, and J. D. Salinger has made their works comparable.